Kinja reply list

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MarkEbnerCML
8/18/15 12:17pm
“A year ago, per-capita rents for 4-bedroom houses in those neighborhoods ran as little as $500 a month. Now, it is impossible to find anything for less than $800 a month. The rent has skyrocketed, because of Amazon.” The fuh? Stop crying. Now.
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  Oatmeal Cookie MonsterMarkEbner
  8/18/15 12:31pm
  Rent for a 4 bedroom house is over $3000/month in LA.
  
  I do not feel sorry for this fellow.
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  LimaBeansMarkEbner
  8/18/15 12:36pm
  Yeah, I read this part a dozen times. Horrific that a four bedroom house costs $800. Truly staggering. It's not like people in major American cities are renting $2700 one bedrooms or anything. Not at all.
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J.CML
8/18/15 11:59am
“The more people in the new Seattle are defined by their jobs, the less they talk about them. Seattleites used to take great interest in what they did, and have time to pursue outside curiosities. Both are less true now, thanks to the “convenience” of software.”

The worst passage in this article. You might be the only one who thinks people talking about their jobs is a good thing. If you love that so much, move to D.C. The Capital city of people who only talk about their jobs.
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  GuyIncognitoJ.
  8/18/15 12:18pm
  No. This is the worst passage: “To see these figures is to know now is not the new normal.”
  
  Very poorly worded and difficult to parse.
  
  I also hate the “not unsuccessful” line. So... you’re saying they were successful? Why have double negatives become acceptable in internet ‘journalism’?
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  ARP2J.
  8/18/15 12:38pm
  Truth. Shaw resident.
  
  Funny you should mention DC. Seattle and DC are going through the same sort of gentrification. They’re skipping the typical process.
  
  1. Artists, musicians and original residents. Bodegas.
  2. Post undergrads and dillettants who want so seem artsy. Hipster coffee, beer/whisky bars, taco places.
  3. Young professional (bro’s and bores). Starbucks and chains move in.
  4. Cougars and whatever the male equivalent is. Boring Italian places
  5. Conservative White People who complain about everything. Stuffy American food.
  
  Seattle and DC are going from 1 to 3 or 4 right away.
  
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Sean BrodyCML
8/18/15 11:58am
Sorry if this is off topic, but it’s been interesting to see the middle class freak out about the NY times Amazon workplace piece that focused on office workers, like the Mac McClelland piece never happened. Wait, Amazon is a shitty place to work? Emails at midnight????

Typical reaction here

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/commentisfree/2015/aug/17/why-i-am-finally-going-to-boycott-amazon

Doesn’t even mention the fulfillment workers.
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  EldritchSean Brody
  8/18/15 12:06pm
  The Amazon story is just basically a sneak peek to how most work places will be run in a few years. Your job doesn’t give a shit about you or your life, they want you hunched over your workstation for eighty hours a week and glued to your phone in your sleep. They’ll pay you a pittance for the honor and then toss you out and replace you with a younger, even more desperate cog that will allow even more abuse as long as it means a paycheck to stave off the massive crushing debt they accrued just to get that soul crushing bullshit job.
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  owen-magneticSean Brody
  8/18/15 12:06pm
  no, it’s related. nobody cares about the warehouse workers; but the minute high-achieving white people get a bout of ennui, it’s time to put out an expose.
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ghostandgoblinCML
8/18/15 1:10pm
I think that places like St. Louis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Baltimore, or Memphis would love to have Amazon do to their cities what it is doing to Seattle. What would Seattle be today without a prosperous company that is paying tens of thousands of people high salaries?

This is the point that anyone who writes crud like this does not get. A city either evolves or it dies. Those bohemian neighborhoods you love so much contain real issues within, issues that become exacerbated if something doesn’t change. We saw the nadir of this in 1970s and 1980s New York City, which was a broke, debt-ridden cesspool of violence and suffering. Yes it had dirt and grit that people who didn’t live through it found sexy, but I have not talked to anyone who thought it was a better place than what it became.
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  amgarreghostandgoblin
  8/18/15 1:55pm
  It’s not either/or. You can embrace growth, and still grow in a controlled way, not like a cancer.
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  ghostandgoblinamgarre
  8/18/15 2:01pm
  To a point, because people are autonomous. The Seattle city council is not Amazon’s boss. Amazon will do what Amazon wants to do. If Amazon wants to expand and is willing to buy office space than developers will lease it to them, and other developers will see that and build more office space. Then the people Amazon hires to work in that office space will make their own decisions about what they want to do with that money.
  
  I suppose the Seattle city council can zone like crazy and pass strict rules inhibiting the growth of Amazon but in the end all that will do is send Amazon somewhere else along with their employees. No city is going to reasonably pass up the chance to get those people paying taxes to them. Well, maybe Paris but Paris is the exception that proves the rule.
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pnw-hikerCML
8/18/15 11:59am
I live in Seattle too and this isn’t really a big deal. This is a just the typical cyclical growth of cities. The city isn’t somehow ruined by having successful companies move here. I work in SLU (not at Amazon), and the commute isn’t that big of a deal. I’m home in 15-20 minutes most days. Yes, there are things to improve upon, but what city doesn’t have those. The housing market is the biggest worry, especially as a millennial, but I’m working hard to save money and will be able to afford a house in the next year or so.
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  IkerCatsillaspnw-hiker
  8/18/15 12:01pm
  “but I’m working hard to save money and will be able to afford a house in the next year or so.”
  
  Ah, the big lie rears its head — that everyone can succeed in this market if they work hard enough.
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  pnw-hikerIkerCatsillas
  8/18/15 12:08pm
  If you think that’s what I’m implying, take your fight elsewhere. I recognize my privilege as a white male. But I also came from an impoverished divorced family with an alcoholic, drug addicted mother and a father with a permanent disability. I paid for college using grants, grade-based scholarships, and working nearly full time throughout school and I still had to live on food stamps during that time. I understand what it means to be extremely poor. And I understand that shit happens where no amount of hard work will help you. All I meant is that I’m currently saving money as much as possible to afford a house, which yes, is hard work.
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Spaceball-Two - Sidewalk to the Danger ZoneCML
8/18/15 12:01pm
The author is 27 years old. What the fuck ever. You don't remember shit about how Seattle used to be.
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  Peggy Noonan's Toolbox Full Of DildosSpaceball-Two - Sidewalk to the Danger Zone
  8/18/15 12:06pm
  This. For fuck’s sake, you were 4 when Nevermind came out. Leave the nostalgia to someone old enough to know their dick from a garden snake, kid.
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  BurnerTacoSpaceball-Two - Sidewalk to the Danger Zone
  8/18/15 12:25pm
  It’s ok. He has a Sonics t-shirt.
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The Noble RenardCML
8/18/15 11:59am
Hey editor, may want to fix this sentence-beginner: “Libertarians teach us illiteracy makes clichés think themselves unprecedented”
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  Hip Brooklyn StereotypeThe Noble Renard
  8/18/15 12:01pm
  That has just got to be a Lewis Carroll quote of some kind.
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  FauxhemianRhapshodyThe Noble Renard
  8/18/15 12:06pm
  No need. Author took Lit Hum at Columbia.
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EldritchCML
8/18/15 12:00pm
Man, everywhere is dying. Seattle isn’t special or alone in that. Our big cities are becoming as authentic as Epcot.
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  The Gray AdderEldritch
  8/18/15 12:16pm
  Define “authentic.”
  
  Things change; that’s the way of the world. I’m entertaining the thought of moving back to Louisville. God only knows why; I haven’t lived there for any length of time in over 30 years. I don’t know anybody there other than family. I’m bound to get there and find out it’s not the same city I left in the early 80s. But what I cannot define is what “authentic” Louisville is. Is it the perpetual construction site that was the Watterson Expressway of the 70s and 80s? Or the shopping malls in the East End, remodeled ever more upscale over the years to the point of non-recognition? Churchill Downs is still there. So is Louisville Slugger. So is Freedom Hall, although the University of Louisville now has their own arena in which to play basketball.* Maybe it was the addition of the KFC Yum! Center that caused the place to jump the shark. Who knows. I’ll find out when I get there.
  
  Edit: KFC Yum! Center is owned by the City of Louisville. Papa John’s Stadium, where U of L plays football, is owned by the university.
  
  And while we’re talking about non-authenticity, there’s Papa John’s.
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  misanthrope360Eldritch
  8/18/15 12:41pm
  What do you even mean by “authentic?” Cheap carne asada tacos? Because those were still everywhere last time I was in L.A.
  
  Or... perhaps what you really mean is “Has neighborhoods where middle class white kids can safely bum around for cheap for a few years before getting a real job.” Sorry, kid, that dream died with the Baby Boomers.
  
  Seriously, the real “bohemian” life means having to burn your paintings to stay warm.
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toothpetardCML
8/18/15 12:21pm
Just rented in wallymont. Pricey as $#(%*& but we’re committed to outliving the amazon ‘boom’. Maybe the earthquake will help.
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  thisismy31stburnertoothpetard
  8/18/15 1:01pm
  I’m in Wallymont! Just moved earlier this year because my previous Wallymont place had the rent raised $500/month. Not sure how much longer I can live in this neighborhood....
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  toothpetardthisismy31stburner
  8/18/15 1:13pm
  Me too, waking up at night wondering how long we can hold on... Once the core of grooviness gets wiped out it’ll be easier to go. Or after my son finishes school...
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kaysey17CML
8/18/15 2:31pm
“A year ago, per-capita rents for 4-bedroom houses in those neighborhoods ran as little as $500 a month. Now, it is impossible to find anything for less than $800 a month.”

When was this written? You haven’t been able to find ANYTHING in Fremont / Wallingfor for less than $1000 in YEARS! My 550 sq. ft apartment in North Seattle costs $1035 rent + H20! And that’s on the lower end of the spectrum.
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  JessicaFletcherkaysey17
  8/18/15 2:41pm
  $800 per person for a four bedroom = $3200.
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  kaysey17JessicaFletcher
  8/18/15 3:00pm
  It says nothing about “per-person”. I take it to mean the whole house rents for $800.
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