
Seattle once again nation’s fastest-growing big city; population exceeds 700,000 - jseliger
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-once-again-nations-fastest-growing-big-city-population-exceeds-700000/
======
jseliger
In good news, Seattle is building mass transit
([http://soundtransit3.org/](http://soundtransit3.org/)) and building housing
much faster than California.

In bad news, much of the city is still zoned for single-family housing and it
ought to be doing much more to increase the supply of housing
([https://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-
fut...](https://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-future-in-
seattle-do-millennials-have-a-future-in-any-superstar-cities/)). And while
Seattle _is_ building mass transit, it's doing so at a glacial pace. "Later"
is better than "never," but the slowness and expense of construction is
striking ([https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2017/5/24/15681560/g...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2017/5/24/15681560/gao-report-transit-construction-costs)).

~~~
xyzzyz
_In good news, Seattle is building mass transit
([http://soundtransit3.org/](http://soundtransit3.org/)) _

Yes! I'm really excited for having light rail 10 minutes from where I live!
And, as long as there's no delay, it's coming as soon as year 2035! Just in
time when Year 2038 Problem will create huge employment opportunities for us
old farts!

~~~
ComradeTaco
If the political willpower existed for building metros at Chinese speeds in
North America then I would volunteer first to be the person swapping out the
drill heads.

Unfortunately infrastructure is a slow moving game and we have to settle for
less on this continent.

~~~
majormajor
I'm gonna enjoy chilling in a self-driving car while other people stand in a
crowded train in 20 years. ;)

~~~
xyzzyz
You mean, enjoy sitting in never-ending traffic jam while people in a crowded
train pass you by?

~~~
taobility
no, he should continue to work in self-driving car, otherwise, what's the
point of self-driving :)

~~~
otp124
Ideally, if OP doesn’t spend a load of $$$ on a self-driving car, OP wouldn’t
have to work more (to pay it off) and could retire sooner. But this world
seems to be rather spendthrifty than thrifty.

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FlyingSideKick
I’ve lived in Seattle for 30 years and have founded three companies here. Due
to the expense of labor and housing, politics, bad traffic and the loss of the
city’s sense of community I will be moving my business to Bellingham in the
next year.

The bad parts of Amazon work culture have permeated almost every company here.
It used to be very common in tech companies for people to leave the office at
3:00pm to go hiking after work in the summer or come in late after skiing
powder in the morning. Now so many are working 60 hour weeks they don’t have
the time to really enjoy the outside or engaging in making our city better. In
short, Seattle residents are in general much less friendly and more stressed
than ten years ago.

Since my company builds outdoor products, our employees are happy to move to a
new town with access to fanastic mountain biking, skiing and hiking with
little traffic and somewhat more affordable home prices. It’s too bad Seattle
grew without plans in place to help preserve its livability and attractiveness
to small businesses.

~~~
mikestew
Bellingham? Take me with you. :-) Yeah, I don’t know why everyone tries to
cram into this one small geographical area. I always figured back in the day
that new startups would center around the Eastside, what with a boatload of
ex- Microsofties to hire. Nope, drive across the lake to Pioneer Square or
SLU, bitches. It’s even worse now that Amazon showed up. Instead of someplace
like Bellingham, let’s see if we can cram _one_ more startup into Pioneer
Square.

 _It’s too bad Seattle grew without plans in place to help preserve its
livability and attractiveness to small businesses._

From transit to housing, I don’t think I’ve lived in a place so much in denial
about future growth. The fact that light rail is just now getting built is a
prime example of this.

------
aaron-lebo
Because of the way some cities annex everything around them and others don't,
it makes for arbitrary numbers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas)

This is a better/different metric. It places Seattle's metropolitan area much
lower in growth from 2010 to 2016.

~~~
mbrubeck
The Seattle metro area is 15th in _size_ on that chart; it's much lower than
(44th) that if you sort by growth rate.

By absolute growth (which isn't in the chart, so I had to copy the data into a
spreadsheet) it is 9th:

    
    
           METRO                     POP. GROWTH 2010–16
           -----                                  ------
         1 Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land       852054
         2 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington            807109
         3 New York-Newark-Jersey City            586224
         4 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell          502972
         5 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach  501752
         6 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria        495745
         7 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim         481610
         8 Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale                468650
         9 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue                359093
        10 San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward          343775

------
leggomylibro
You know, it's nice to be someone benefiting from all the growth and stuff in
that I guess I can complain in comfort, but...

I fucking hate it here. The wealth disparity is palpable, and people
understandably resent it. Nobody treats you like a human being if you're in
tech. They treat you like a wallet; how do you think it feels to never be
smiled at or even acknowledged unless you're about to pay for something? Ever
been a pariah? It's awful, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

At least you'll make enough money in a few years - not having any people-y
things to spend it on - to move somewhere else and really try to contribute to
something. Seattle _resents_ contribution.

If you're reading this and considering a move out here, I swear I'm not doing
some kind of NIMBY thing, this is straight from the slowly-but-surely-broken
heart - please, spend a week or two here first and think very hard before
making the decision.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
_Nobody treats you like a human being if you 're in tech. They treat you like
a wallet_

Weird, I never have this experience. Where do you live? Where do you hang out?

Also, I can tell you from personal experience that people will treat you like
a hero[1] if you tell them that you work on OneBusAway, so please help out on
one of these all-volunteer projects:

iOS: [https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-
iphone](https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-iphone)

Android: [https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-
android](https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-android)

[1] Unless they're Route 8 commuters.

~~~
pinewurst
Another big thanks for OneBusAway! I'm in tech though, so that may not count.

------
unionjack22
Seattle needs to aggressively address the ridiculous single-family zoning
issues before we end up like the Bay Area. The city's only real advantage over
San Fran/Palo Alto is it's relative affordability for tech workers and the
talent pool that AMZN pulls. Beyond that, Seattle has neither the VC money or
the number of start-ups and aggressively growing companies to compete with the
Bay Area. If we lose that comparative affordability then the talent and
businesses will start moving to lower-cost of living cities like
Denver/Boulder, Salt Lake City, and Atlanta. It's going to very interesting to
see what happens when AMZN selects it's second HQ. Word is it's now between
Atlanta and Denver.

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rurban
That's less than the annual growth of Houston or the Dallas megaplex.
(>800.000) They are a couple of times bigger and also grow much faster.

