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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   28498 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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This was wonderfully written. This is what people must feel like when they meet Bill Clinton and feel "heard". I live in Seattle. You saw exactly what I see, and feel exactly the same way about it. Our city sucks in a lot of very real ways.

That said, you did manage to hit up all the notoriously bad places such as 3rd and Pine and the downtown Target. Most of the city is nowhere near as shitty. You also got pretty unlucky. I've never had anyone try to grab me, and I've yet to see any fully naked junkies.

And, yeah, Portland is worse: https://old.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/1auwcev/i_visited_seattle_last_night_from_portland_wow/

I would say that you did manage to hit up all the notoriously bad places such as 3rd and Pine and the downtown Target.

For sure, I definitely heard this when I told the story that afternoon haha. But I think the crazy thing, and what separates Seattle in some ways from Boston or NYC or Miami or even parts of LA (since they started trying to clean up venice beach, for example), is that this is the core of the business and tourism area of the city. The McDonald’s is like a block from the flagship Nordstrom. The Target is pretty much at Pike Place Market, which is around the corner from the art museum and the concert hall and next to the aquarium. In between and around the above are essentially all the major hotels as far as I could tell. Encountering these people is essentially unavoidable in the downtown zone unless you take a car door-to-door.

This was wonderfully written.

Thank you! I actually had a whole other section about the evening, seeing all these bars and restaurants that literally close at 8pm (I guess maybe it’s too dangerous after), restaurant windows with like one or two patrons in them and twenty food delivery guys waiting for orders because people don’t want to go outside (not to imply that that’s just because of the homeless). But it was just more of the same situation, which you of course know much more about. I now have a morbid curiosity about Portland.

Solve for the equilibrium. When McDonald's has to pay staff $20/hour, the solution is to only be open for the lunch/dinner rush.

I'll second the request for finishing up the section about the evening, if you get a chance. As a frog being slowly boiled, it's nice to get an outside perspective.

seeing all these bars and restaurants that literally close at 8pm (I guess maybe it’s too dangerous after),

You've hit upon another aspect of our city. Almost all the restaurants here close super early (usually 9pm, but if you come in after 8:30 they'll give you a hard time or turn you away). I've literally never visited another city where restaurants close so early.

We're just an early town in general, perhaps due to being on the West Coast.

I think the restaurants close early because they don't have staff. Seattle might have the highest labor costs of any major city in the United States. Median household income is $115,000/year. Housing is expensive as hell, and there's no good public transit to bring cheap workers in from the outskirts. Finally, we don't have the same flood of illegals which keep NYC and Cali prices down. Combine all that and you get McJobs paying $27/hr to start as you noticed.

You've hit upon another aspect of our city. Almost all the restaurants here close super early (usually 9pm, but if you come in after 8:30 they'll give you a hard time or turn you away). I've literally never visited another city where restaurants close so early.

You should visit Germany, then. I remember going outside in Leipzig at 8pm and the town looked like they were expecting a RAF bombing raid.

I worked for a bit in Germany almost 20 years ago. Coming from Finland, it was a shock when most stores closed at 18 and if I wanted to buy groceries, I had to go to the special ones that were open late - meaning all the way until 19.

I've heard that Dresden the city just shuts down on a Sunday to the point where you can't get a coffee at noon.

The worst thing in Germany for this is Christmas. If Christmas Day falls on a Monday (or is it Tuesday, one of those days is the worst) then stores are shut for like 4 days and you have to go to a gas station if you forgot anything.

there's no good public transit to bring cheap workers in from the outskirts

Just reading the post, it seems like a chicken and egg problem. Everyone travels by car (forget the walkable, bikeable city) because it's too risky to go around on foot, so there's no public transport provision. Since there's no good public transport, everyone has to travel by car (because it's too risky to go around on foot). Since everyone travels by car... and so on.

I would be keen to read that if you still have the draft.

The ridiculously early closing hours are peculiar to the West Coast. It's been this way as long as I can remember, I don't think it's due to crime. As a night owl I really do hate it though.

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