Liberal Talk Radio

Nice account of how hizzoner has been steamrolling the seven dwarfs: “The mayor is ignoring (a) cherished principle of our democracy: the separation of powers. No executive, whether they are President George W. Bush or Mayor Nickels, can ignore legislative authority, particularly when it comes to the administration of something as fundamental as equal justice [...]

While I’m sympathetic to this idea in theory, I think the idea of having residential apartments on top a Stadium — or anywhere inside Seattle Center for that matter — is a bad idea. How long before the tenants decide that Bumbershoot is a noise issue and try to shut it down?

The Rainier Cold Storage building, a landmark in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood, is set to be demolished. The building is a striking fixture of the neighborhood. Georgetown simply won’t be Georgetown without it. But before we start blaming the developer and clamoring for the torches and pitchforks, let’s first read a bit about the fascinating way [...]

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg almost makes the urban gentrification pro-immigration argument* but doesn’t quite articulate it: Mayor Bloomberg is taking on presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and others who’ve said the federal government should slash funding for cities that don’t strictly enforce immigration laws. “Boy, let them come,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday when asked [...]

This month’s Wired has a great piece on a smart city for 500,000 people (that’s about the size of Seattle proper) being built from scratch: Arup believes good design can do something about this mess. Dongtan’s master plan — hundreds of pages of maps, schematics, and data — has almost nothing to say about architectural [...]

So I’m working from home this morning, trying to get work done, but a late-model Lexus sedan parked just outside my apartment is screaming every five minutes, dutifully letting me know that it thinks it’s being stolen. Do I even need to tell you that I can look out my window and clearly see that [...]

Isn’t it a law or something that developers have to provide pedestrian rights-of-way during construction? Walking up through downtown Seattle, I had to switch to the opposite side of the street several times because of signs like this. These are the downsides of our Mayor’s nefarious pro-growth agenda. I think I can live with it.

If you paid a million bucks for a snazzy new downtown condo, you’d be worried if it was built like a cheap Mexican hotel, right? Me too: O’Leary, who never moved into his condo, says some of the problems include irreparably damaged door and window frames; a poured concrete deck that sloped toward his apartment, [...]

Courtesy of the P-I’s Bill Virgin, we learn that Vancouver is quickly becoming Canada’s answer to Miami Beach, rather than a Canuck San Francisco. Virgin (does he really still look like that headshot?) points us to Vancouver magazine’s recent article on Seattle. Boddy declares that Seattle’s bastion of new-economy corporate HQs gives it a business [...]

There’s something that really creeps me out about workforce housing. The term, still only vaguely defined, is an attempt to solve the problem whereby civil servants and other wage earners — teachers, police, janitors — are priced out of the communities in which they serve. In Seattle, we’re slowly becoming aware of the problem. But [...]