Liberal Talk Radio

A task force weighs in with recommendations for the aging complex. The center needs the help. Specific areas of concern are Mercer Arena and Memorial Stadium. The stadium needs to go. The task force suggests potentially replacing it with an outdoor amphitheater. That makes sense. And, seeing as how [...]

A letter I just sent to the editor:
Knute Berger offers a rather fatalistic view of the future of our city. He claims that if we accept increased urban density, “our residential neighborhoods will lose more of their yards and open spaces to bigger or taller houses and condo complexes; families will continue to look [...]

The state legislature is done dilly-dallying with the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project. they want a plan in place by April 1, or they go ahead with the cheaper re-build (abandoning Seattle Mayor Nickels’ more expensive tunnel proposal).
I’m of a mixed mind on this. I think simply rebuilding the Viaduct would be a [...]

As the Sonics fight for more of tax money, Josh Feit reminds us why the deal’s such a stinker. We’re going to pay for $200M in remodels, double the square footage, and somehow only gain 425 seats. Jeebus, that sounds like a waste of taxpayer money. There will be some expanded luxury [...]

Rick Anderson’sarticle in this week’s Seattle Weekly is as uninformative as it is grumpy. After reading it, I get the sense that Mr. Anderson is grumpy about the cost of rail and that he fully expects it to overrun its costs again. But beyond that, not much. What a terribly-written article.
Apparently [...]

The invaluable Cascadia Scorecard has a great post up on the myth of unaffordable urban housing. Turns out, when you factor in the cost of owning 2.1 cars (the average for suburbanites) versus 1.2 cars (the average for cityfolk), it’s not so expensive to live in the city after all. It’s nontrivial. [...]

I’m trying to start the new year off right here at Casa de Bruno, cleaning voraciously. As I was getting ready to recycle the last 3 weeks of the New York Times, I came across this article (link goes to a free archived version) on life in the growing Dallas exurbs.
The article’s [...]

Thanks to the Contrarian for pumping out so many kilobytes on the transit strike. One thing that occurred to me the other day is what role, if any, labor has in working towards changing the stalemate over pensions and health care and other benefits.
It’s clear that the current system is deeply flawed. [...]

In NYC for the holidays, and I can’t bring myself to find much sympathy for the transit workers. The city’s pretty bolloxed up right now, and it couldn’t be a worse time. The weather’s cold, and people are trying to trickle down and spend money in these last few days before the holidays. [...]

Every once in a while, group conversations with my 20- and 30-something urban tribe of friends will turn to this fashionable idea that people are leaving the suburbs and flocking back to the cities. Since most of us have lived in cities our whole adult lives, watching condos sprout like weeds, it seems like [...]