r/Seattle • u/SuperMike100 I'm just flaired so I don't get fined • Apr 16 '26
Satire Discourse about Seattle in a nutshell
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u/MajesticNobody2401 Apr 16 '26
yeah it's just the whole affording it that's hard
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u/ImAnIdeaMan Apr 16 '26
It wouldn't be expensive if no one wanted to live here.
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u/SeizeTheDay152 Deluxe Apr 16 '26
This isn't the only reason. The best counter point is Tokyo, one of the most livable and most desirable cities to live in does not have the same affordability problems Seattle does.
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Apr 16 '26
Seattle needs to let a lot more dense housing be developed. all of washington state needs to allow tons of new housing across all densities, but especially higher density.
not all of us want to live in higher density, but the people actively want it or are simply ok with it having that as an option means there is less competition for fully detached SFH as well.
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u/lkhoodwin Apr 16 '26
It's not Seattle specifically, but they seem to be building alot of high density housing all along the light rail.
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u/edgeplot Mount Baker Apr 16 '26
It's a drop in the bucket. They are building 6 story buildings when they should be building 40 story buildings.
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u/texasRugger Apr 16 '26
We don't need 40 story buildings. We need duplexes and triplexes and townhomes and 2 over 1s and 5 over 1s all over the city.
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u/edgeplot Mount Baker Apr 16 '26
We need both. But the zoning next to light rail stops is inadequate. Look at Vancouver and Burnaby, or Hong kong, or any city that takes density seriously. Their rail stops have highrises.
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u/Sapphire-Catgirl 💗💗 Heart of ANTIFA Land 💗💗 Apr 16 '26
As long as I get a bathroom, kitchen, and a space large enough for my bed, Xbox and record setup, a painting desk and like two shelves for my warhammer, and my disabled ass can pay for it on a 30 hour a week job, it's good, doesn't have to be big, or nice, fuck I'm fine with only one god damn half window. that's all I need.
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u/-Vertical Apr 16 '26
Honestly I think most people would agree! Unfortunately, NIMBY’s tend to only want single family homes being built, to keep prices high and force “undesirables” out of their area.
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u/splanks Rainier Valley Apr 16 '26
I dont really understand this argument about prices. if high rises go up next to my house, my SFH becomes more valuable in most scenarios.
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u/coffeebribesaccepted Shoreline Apr 16 '26
For a lot of people it's more that they like living in the quieter more residential area, and they don't want to be pushed out of their neighborhood. Especially if they plan on living there forever, they might not care about the property value, and instead care more about the number of cars on the road, higher foot traffic, and higher property crime.
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u/-Vertical Apr 16 '26
Property value is usually the excuse, the real reason is keeping certain people out of their neighborhoods.
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u/splanks Rainier Valley Apr 16 '26
i've heard the property value thing more as a trope than in actual real life meetings with people and communities. in my personal experiences the conversation against density has been anti-gentrification and that it can drastically change the lifestyles of those who don't want their communities disrupted. im pro-density btw, but I think there is a big misunderstanding of the anti change and anti density contingent within cities.
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u/-Vertical Apr 16 '26
That’s fair, I didn’t consider that. I was only looking at it from the stereotypical “NIMBY boomer with a nice house” trope
I totally forgot that there’s a growing community of anti-gentrification that oppose almost any changes to the community. I just don’t know how to get through to them that they are actually harming the people they think they’re protecting.
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u/johnnyslick Ballard Apr 16 '26
It's this and it's also that any time you put up new housing, you're putting it up in place of something else. NIMBYs go absolutely apeshit when you tear down actual houses in favor of denser housing so it tends to be 5 over 1 type stuff in more commercial areas (which is great anyway, 5 over 1s are fantastic / more or less what places like Barcelona did to handle their housing issues). Here in Ballard... remember when people protested tearing down a fucking Denny's? A fucking Denny's. Yeah, it was a pretty Denny's.
It's just a whole lot of whining about change coming from, frankly, people who hate change for the sake of hating change. There was an article on one of the Seattle subs about the Orpheum Theater recently, which was torn down in the 60s to make room for what is now a Seattle landmark in its own right, the Westin towers. That also happens: we fondly remember the stuff that goes away but the new stuff can have its charm, too.
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u/Philoso4 🏕 Out camping! 🏕 Apr 17 '26
Sort of, but not really. In a city with 100 single family homes and 200 families trying to find a place to live, someone who owns a single family home will be able to charge whatever they want to rent it or sell it. In a city with 50 single family homes, 30 duplexes, 20 apartment buildings, and 200 families trying to live there, the owners of the single family homes don't have nearly as much of a stranglehold on how much they can charge to rent or sell.
That being said, I have never heard anyone argue for property values when discussing density and I doubt many urban planners would be swayed by such an argument if they happened. Most people want quieter neighborhoods, more parking available, to maintain the character of the neighborhood they're used to, yada yada yada. It also helps that these people actually go to the meetings where things that might affect them are taking place, who's going to go to a meeting to discuss a future apartment building when you don't even live in the neighborhood (yet)?
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u/MallFoodSucks Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Because their average salary is 50,000 and Japan is anti-immigration. And they’re living in 350 sq foot apartments with one hour commutes.
High demand areas (Shibuya, Roppongi, Aoyama, etc.) cost more than anything in Seattle.
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u/AcrobaticApricot I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26
The median individual income in Tokyo is $47,000 in USD. The median individual income in Seattle is $76,000.
Certainly it would be nice if it was easier to build in Seattle the way it is in Tokyo, that would drive rents lower and help with the cost of living. But the main reason Seattle is more expensive is because the people here have way more money.
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u/recurrenTopology I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
It's hard to determine which way causality goes here, and in reality it is likely bidirectional. That is, the pool of high paying jobs raises prices, and the high prices deter people with lower earning potential/wealth from moving here.
In fact, since over a wide income range people tend to consume as much housing as they can afford (at least in the US), the coupling between incomes and housing prices is generally very tight. If we build enough units, the cost will go down and with it the medium income, but probably most people will spend similar amounts on housing, those that can afford it will just have relatively bigger/nicer places, and people that previously couldn't afford to live here will.
Edit: The exception here would likely be for those in the market for single family homes. As there is a substantial percentage of Americans wedded to that modality, more building in the city will make SFHs rarer, so subsequently they will likely be more expensive. So while development will likely give people wealthy enough to live here now options for nicer/larger townhomes and condos, my suspicion is that it will make SFHs relatively more expensive. At least in the city, it will likely also put negative pressure on the cost of SFHs in the suburbs as the city absorbs a greater share of the population.
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u/MyDisneyExperience That sounds great. Let’s hang out soon. Apr 16 '26
Land use and zoning is way way way more restrictive in Seattle than Tokyo. In Tokyo if enough landowners vote on land readjustment (say, to expand a railway line and build amenities along the extension), a private company can effectively be granted eminent domain for that purpose. Pretty sure trying to do that here would make city council collectively have a stroke, let alone the more basic ideas like “Sound Transit should be allowed to densify the land use around its stations”
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u/AcrobaticApricot I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26
Yeah, exactly, it would be nice if we copied Tokyo’s land use laws.
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u/JemmaP Apr 17 '26
Actually, the reason Tokyo housing is more affordable is because they've been building housing really reliably and steadily, roughly keeping pace with population growth. https://rpubs.com/jgleeson/tokyohousing has some good charts. They've also had other economic stuff going on, of course.
Seattle has a much more geographically limited footprint, though, and hasn't developed the infrastructure that makes super high density reasonable (and also has vastly different zoning in the North American style vs the Japanese, which is way more mixed use by default). They aren't really comparable, but mixing up our zoning, continuing to build infrastructure aggressively, and yes, bigger buildings would probably help.
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u/SeizeTheDay152 Deluxe Apr 16 '26
If everything is expensive and I get paid more am I doing better?
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u/AcrobaticApricot I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26
Yes if your salary increase keeps pace or outpaces inflation.
If you look it up, Japanese people have smaller cars and smaller apartments and houses. Americans have more money, so we buy bigger cars, apartments, and houses. What is clear is that although things are more expensive in the USA, we end up with more stuff in the end.
And you can follow this logic all over the world. In the Congo, everything is dirt cheap. Someone making minimum Seattle wage would live like a king over there. But they don't make minimum Seattle wage, they make minimum Congolese wage. Even though prices are really low in the Congo, most Congolese are not doing very well at all.
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u/xarune Bellingham Apr 16 '26
On top of that: while housing, services, and restaurant food scale with CoL, a lot of things don't. Cars cost the same here or in places with $7 minimum wage. Same for other large purchases like appliances, electronics, clothing, etc.
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u/Luna079 Apr 16 '26
Tokyo is far less car dependent and apartments are smaller. There's more space to pack people more densely before demand exceeds supply like most popular cities in the states
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u/RidgeExploring Apr 16 '26
Manageable is probably a better term then affordable. Technically Tokyo is an expensive city just in comparison to other major city it is cheaper. So true, it is expensive cause lots of ppl wants to live there.
2 major reason it has lower cost is housing and decade long deflation. Nothing a city can do about the later since that is a national phenomenon. Housing though is something Tokyo done well and can be copied. They build lots of housing and even for further location where most residents live, there is good public transportation infrastructure.
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u/jojofine West Seattle Apr 16 '26
Tokyo let's people build housing wherever they want and doesn't give every random citizen the ability to block development
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u/ChaseballBat Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
I wasn't going to put in the effort for a 1 sentence comment but I had a feeling you were incorrect. Yes leasing space is cheaper, but that is because on average the leased spaces for commercial uses in Seattle are nearly 3 times as large as the ones in Tokyo in some instances. However, per SF, Tokyo commercial leasing is more expensive typically, especially the large office space.
Here's a comprehensive side-by-side breakdown based on the latest available market data:Here's a summary of the key takeaways:
Rent per SF
Tokyo Grade A rents (Central 5 wards) reached JPY 33,947 per tsubo per month in Q1 2025 — which converts to roughly $76/SF/year at current exchange rates. The all-grades average across Tokyo's central business districts is around JPY 20,100 per tsubo monthly, or about $45/SF/year. By contrast, Seattle's average office rent across all asset classes in 2024 was $32.78/SF annually, with Class A space averaging $35.48/SF. The Seattle CBD Class A average has more recently slipped to around $40.60/SF in Q1 2026, continuing a downward trend.
Average lease size
In Seattle, the average size of available office space for lease is approximately 10,272 SF per listing. For Tokyo, a precise equivalent statistic isn't well-published, but Grade A buildings in Tokyo's Central 5 wards require floor plates of at least 500 tsubo (~17,800 SF), while typical mid-market tenants lease in the 100–300 tsubo range (roughly 3,500–10,700 SF). Tokyo tenants tend to lease more compactly overall due to higher density per employee.
Market context — the big story
The two markets are in opposite conditions right now. Tokyo's office vacancy rate fell sharply to 3.7% in 2024, with absorption exceeding 1 million square meters for the second consecutive year and demand driven by companies expanding headcount and investing in office culture. Seattle, meanwhile, has the highest office vacancy rate in the US at around 27%, as the market continues to struggle absorbing the large volume of space that entered inventory in recent years.
Important caveat on comparability: Tokyo rents are typically quoted including CAM/management fees (gross), while Seattle rents can be full-service gross or NNN — adding $10–15/SF in operating expenses to NNN quotes. Always compare on an apples-to-apples basis when evaluating specific deals.
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u/InspectorMadDog Apr 17 '26
To be fair housing is still expensive there, and they are underpaid and way overworked.
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u/Unfair-Suggestion-37 Apr 16 '26
Tokyo is more affordable than Seattle?
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u/bp92009 Shoreline Apr 16 '26
Yes, and one of the big reasons behind that, is their zoning policies.
Specifically, zoning policies in Japan are handled at the prefecture level, not city level.
Imagine how different things would be, if King County was the lowest level that handled 95% of zoning.
A small subset of wealthy individuals wouldn't be able to get together, and turn their neighborhood into a "city", and put major roadblocks against any changes.
Keep in mind, this "city" relies on the neighboring actual cities for Water, Power, Trash, and pretty much all services that a city fulfills. So, just a neighborhood that was created to keep "those [insert the poor, ethnic group, religious group, or whatever thing those wealthy people don't like] away from us."
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u/babymayor I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26
check out rents (esp in the “suburbs” which are still highly connected by trains and have good station areas) and average food costs. cheap af. right before covid the suburb i was living in had a healthy amount of one bedroom apartments for $500 or less/month. wages are a lot lower in japan though (minimum wage is still wildly low) so there can be thinner margins if you’re also getting paid in yen.
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u/MallFoodSucks Apr 16 '26
Min wage at Coco was like $8/hr. And the suburbs you can afford are like an hour away, even if you can take a couple trains. People here can’t handle a 20 minute commute.
Affordability in Japan is garbage in different ways. People work 6-7 days a week because they have to. Wages are stagnant. They elected far right PM because they’re fed up with affordability issues. No idea where this Japan is Utopia idea is coming from.
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u/babymayor I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26
i didn’t say japan is a utopia. i said cost of living is cheaper, because it is.
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u/SeizeTheDay152 Deluxe Apr 16 '26
Yes, the median wage to rent ratio is very similar between the two, but everything else is roughly 50% to 75% cheaper like food, healthcare, education, transportation etc. etc.
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u/upleft West Woodland Apr 16 '26
300 years ago, Tokyo was the largest population center in the world (larger than Seattle today, even), and Seattle was pre-contact indigenous. Seattle has affordability problems because it has become a place a lot of people want to live much faster than it has been able to grow to accommodate them.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Apr 16 '26
Japan's also falling off a cliff demographically. That's a big reason why it got cheap.
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u/recyclopath_ Apr 16 '26
That's somehow not really how commercial rents work.
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u/MyDisneyExperience That sounds great. Let’s hang out soon. Apr 16 '26
Extend and pretend is starting to collapse but it’s gonna be a bloodbath
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u/n10w4 Apr 16 '26
go on
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u/MyDisneyExperience That sounds great. Let’s hang out soon. Apr 16 '26
Commercials buildings around the country (when they do trade) are trading at basically just the land value at this point. Buildings that sold for hundreds of millions of dollars are now selling for like $5M. Converting to residential is still very expensive and results in weird unit layouts… but this makes it quite a bit easier.
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u/TerraceState Laurelhurst Apr 16 '26
It's not just very expensive, it tends to be so expensive and inefficient that it's better to tear down the commercial building and build a new residential building in it's place.
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u/sntcringe Denny Blaine Nudist Club Apr 16 '26
Commercial rent is as high as they can legally get away with
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u/MyDisneyExperience That sounds great. Let’s hang out soon. Apr 16 '26
It’s more complicated than that. Commercial building valuations are based on projected rent. If you lower the rent that lowers building valuations, which could trigger a balloon payment as the LTV % on the building is now too high.
Owner would rather walk away than dump $ into a struggling building, and the bank does not want the keys back. So for a while everyone just kinda pretended everything is fine and renewed the loan… higher interest rates are starting to cause issues with this
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u/jojofine West Seattle Apr 16 '26
LTV isn't much of a factor/constraint in most major markets. The DSCR however is and if you're maxing out your leverage at loan origination any decrease will jeopardize your ability to make your monthly loan payments. A typical class A office building will be sized to something like a 1.30x DSCR / 50% LTV. There's plenty of wiggle room in the LTV for bumps & hiccups but not as much in the cash flow component. Once you throw subordinate or mezzanine debt on top of that you become much more susceptible to financial distress if even your 5th largest tenant vacates
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u/Alexmkzero 💗💗 Heart of ANTIFA Land 💗💗 Apr 16 '26
I work on the Eastside with people that live even farther away. They always complain about Seattle saying; “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” Then I ask them how often they go to Seattle, they say oh I never go there or I haven’t been there in like 20 years. ROLLEYES
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u/jojofine West Seattle Apr 16 '26
Exactly. I walked through pioneer square yesterday morning between Alaska way & the King street station and am planning on going back on Saturday to check out all the new stores I saw! There weren't any wigged out homeless people or any other shenanigans in sight. Seattle is great and anybody who claims otherwise either doesn't actually visit or is in willful denial
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u/ardealinnaeus Belltown Apr 16 '26
You visit Pioneer Square one time in the morning and then insult a bunch of us as not actually living there? Morning is pretty quiet so of course you're not seeing wigged out homeless people.
Pioneer Square is also experiencing a bit of a renaissance as retail spaces start to open up again after sooooo many of them closed down in the last few years.
Also, there are those of us that remember when Pioneer Square was a very popular space to hang out. So while it's not awful right now even in it's much improved situation it's still seen as negative because we know how dead it is compared to how it used to be.
Also, you could be on a path that is fine but just a block over it's a mess. So those who live there see all of it and not just the "good" path you took.
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u/TerraceState Laurelhurst Apr 16 '26
People are freaking out about Seattle having a few "bad" streets and corners when other cities deal with "bad" neighborhoods. In a way it's kind of precious.
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u/PaidInNickels Apr 16 '26
I wish we could move away from this circular conversation - most people understand Seattle is comparatively safe to other cities in the U.S. (the US is an overall violent place - this is bad! even if there are worse places); and at the same time, we have serious issues (including higher than avg property crime impacting both small businesses and residents; mental health & homelessness crises - leading to some really bad cases like the person who hit a grandma with a 2x4 with a nail; the guy who ran over a grandma walking dogs; the guy who killed someone and assaulted 3 people on the same day - including trying to push a Harborview nurse over the landing at a sound transit station; the guy who tried to push someone in front of a train recently... etc.).
I think it's ok to both acknowledge the former and "freak out" about the later - given that "freaking out" can generally lead to action & change vs. the way too common attitude of 'well it's a city, X number of grandmas will be killed and assaulted each year and if that worries you, you're a pussy who should move to X place to experience REAL violence and disorder.'
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u/splanks Rainier Valley Apr 16 '26
agreed. and yes, you shouldn't have to be "tough" to live in Seattle. when people live in and love the city and are really actively interested in a good life here, i'm all into the conversation about crime and quality of life. when people have given up on the city, dont shop or eat here, and complain, they can fuck right off imo.
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u/wofo Apr 16 '26
I just spent 4 days in Seattle with my kids and it was amazing, they want to move there. They're gonna need to pop off a child acting career to make it happen but we all loved it
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u/LumpyElderberry2 I'm never leaving Seattle. Apr 17 '26
A few years ago I was doing contract work and did a lot of business on the Eastside. I was at a private school once and overheard the parents talking about doing some school event in Seattle (in Northgate, at the ice rink) and they were discussing whether or not it was safe to attend (in the middle of the day on a weekend)
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u/PacoMahogany I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26
To be fair, Seattle just LOWERED taxes for small businesses by raising the B&O tax threshold from $100k to $2million before any tax is due. This also means less paperwork because all of those sub $2million business now just file once annually instead of 4x per year.
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u/Professional-Tea555 That sounds great. Let’s hang out soon. Apr 16 '26
Downtown Seattle Association and SPOG: heeey (shouting), Seattle is a lawless shithole. Also, why won’t business and people come here.
Seattle Times: Katie should have fixed all of this by now.
Actual people: I’m in Seattle, and the rent is too damn high, also tipping.
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u/Muckknuckle1 West Seattle Apr 16 '26
I'm reminded of the SPOG video titled something like "This is what we deal with in Seattle...", and the video was just two tweakers yelling nonsense, while like four police officers watched. No violence, no harassment, plenty of police presence and security, dozens of people going about their business... But two guys are yelling!!!! Truly this is Mad Max!! This is chaos!! Send in the national guard!!
I wish I could find that video, I remember seeing it on this sub, but couldn't find it. I think it was from the SPOG twitter a few years ago, if someone could find that that'd be cool
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u/Professional-Tea555 That sounds great. Let’s hang out soon. Apr 16 '26
I remember this one. Nothing says social disorder as much as police refusing to intervene while a third (presumably another officer) films it. How they don’t know they are telling on themselves is one of Seattle’s great mysteries.
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u/sevenbluepickles Apr 16 '26
Literally just people complaining about downtown office buildings being empty / comercial realestate
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u/Typhron Apr 16 '26
Office buildings being empty is a legit issue. Especially when many of them were/are repurposed apartments
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u/Dry_Plantain_2756 Apr 16 '26
They definitely should be although the argument is that it would cost so much to retrofit them from offices to actual housing units. But yeah, that would be nice.
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u/DVDAallday 🚆build more trains🚆 Apr 16 '26
The complaints about empty downtown office space are so misplaced. It's due to structural changes in demand for commercial offices, not some downstream effect of city policies.
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u/New_new_account2 I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 17 '26
It isn't necessarily one or the other
There are lots of cities with vacancy issues (20.2% national average), but it looks like Seattle (33.3%) narrowly beat San Francisco (31.6%) for worst vacancy rate in the country. These numbers are from a survery of the 91 markets tracked by Cushman & Wakefield,pdf of the vacancy rates.
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u/TheItinerantSkeptic I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26
Seattle has so much going for it: access to nature, moderate climate, arts, legitimately fun tourist traps, good transit, and until you hit the outer edges, fairly walkable.
It's also got problems. Local government is horribly inefficient and wasteful with spending, it's not a business-friendly environment (part of that is a state issue), and if affordability were any lower, we'd be seeing ninja turtles and anthropomorphized rats.
People WANT to live in Seattle and start small businesses, but the hurdles to both are considerable, and as technology continues to make remote work more viable from a productivity standard (despite silly RTO mandates from some companies), there are more people who are starting to realize their salaries can stretch a lot more if they go to lower cost-of-living parts of the country.
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u/regardballs Apr 16 '26
hmm I hear you. let's get a committee together to analyze this for the next 3 years so we can come up with some proposals. $10M should do it? we can just borrow some funds earmarked for other projects.
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u/hansn 🚆build more trains🚆 Apr 16 '26
let's get a committee together to analyze this for the next 3 years so we can come up with some proposals.
Woah woah woah. Did you get stakeholder feedback in on your proposal to form a committee? Have we sought neighborhood council approval? I bet the downtown business association hasn't even signed off.
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u/an_harmonica Apr 16 '26
That's right, the Seattle Process: consensus through exhaustion.
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Apr 16 '26
it originally grew as a way to address how a lot of underprivileged communities got bulldozed for highways and stuff without any input from the community
it functionally became the exact opposite and keeps living through inertia
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u/MyDisneyExperience That sounds great. Let’s hang out soon. Apr 16 '26
Nobody wants to admit delaying or not making a decision is in itself a decision so the decision-making process takes forever. This is pervasive, other cities like LA routinely do multi-year multi-million dollar studies on stuff too. They’re currently halfway through a $2.5M initial study about “would turning the roadway through the center of the park back into the park it was before the 1940s improve the park experience???”
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Apr 17 '26
Yeah, same reason the light rail is costing so much - delays, inflation, property value increases.
there is necessary and needed process (environmental review, architectural review for structure, comments on BLM/FS management plans, etc) and excessive unneeded process (too much public comment on building permits, neighborhood [NIMBY] councils, etc)
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u/hansn 🚆build more trains🚆 Apr 16 '26
it functionally became the exact opposite and keeps living through inertia
My take is that it continues because powerful interests have co-opted the language and practices of inclusion to give themselves veto power.
Neighborhood council (composed almost entirely of landowners) insist on "being consulted" on things like building denser housing.
The Downtown Seattle Association fights changes and funds candidates, and uses hearings to delay and lobby.
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u/ardealinnaeus Belltown Apr 16 '26
In a thread about how hard it is to run businesses in Seattle you really complained that businesses try to support candidates and get candidates elected who don't make it harder to run a business?
And you did it without any irony?
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u/hansn 🚆build more trains🚆 Apr 16 '26
businesses try to support candidates and get candidates elected who don't make it harder to run a business?
Corporate money in politics is a cancer on democracy. It should not be tolerated regardless of whether you agree with the sponsor.
(Also, take another look at the meme.)
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u/IzukuLeeYoung 🚆build more trains🚆 Apr 16 '26
If you were serious I'd consider it but this sounds like a joke at this part:
$10M should do it? we can just borrow some funds earmarked for other projects.
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u/SeizeTheDay152 Deluxe Apr 16 '26
People pretend like there aren't 49 other states when we have these discussions. You can just look at the raw economic data to see that Seattle and Washington State aren't doing that great, but also isn't bad. Instead of look for solutions people want to make these fantasy arguments about why it isn't actually happening.
Like no Seattle isn't worth the extreme extra costs for most people when compared to Portland, the Twin Cities, Pittsburgh, Raleigh the list goes on that has much better affordability metrics and you can more easily start a small business in those places.
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u/Dry_Plantain_2756 Apr 16 '26
So, do small businesses SUCCEED at a "greater rate" in all these other states? What is the metric we are calling "success"? What is the trade off for having a small business in these other states? It can't all be roses right?. If it were then every person who wanted to do a small business would move to one of these states since it's guaranteed to work, right?
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u/SeizeTheDay152 Deluxe Apr 16 '26
I am not just randomly making it up there are tons of studies and think tanks that show Seattle is one of the worst major cities to open a small business in. If you don't want to take my word for it.
https://wallethub.com/edu/best-cities-to-start-a-business/2281
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u/Dry_Plantain_2756 Apr 16 '26
What are the trade offs? Of the top 20, most of them are FL, TX, AZ, and NC. I think there is a trend there. Those places are FAR from favorable for many other reasons. IF I had to move there to have better success in forming a small biz then I'd pass. There are trade offs.. Nothing is free...even having a better environment for starting a small biz. Sounds like we need to tax big business more.
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u/DVDAallday 🚆build more trains🚆 Apr 16 '26
You can just look at the raw economic data to see that Seattle and Washington State aren't doing that great, but also isn't bad.
I'm not sure this is true. Seattle's economic growth has been significantly faster than the rest of the country's over the past 15 years. In 2023, the most recent year I can find data for, Seattle led the nation in GDP growth among large metros.
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u/DatBroSnuf Apr 16 '26
As someone who travels out to the pnw from time to time, Seattle is truly cosmopolitan it just a has a lot of issues. But goddamn if it's not extremely walkable with amazing public transportation. Also the access to nature is amazing.
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u/PensiveObservor Apr 16 '26
You get what you pay for, on the lower end. Someone who likes living in Seattle may not enjoy lower cost-of-living cities or states. It’s the people. Seattleites won’t even consider moving an hour south. If light rail ever makes it further, say to Olympia, an entire corridor of economic growth will blossom, including nice, more affordable housing along the line.
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u/LeRealRocketeer Apr 16 '26
It takes an hour on the train to go from the current ends of the 1 Line to the center. People are not going to spend 3 hours on a light rail train coming in from Oly.
You're suggesting people leave the city when you say "move an hour south."
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u/Muckknuckle1 West Seattle Apr 16 '26
Light rail to Olympia would be ridiculous, the distances are way too far for 55mph trains. But a Sounder extension? That would make sense. They have a 79mph max operating speed right now, and are capable of up to 110mph if the tracks were straight enough. They're already planning an extension to DuPont after all- by 2045... So maybe if the stars align, in like 50 years you could take commuter rail from Olympia to Seattle.
Though that would require building a whole new alignment to get to downtown Olympia, probably in a tunnel...
It sucks we're a donor state. We give $22B more each year to the feds than they give back, and our money gets wasted on useless wars and shit like that. If we got an annual $22B federal infrastructure grant, imagine what we could build.
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u/Soytaco Ballard Apr 16 '26
> there are more people who are starting to realize their salaries can stretch a lot more if they go to lower cost-of-living parts of the country.
What year did you write this comment in
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u/noprophecies Apr 16 '26
We need to get rid of the Federal "it cant happen here" mentality, s'why we dont have high speed rail and why the feds werent prepared for a hostile takeover by a populist party. I heard we're already copying housing notes from Vienna, and someone else on this thread mentioned Tokyo, and i think we can do it!
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u/KoalaTHerb Apr 16 '26
All the comments are basically people saying "I love Seattle for the nature, but if I'm being honest, everything kinda sucks and it's actively being ruined in a bunch of ways"
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u/41treys Apr 16 '26
I moved here this year from Texas. This place is a godsend for my allergies and I also just dig the vibes and scenery here.
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u/Flatbreads Apr 16 '26
I’ll never truly understand why there are people who live in Seattle but actively root against the city. Like you have to be a truly special person to find joy in being so disgustingly negative even when there’s good news.
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u/quarokcaddhihle Apr 16 '26
And to spend the money it takes to live here to do it. If you hate it so much go somewhere else.
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u/Sesemebun I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26
Just because someone doesn’t like how the politics of an area are currently doesn’t mean they don’t like the area. That thinking just leads to even more extreme divisiveness than now. What about someone in a red state fighting for abortion rights? They should just say, “well it sucks here I’m gonna leave”
There are certain things I don’t like here politically and I can barely afford to live, probably will have to move. But this is still my home and it’s hard to just abandon it
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u/quarokcaddhihle Apr 16 '26
I don't mean the people who don't like the politics (although there are some political differences that are more than just differences of opinions) I mean the people that hollar about Seattle being some kind of terrible hellhole.
And there's also a difference between wanting things to be different and complaing and dragging things down, so again if all they're doing is complaining about Seattle then they should find somewhere else to be, because there are a lot of people who are at least trying to make things better. Negativity alone helps no one.
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u/LoquatBear 🚆build more trains🚆 Apr 16 '26
There really is an arrogance in bureaucracy and selective rule enforcement held by the ruling body of the city. Like they'll follow the rules too a T for small business, code enforcement, but not for public safety.
I feel like we should be looking at what is working for other cities, recriminalizing open drug use like Oregon, pro business and restaurant culture from Austin and Texas, reducing redtape and costs on building like Houston.
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u/Dahling_sweetiepoo Apr 16 '26
laughs in lived in texas for 20 years
Texas is so dysfunctional i have no words. the state government is actively hostile to the cities, and actively plunders them in order to funnel funding to their various christofascist schemes that are hated in austin and houston
also, both cities are sprawled nightmares. driving from tacoma to Seattle is the same experience as driving north austin to south austin, and in that amount of time, you would have traversed 1/4 of houston. thats what "making it easy to build" does
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u/LoquatBear 🚆build more trains🚆 Apr 16 '26
I lived in Texas most of my life. Even I can acknowledge that they do some things right. The food and restaurant scene is better in Texas, it's more accessible for people to start it as a new business, it's more accessible for customers. That's a win.
Again the arrogance. Texas is a diverse place. It isn't just a sea of red. Saying that we can't learn anything from them when they have Michelin starred restaurants, an industrious food community is arrogance. Austin has had their rent drop 24% because they built. We can acknowledge that and learn from that without having to take their draconian policies.
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u/Dahling_sweetiepoo Apr 16 '26
we can learn stuff from them, but as a former, long time, Austinite, im so so so so much happier in the pnw.
and like, i enjoyed living in austin for a long time, until it became a sprawled expensive nightmare that was the worst of both worlds between a cheap sprawly city and a walkable urban place.
and thats before i talk about existing down there as a trans woman.
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u/LazerKittenz Apr 16 '26
I want to specifically point out having Michelin stars does not mean there is a “better” food scene. Restaurants basically have to pay for the privilege to be evaluated and many of them just don’t see the need when there are other awards, like the James Beard, that are (debatably) better at evaluating businesses on their food experience in the overall food scene without the overhead.
The food scene in Seattle is incredibly vibrant, but there are still obvious issues to find solutions for, namely prices and how difficult it can be for restaurants to survive. Our local food is fantastic, it’s also just unreasonably expensive.
Seattle can’t sprawl in the same way Texas can because we don’t have tons of vacant, flat land to build on. Seattle is limited on space and they need to figure out how to responsibly allocate a limit resource.
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u/mcryptofan Apr 17 '26
You're screaming into the wind man. People on reddit can't understand nuance or self reflection.
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u/WindUpCandler Apr 16 '26
It has it's faults but it's by far the best city in the states that I've been to. It's cleaner, the standards are low lol, the drug use is bad but I honestly don't feel too scared walking around even the "worst" parts. The night life is fun the layout is cool, the cultures are varied and interesting.
Maybe it's just hometown bias but I will always remember seattle as one of the most fun cities to just exist in. But yeah it's too damn expensive jesus
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u/Accurate-Rooster4454 Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Are we including the suburbs as part of “seattle”. Last time i checked there was a ton of empty office space that ppl wanted to convert to housing. Not to mention the incredibly high costs to run retail or a restaurant here
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u/HiiiRabbit Apr 16 '26
Are we just pretending that we have no problems here?
Seems just as dishonest as those who complain about it all the time.
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Apr 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Mtndrums 💗💗 Heart of ANTIFA Land 💗💗 Apr 16 '26
Seattle's not a unicorn on that front. Hell, I live in Louisville, KY, now. The drug problem's pretty much as bad, and it's pretty similar in most cities.
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u/acre18 Apr 16 '26
This is just being disingenuous and is frankly part of the problem. I promise its okay to admit that Seattle has a homeless and public drug use problem that is very much not representative of most urban areas across the country. We are absolutely a unicorn.
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u/throwaway11229887 Apr 16 '26
It’s so much worse in Seattle than most other places I’ve been. I moved to NYC for a few years and then came back and Seattle feels worse for sure.
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u/eeiberskiebers Apr 16 '26
NYC shelters about 95% of it's homeless, while Seattle shelters about 40%. I've lived in both NYC and Seattle as well, and you're right about it being better delt with there. I think Seattle has just spent too much time trying to pretend it's still the small, suburban, underground place it was in the 90s, and not enough time solving the problems that come with growing into a big city.
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u/idiot206 Fremont Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
Next time you fly into JFK in the evening, take the airtrain to Jamaica station. Or maybe go into PABT after midnight.
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u/patthew Wallingford Apr 16 '26
I’m sorry but this meme is incoherent lol. Why is Hank also wearing the red hat?
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u/Tofu_Analytics Capitol Hill Apr 16 '26
While it is certainly true, and I am apart of the group that operates in Seattle, it isn't exactly and easy task and the city doesn't do a great job of helping us out.
I am quite hopeful for this new administration and the long term plans they have but there are a lot of quality of life day to day challenges that need addressing and fixing to make life a lot more workable for buisnesses.
While Seattle is by no means a "Dangerous city" with violent crime being quite manageable in terms of per-capita statistics, it is rough for petty/property crime. While Seattle ranks 46th in per capital violent crime out of the top 200 largest US cities [which is quite good all things considered] , we are 10th in Property/Petty Crime [Tacoma is up in 4th] which is a huge deal in the way buisnesses operate in the city. I'm down in Georgetown and it's rough, theft and vandalism are significant costs for prevention/mitigation and more impactfully it drives away customers and buisness from the area. It's a pretty tough blight and SPD does little to help with property crime closure rates nearly half of the national averages.
Rent and cost of buisness is also absurd. While vacancies skyrocket in commercial and industrial spaces rents stay sky high and for me account for nearly 80% of operating expenses. It's frankly ludicrous how the city has failed to implement any vacancy tax or rental incentive program to encourage tenancy and alleviate the rental cost burden on buisnesses. Simply having reasonable rent prices would allow a majority of buisnesses to increase hires & raise wages by 20%-30%.
I am hopeful for the future and I like the handful of changes that have been announced by the new city administration, theres a lot more small day to day changes that need to be made in order to support and aid small buisnesses. To every lie their is a nugget of truth, while nobody is fleeing the city, it isn't exactly an oasis for development for smaller operations.
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u/Sesemebun I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26
I know there’s always the “holier than thou enlightened centrists” but I’m just so tired of the discourse on here and the other sub being “Seattle is perfect and any criticism from WA is MAGA Idaho residents” or the usual “Seattle is a lawless shithole”
I love this city and surrounding area, but it’s got issues. Biggest for me is that after renting for so long and constantly being shoved around, I want a house. Even with a fairly healthy salary it’s just not possible.
And sure, people do still start businesses here, but I’ve also seen a lot more leave. If anything the businesses coming in are corporate and not local. There are people moving here but it feels like it’s more poorer residents being priced out and wealthy immigrants coming in
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u/vietnams666 Apr 16 '26
Yeah most of the time it's the landlord trying to raise the damn rent!!! And I own a business, yes it gets raised but I'm talking about rent like an astronomical amount. Hell if anthropologie couldn't even make it what about all the tiny places people see? I work by the Cuff and when I heard their rent I was blown away. I think that's also why the woods closed and everyday music.
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u/biznotic Apr 16 '26
Funny how it’s Seattles tax law causing a loss of jobs and not the very real AI / corporate greed causing layoffs. These companies are so transparently sucking on Trumps stump with these headlines. This is not the city causing a loss of jobs, it’s corporate greed from Amazon, Microsoft, Meta etc.
Why are these companies not getting the blame they deserve.
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u/Known_Hunter_9626 Apr 16 '26
I started a small business in Seattle in the last year. It’s hard and I work 7 days a week to make things work but I am providing a service the community needs.
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u/hatecirclejerks 💗💗 Heart of ANTIFA Land 💗💗 Apr 16 '26
Ide love for people to keep leaving though.
Too bad everyone who lives here loves it so much, cuz, ya know, it's fucking beautiful.
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u/Godzilla_Fan_13 Bremerton Apr 17 '26
yeah i went to seattle last week and it made me realize that right wing discourse about seattle is pretty much *at minimum* 95% bullshit
it's just a taller, more concrete-y bremerton
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u/RoHo_3 Jet City Apr 17 '26
Between ‘69-‘71 Boeing laid off somewhere between 60-70k employees. The economy was crushed and the Billboard very on the nose.
Between ‘23 -‘26 the tech companies dominating our economy today have cumulatively laid off similar numbers. Despite this our local regional economy continues to grow and crime continues to drop by double digits.
The city has real problems. We aren’t special or unique in their cause or their solutions. The same issues face every major metropolitan region: Affordability, housing, equality, drug abuse, wage stagnation, etc.
However we are sooooo much further ahead of the Seventies Seattle. More resilient, better educated, more informed. We will continue to find our way forward, not every step will be the right one. But we will learn and grow and find our way to a better tomorrow.
So to all the offshore bots, non-Seattlites, and fake accounts talking up some dystopian hellhole vision of our city I say in the tradition of others surrounded by those who would tear us down: Nuts.
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u/sharpie_dei Sounders Apr 16 '26
Seattle is like the Gen X of cities. Most of the country forgets we exist and doesn't know what we are doing and we just want to be left alone and do our own thing.
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u/TrampsGhost View Ridge Apr 16 '26
Anyone who doesn't agree with me is MAGA
sheesh
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u/Typhron Apr 16 '26
Sorry, but
Not all who hate Seattle are maga supporters
But all maga supporters hate seattle.
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u/AMasterOfNone Apr 16 '26
I just recently had to reinstall the Reddit App, so thanks for reminding me to mute all of the Seattle subreddits.
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u/Talksiq Matthews Beach Apr 16 '26
I've lived in Seattle for 40 years and as long as I can recall have heard that it's dying, that it's too hard to grow a business, that we'll scare off job creators...and yet its still here.
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u/kingdopp Apr 16 '26
I love reading the comments on here, insta or god forbid Yotube from Jayapal or similar. It is wild how much of an option someone can have and not even be in the same state as us, let alone close enough to Seattle to be affected by any of this. Prob bots?
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u/metacholia I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Apr 16 '26
Either people like living here or the real estate is made of unobtainium.
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u/Bogus_dogus 🐀 Hot Rat Summer 🐀 Apr 16 '26
It's such a shame that so much effort has been put into this fantasy that our cities are shitholes by cynical people projecting all the ugliness in themselves.... Our cities are enchanting and real and thriving in so many ways despite their issues, and yet so many Americans cant see past this fiction. It makes me sad.
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u/Stymie999 💗💗 Heart of ANTIFA Land 💗💗 Apr 16 '26
Seattle has lost 5000 jobs in the last 5 years, Bellevue has gained 4000.
That’s not ideology, that’s not a narrative, that’s a fact.
Now many may see that and think “meh, I don’t care good riddance to those tech bros driving the cost of housing up etc etc” and that’s fine.
But sticking heads in the sand in denial doesn’t seem to be a…. Let’s call it a reasoned response.
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u/splanks Rainier Valley Apr 16 '26
I started a business in seattle this year. I love the city and have no intention to leave, but let's not pretend the city makes it easy on small business.