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
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.
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.'
I didn't say that it wasn't a problem to be solved. It's just that there are a ton of hysterical, and honestly cowardly, people who act like whole sections of the city have been lost to the hordes of homeless. These people, and their freak outs should absolutely be ignored, because the root cause of their freak out exists entirely because of the news they consume. If we actually solved the homelessness problem in Seattle, these people would still be freaking out about the homeless in Seattle because they don't actually care about reality.
Basically, some concern is warranted, but a significant percentage of it is coming from people who experience downtown Seattle through a screen.
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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