Quote:
Originally Posted by Starsky
We'll, the Seattle electorate tends to be a bit left leaning, I mean its hard to imagine a worse mayor than the last, but each one gets worse and more hostile to economic development in Seattle, which leads to less building. Its no wonder there are building almost as many highrises in Bellevue, a city about 1/8th the size, when you Seattle's bicycle clubs have more clout than it's business community.
Think about it this way, France elects a socialist PM, the newstory 2 days later is that tons of french businesses are now crossing the channel to escape the 75% tax rate. You want more skyscrapers, the provide incentives for businesses not treat them as an ATM machine for government.
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You're way off. Until last month, Bellevue had no highrises under construction, while Seattle had several. In general, Seattle has the lion's share of the region's housing construction right now, highrise an other types. Likewise Seattle has office buildings going up while Bellevue doesn't. Both are doing well drawing companies closer in, and keeping the companies they already have.
The last mayor was a good one. He was liked by many on the mid-left, and was also popular among developers. I attended a NAIOP (developers and brokers) breakfast where he spoke and got a nice applause, for example. He was a good transit advocate. He lost because he was perceived as not paying enough attention to the day-to-day stuff, with the main reason being poor response to one of our worst few days of snow in memory.
The current mayor is a buffoon. I like a lot of his ideas (his opposition to the 99 tunnel being the biggest exception) but he's too idealistic, rigid, and exclusionary to get much done. He's a one-termer. But that hasn't hurt Seattle's remarkable success (part luck) being a growth hot spot right now.