Why Americans Are Leaving Downtowns in Droves

T. A. Gardner said:
Here in Phoenix, downtown is a veritable ghost town after about 7 pm. There is nothing to do or see there. Even most of the restaurants close by then. Who would want to live there?
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Seattle and Portland are too dangerous to go downtown day or night anymore. Businesses are boarded up and many are burned out. It looks like a war zone.
 
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Much of Seattle’s core looks like a pockmarked ghost town. Storefronts on both sides of Third Avenue, a major thoroughfare, are boarded up. Blocks from the Four Seasons hotel and the Fairmont Hotel, tents crowd the sidewalks, and drug users sit under awnings holding pieces of foil over lighter flames. Traffic enforcement is minimal to nonexistent. In mid-March, Amazon announced that it was abandoning a 312,000-square-foot office space in downtown, citing concerns over crime.

That such woes should afflict one of the richest cities in the country—Seattle has a median household income of over $100,000—cannot be blamed on economic decline. The year 2020 saw a 68% spike in homicides, the highest number in 26 years, and the year 2021 saw a 40% surge in 911 calls for shots fired and a 100% surge in drive-by shootings. Petty crime plagues every neighborhood of the city, and downtown businesses have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund their own security.

What happened to Seattle? The answer, of course, depends on your politics.

In the news section of the Seattle Times, for instance, a reader is unlikely to see any consideration of a link between policing and public safety. “No single cause for 2021’s surge in gunfire in Seattle,” declared a typical recent headline over an article that points only to possibilities such as the pandemic or an unlucky cycle of “retaliatory violence.” But the majority view in Seattle appears to have shifted away from sympathy to ideas like “defund the police” and toward a recognition that hostility to law enforcement has been a major factor in the deterioration of the city.

What follows is a cop’s-eye view of Seattle’s undoing.
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https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/a-cops-eye-view-of-seattles-undoing?s=r
 
Legion said:
So you say.
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Dutch Uncle said:
Another of your fantasies, Sybil? Please post some pictures.
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Sybil doesn't live in Seattle and can give you no pictures. Sybil lives in your head. If you want pictures of Seattle or Portland today, I suggest you Google them or better yet come here and see for yourself.
 
Into the Night said:
Sybil doesn't live in Seattle and can give you no pictures. Sybil lives in your head. If you want pictures of Seattle or Portland today, I suggest you Google them or better yet come here and see for yourself.
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I knew you were an empty suit, Sybil. Can you go outside and down the street without permission? Without an escort? Without checking with the front desk?
 
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