Armed Polite Society

Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MillCreek on August 18, 2015, 03:13:40 PM

Title: What happened to Seattle? Amazon happened to Seattle
Post by: MillCreek on August 18, 2015, 03:13:40 PM
http://gawker.com/how-amazon-swallowed-seattle-1724795265

As one of the few remaining Seattle-area natives, I thought this article had some good points. There is a reason I live 40 miles north of Seattle and no longer work in downtown Seattle.
Title: Re: What happened to Seattle? Amazon happened to Seattle
Post by: SADShooter on August 18, 2015, 03:23:05 PM
Hmm. I thought grunge rock, boutique coffee, tech money, and Californians  predated Amazon.
Title: Re: What happened to Seattle? Amazon happened to Seattle
Post by: dm1333 on August 18, 2015, 05:47:51 PM
Meh!  Doesn't sound much different than Seattle from 1994 - 2003.  Expensive, full of yuppies and full of itself.  The REI parking lot is where my hatred of Subaru's (a perfectly practical car often ruined with Coexist stickers) took root.   :lol:
Title: Re: What happened to Seattle? Amazon happened to Seattle
Post by: Ben on August 18, 2015, 06:35:02 PM
Meh!  Doesn't sound much different than Seattle from 1994 - 2003.  Expensive, full of yuppies and full of itself.  The REI parking lot is where my hatred of Subaru's (a perfectly practical car often ruined with Coexist stickers) took root.   :lol:

Yeah, I haven't spent a lot of time in Seattle, but I'm not sure I can tell the difference between the people this guy writes about and the people that were there when I used to visit. Seems like he's upset because his kind of yuppie was supplanted by another kind of yuppie.

Also, a sign of me getting old - I'm disgruntled that a guy talks like he's an old-timer native of the city and upset at the new whippersnappers, but he was born in 1988.  :laugh:
Title: Re: What happened to Seattle? Amazon happened to Seattle
Post by: dm1333 on August 18, 2015, 07:03:23 PM
Quote
The recent news around Amazon has focused on the company as a workplace. Much of it has been unflattering, all of it is accurate. But a more comprehensive indictment of Amazon would also describe its effect on the rest of Seattle, which used to be a great place to live. In recent years, it has become consumed by Amazon.

I was born here, in 1988. My city was a gentle, easygoing place, a salad of cultural influences: citizens of the outdoors, of grunge and high art, with a dash of software among its bluebloods. Here I reveled in mild weather and glorious views; here I played in the best high-school orchestra in the nation (at a public school), .

Nowhere else was life so good.

I remember people bitching about Microsoft ruining the area, and Microsoft retirees ruining Sequim by retiring there.  As for the rest of those opening lines?  Junior sounds a little full of himself.  If he wants to see a place that has been ruined go move to the coast in Mendocino County.  

edit:   I'm not a Seattle hater, but who asked Amazon to move there?  Those evil bastards in Portland?  Or people in Seattle?  Sounds self inflicted.

Title: Re: What happened to Seattle? Amazon happened to Seattle
Post by: SADShooter on August 18, 2015, 07:27:50 PM
The notion of the "company town" is hardly new in America.
Title: Re: What happened to Seattle? Amazon happened to Seattle
Post by: zahc on August 18, 2015, 08:30:22 PM
People are never happy. When companies move out and population drops and housing values drop, they  complain. When  companies move in,and population swells, and housing values go up, they complain.
Title: Re: What happened to Seattle? Amazon happened to Seattle
Post by: brimic on August 19, 2015, 09:59:43 AM
Sounds like 1st world issues/complaints....
He should thank his lucky stars that he grew up in Seattle, not Detroit.
Title: Re: What happened to Seattle? Amazon happened to Seattle
Post by: HeroHog on August 19, 2015, 03:25:41 PM
When I worked for Brass Eagle, the paintball company, in Bentonville, AR, it was the same. Total Walmart city where every office there was a supplier/vendor and all businesses lived to support them. TOTAL yuppy town filled with young to older professionals and upper-end restaurants. More hispanics than blacks but not many of either. Total culture shock for us. Don't get me wrong, nice place to live, just expensive and "sterile."