It is ironic that you begin this piece talking about how Seattle has changed and then offer up a very "old school" idea of some self appointed group giving us a plan of what Seattle should be. The very concept is "old school" (see the World's Fair and Forward Thrust). And, while making passing reference to "the region", you are still really talking about Seattle. Hence, the weakest element of your analysis/commentary is the assumption that Seattle's problems/issues/priorities are those of the region and that Seattle is still the leader/driver of the region. As Seattle becomes more of an outlier - and Mayor McGinn relishes that role - its political, economic and intellectual leadership in the region wanes. While the other cities of the region - many can no longer be regarded as suburban - are unable to speak with one political voice, their shared interests represent a population two to three times that of Seattle, and economic interests far greater than the City of Seattle.

The region does not need another plan dropped on us from a self appointed group of "wise men" and women. (The history of such plans handed off to our government leadership is dismal at best.) If you suppose that many of Seattle's issues/problems and priorities should be or are those of the region, then I would argue that Seattle needs effective political leadership more interested in finding common ground with the rest of the region and becoming less the Seattle centric maverick.

The alternative will be the emergence of leadership from the region outside of Seattle that will address those truly regional issues while the City of Seattle increasingly "goes it alone".

You list some intriguing demographic statistics, but they're missing something important: historical context. We don't know if they represent ways in which Seattle has changed or if things have always been that way here. For example, we do know that Seattle has been a remarkably childless city since at least the heydey of your "Civic Seattle." It's hardly a new phenomenon, and hardly and indictment of the newbies.

In fact, it's probably just the opposite. If you examine the trend, you'll find that Seattle moved closer to the national norm for households with children during the 2000s.

So, let's see now, while a mob, composed largely of people who plan to leave in five years, screams "Stop the Tunnel! Stop the Tunnel!", another group of savants will set out on a holy quest for the Fountain of Prosperity.

Yeah, that'll work.

It's not actually that hard to predict the next driver of cities. The low-hanging fruit in reducing carbon emissions are transportation and heating. Building super-dense super-energy efficient low-income housing to solve several problems with the same money.

Why low-income? Because in the age of the oligarchy we are all low-income. A full half of the people in the country own a whopping 1% of the wealth. With the wealthiest 5% owning 90% of the country, not much is left for the 45% in the middle.

There, you now have a problem for the wise council to consider. And the clock is ticking.

Yep, we do NOT need another plan. Mayor McGinn represents the way forward, being frugal with money, and spending it on things that give the city the biggest bang for the buck.

What attracts these young people to the city? Reasonable cost housing, a night life, an interesting job, public safety, easy transportation.

The mayor's policies on transportation have been under attack but the waterfront tunnel is 1950's auto centric, not 2020 expensive fuel reality. The 520 bridge design was missing some key bits to enable Light rail to ever cross it and the independent study that the Mayor commissioned showed it, and got the WDOT to fix it. (Forward thinking)

Meanwhile old school driving thinking is whining because that way of life is becoming extremely expensive and is not sustainable. The city is changing, thank god, and having a deep water port, reasonable climate, proximity to Asia, and loads of fresh drinking water means that it will survive for a long time to come, even if the oceans rise 20ft.

I'm not sure about a new task force. However, I thought your analysis of our changing demographics and political leadership was very clear and may help some of the old timers be more constructive working with the new kids.

If Seattle wants to go its own way, fine. Good-bye. The problem comes when the rest of the Puget Sound Region needs to go through Seattle to get to somewhere else. If you want to use OUR State tax money, get OUR legislative votes in Olympia for YOUR programs, Seattle will have to accommodate the Region. No matter how wrong you think we are. Exhibit A: The vote on the Regional Transportation Plan: 30 to 2.

Ross Kane
Warm Beach

Oh if you want those young people to stay in the city and raise a family, fix the schools. That doesn't mean new computers, or fancy white boards. It means teachers who care, are treated with respect and class sizes small enough for the teacher to give attention to those who need it. And to help those teachers a way for parents to volunteer to help in the class rooms to relieve the teachers of the drudgery.

I volunteered one year (1st grade) 1 morning a week, and it was one of the best things I ever did. I wish I had done more, but in reality the school wasn't really geared for me to do that. It should be easy. I can grade & correct papers, give 1:1 attention to those who need it. You need a photo copy? no problem. Watch the class while you go to the bathroom? Or handle some other student? No problem.

After that public safety, that's burglary, muggings etc, keep that down to a reasonable level and you'll have property values climb because people want to live in the city.

"serial-catowner" claims that those of us yelling "Stop the tunnel!" are short-time residents who don't plan on sticking around for very long. I'm part of the "Stop the tunnel" crowd, but the folks I know in that movement (myself included) don't fit this stereotype in the slightest. In my own case, I've lived here since the mid-Eighties and have no plans to leave Seattle, unless the cost of living here forces me out. Part of my motive in opposing the tunnel is to prevent such dramatic cost increases from happening. The people who oppose the tunnel take this city's future very seriously. Turning it into an dystopian disneyland for the rich and subsidized poor--with no middle class left--is a vision we abhor. This tunnel monstrosity is part of that vision.

As for David's article/speech, it started out with a bang--fine analysis, by the way--but then ended with a whimper. If the 'solution' proffered had been something like 'appoint a transportation dictator,' I might have kept my eyes open. (I'd oppose such a plan, but at least it would be a bold one.) Appointing another blue-ribbon commission sounds like the tired prescriptions of yesteryear.

It is your verbiage, David, that assures that Seattle will remain the same philistine burg it has always been, the white part anyhow. I was talking to some friends about Seattle philistinism, Jack Jolley brought up the name of Mic Dinsmore, who I once got to interview at great length. Mic is of course a man with a great history working his way out of the worst that US capitalism ever wrought, Butte, Montana. His only connection to philistinism, however, is that he took advantage of the nepotism that rules the city, and the nepotism of the philistines is the heart of the incurable problem here. And you are the heart of the heart, it is linguistic. If you have trite platitudes of your kind circulating in your brain... if you know what I mean, but I am quite certain that you don't. and your inability to take sharp critique proves my point.
http://www.facebook.com/mike.roloff1?ref=name

You think that we need more taxes, when guv designs things 3 times, demands prevailing (newspeak for artificially inflated wages) wages and 15 different permits that all serve their own bureaucracies?

oh, and yea, thanks really, Tim Eyman.

Seattle’s real problem is not the political battles between Civic Seattle, and the Progressive Lifestyle proponents.
The real problem is the incredibly deteriorating Seattle economy. Neither Civic Seattle nor the Progressive Lifestyle proponents want to discuss Seattle’s job deterioration. Yet this deterioration will be the determination of Seattle’s future.
Both groups want to spend public money for their wish lists, yet with the declining economy neither group will have the money to pay for it. The City of Seattle government’s budget is extremely dependent on businesses for its tax revenues.
The Washington Research Council using Puget Sound Council data shows that the City of Seattle lost 48,000 private sector jobs from 2000 to 2010. During the last decade the region outside Seattle had substantially job growth
In the last two years Seattle lost 40,000 private jobs or 10% of its work force.
Seattle is decade long loss of jobs is following a more national trend of major regional cities have had substantial jobs loses, while their regions have gained jobs.
Seattle needs to recognize it has a jobs problems

Eugene Wasserman

A question in my mind is why I would even want to save a city that thinks a highway on the waterfront makes good sense.

Let's be clear here. There is no big tax savings if the tunnel isn't built. The repair of the seawall and the surface streets, and rebuilding of ancient utilities, will still need to be done.

When it comes to style, could anything be more absurd than a waterfront 'balanced' with a viaduct at one end and sculpture park at the other? It's visual irony on a scale to LOL.

The coming prosperity of the city will lie in being a city- and there's more to that than extended opening hours. Just as building the Space Needle was an affirmation, removing the traffic from the surface (or the air above) the waterfront would be an affirmation that Seattle can function as a 21st century city- an affirmation that is today withheld.

I didn't regret having to leave Seattle when I did, because of the then-recent defeat of the Commons proposal. I still come to Seattle by ferry as a foot passenger, but over the past ten years that has faded from "because I want to" to "because I must". I dread the day I get off the ferry and have to cross a six-lane highway on the waterfront- thinking of the "good old days" when the Viaduct was there.

People who want low taxes should move someplace where taxes are low, because services are not provided. Cities that want to be successful should use the authority they have to impose taxes and make the place better. It's your basic city-rural distinction.

Good piece, David. It's interesting to read about the grand scheme of local things. I hate to be tiresome on the subject but public transit is not likely to deliver big carbon savings as some of the commenters above seem to think. Only when trolleys and buses are near fully loaded do they improve significantly on cars. A Prius with a driver and two passengers beats any known existing public transit in carbon emissions and fuel efficiency per passenger (and the car takes you where you want to go, not to someplace "near" where you want to go). Furthermore increasing the efficiency of passenger cars looks a lot easier than increasing the efficiency of trolleys and buses; in the latter case all the easy stuff has been done. I mention these things because, among other arguments, tunnel opponents argue that the utility of the tunnel will be reduced by a presumed national effort to reduce carbon emissions. The national effort may well take place but slower, smaller cars are a more likely palliative than big transit.

I Just had to say that.

Serial-catowner seems to confuse inter-city travel with intra-city travel, as she bemoans the existence of an elevated SR 99 and its almost 64,000 trips THROUGH the city on the viaduct; all while being frightened of what her ferry-to-town pedestrian trip will be like if there is no viaduct. Moreover, she has no idea that the deep bore tunnel will require 70 megawatts of power, in perpetuity, just for lighting and ventilation. (By the way, that 70 MWs is 44 % of the total power from the Diablo dam!) How un-green is that?

In the end, she has no answer to that reality other than to hope a city becomes the center of a low income housing boom, as if that makes a city a city.

David, you are heading in the right direction. You just need a few more thoughts in your basket.

Chris

Let's see: an idillic and functionally useless mayor, a call for smart people with good ideas to spend their money here; need regional leadership so we can use 18th century solutions to supplant 20th century solutions so dinks can bike or rail to commute where much from the glowing screens at home to glowing screens at work.
You are a curve behind.

This notion that McGinn is frugal is absurd, he has less money so he is laying people off. Do you think he will cut a dollar more and law off one more worker than he has to?
The answer is that he is asking for more tax money (that's a no).

Seebee seems to confuse a 50-50 chance of guessing gender with an ability to understand the present or predict the future.

Here's a newsflash, Seebee- we're already poor. A full half of our population owns 1% of the national property. And the Boomer retirement wave is coming.

And the future is mortgaged. We never built that sustainable economy, but now we must, or Mother Nature is going to foreclose on us.

Of course, just because there is a role for cities in this crisis, that of increasing population density and thereby energy efficiency, does not mean that Seattle needs to fill that role. There will be plenty of other bids to build that "low-income" housing, once the nation figures out what the stakes are.