Posted Fri, Mar 12, 12:43 p.m. Inappropriate

I think it's a bit early to declare victory. If Crosscut has already "become the Puget Sound region’s best journal of informed commentary and in-depth writing on public affairs", all that can really mean is that there is no serious competition. The potential is surely there, but the actual menu of quality offerings still needs beefing up. In particular, the fare is annoyingly Seattle-centric. The boast about being "the Puget Sound region's best" can only be defended if one equates Puget Sound with Seattle.

Having said that, Crosscut is certainly a more congenial format for Mr Brewster's cultural ambitions than the Weekly was (to say nothing of the ill-fated Eastside Week). Brewster is clearly a man of many talents, but a functional sense of hipness is not one of them. Crosscut is a better vehicle for his curious brand of staid and sensible, but progressive and cosmopolitan, wonkishness. Crosscut is what moderate Republicanism would look like if it still existed. As it is, it's a good place for old Ripon Society types to assess the meaning of life at the twilight of empire and ponder what might have been.

Posted Fri, Mar 12, 4:27 p.m. Inappropriate

@woofer: "the fare is annoyingly Seattle-centric"

Do you believe there is a substantial market for informed commentary and in-depth writing outside the Seattle greater metropolitan area? That's an honest question.

My impression is that there is not.

Posted Sat, Mar 13, 9:51 p.m. Inappropriate

Sean raises a fair question. For starters, a clarification: I'm not arguing that Crosscut needs to start covering the deliberations of the Eatonville School Board or anything like that. I'm suggesting a need for articles on matters of importance and interest to Seattleites as well as to those outside the city limits, but beyond the boundaries of parochial Seattle politics that is Crosscut's daily fascination.

For example, here is a little known fact. Seattle itself is on the western edge of a much larger entity called King County, which has its very own government and a full set of critical issues and problems. Yet, if you are a devoted reader of Crosscut, you would hardly realize these issues even existed. You might know that the newly elected King County Executive is a somewhat dour fellow named Constantine who defeated a conservative former Seattle TV news personality. And I recall an article in which an intrepid young Jordan Royer braved the wilds of South Park and White Center just beyond the Seattle city limits and lived to tell the story. But that's about it.

Here are just a few things you haven't read about. King County's building department (DDES) is a shambles after years of poor management and the inability devise a workable regulatory program around the County's overly ambitious (and costly to administer) Critical Areas Ordinance. County policies extol the bucolic virtues of life in its surviving remnants of rural and agricultural turf while actual County regulations make traditional rural economic existence nearly impossible. The consequence is an unnecessarily high level of anger and alienation among rural residents, to be exploited by the usual opportunistic collection of right-wing riff-raff. The list could go on, but this perhaps should be enough to paint the basic picture.

Why should sophisticated urbanites care about any of this? Well, Seattle is nearly built out, so most of its environmental disasters happened long ago. The value of projects like daylighting Thornton Creek at Northgate is mostly symbolic. To the extent that there are still actual biologically healthy, somewhat natural rivers, streams and wetlands around, they are to be found in the rural areas. So if we care at all about preserving these amenities beyond the urban fringe, we need to pay attention to County land use policies and how they are working.

At this point the only Seattle land use issues of real consequence mostly involve replacement of decaying and overwhelmed transportation infrastructure and questions of whether we can afford to rethink stupid decisions made in an earlier era. The viaduct and 520 bridge leap to mind. Beyond that, Seattle issues are mostly ones of service quality, aesthetics and lifestyle.

My point is simply that Crosscut presently only provides a narrow slice of the overall regional picture, and one must look beyond the frothy urban dazzle to discover the fundamental concerns that will shape life for future generations. Crosscut is good as far as it goes, but doesn't go far enough. It's not yet a regional publication in any meaningful sense.

I fully understand that Crosscut is largely a labor of love by Brewster and his long-time friends, and they talk about what they know. But if Crosscut truly aspires to be a regional resource, the circle needs to be greatly expanded before popping the cork on the champagne of self-congratulation.