Is Seattle a 'two-dollar whore'?

Recently, author Jonathan Raban weighed in on how Seattle has changed since the early 1990s. The story generated a lot of response, and it's still coming. S.P. Miskowski – blogger, playwright, former editor of The Stranger – has an insightful take on it over on her blog, Hick With a Master's Degree. She arrived about the same time that Raban did. She says to understand the city, you can't overlook Seattle's mercenary motivations: The first thing I noticed about Seattle was that it was for sale – every inch of it. My ex-husband used to joke that Seattle was a two-dollar whore, and he was right. If you see something beautiful or even picturesque here, and you fall in love with it, just wait a few minutes. Because the guy who owns it is not cherishing its nutty appeal, he's merely waiting for the right price or a zoning change. Ah yes, don't love a house or a building or a diner or a piece of land because it won't love you back. It all comes with a price tag. She describes how some years ago, a man sold a wonderful older building with lots of artist tenants, and the new owner began to renovate the place and jacked up the rents. Everyone howled about the changes: And who was leading the pack? Standing front and center, complaining that things were changing way too fast and Seattle should remember what it was like in the good, old days? The guy who sold the building in the first place. That's right. He sold it, like a two-dollar whore, then he wanted a say in how it was redeveloped. That, for me, has been the essence of the Emerald City: The old sells out to the new, and then suffers regret. But regret, like nostalgia, is worthless. Of course, that's the human condition in a nutshell. We're forever wanting it both ways. In western cities like Seattle, that phenomenon is close to the surface because change is so close on our heels. I can closely identify with that seller. I sold my old bungalow in Kirkland a couple of years ago. I didn't have the resources to fix it and had compelling family reasons to move. So I sold, but not without regrets. The new owner flipped it, and it was torn down to make way for a bigger place. When I sold, I knew that outcome was highly possible, even probable. In fact, the inexorable transformation of my Kirkland neighborhood was part of why I no longer felt at home there. So like many of my neighbors, I took the money and moved on. I did so with mixed feelings. My seller's remorse lingers from time to time – but in Miskowski's Seattle, I'm just another pimp. The full piece is worth a read. On the topic of change – and resistance to change – that subject will get an airing later this week on KUOW-FM's Weekday with Steve Scher on Thursday, July 26, at 9:05 a.m. I'm a regular media panelist on the program's Friday week-in-review segment, but this week I'll be on a day earlier, participating in a discussion about historic preservation and nostalgia. I don't have a list of the other guests yet. Weekday producer David Hyde sets up the topic this way: The plan to designate dozens of downtown buildings as historic landmarks is provoking debate. What's really at stake here - beyond the buildings themselves? In The Seattle Times, Lynne Varner questions whether the city can afford to indulge the costly "nostalgia" of historic preservation. On the other side, Knute Berger of Crosscut.com says that the "preservation movement needs to come out of its defensive crouch and argue for the advantages of remembering rather than forgetting." What are the reasons for (and against) preserving historic buildings, and other windows into Seattle's past? Where did the idea of historic preservation originate in the first place? What's behind the debate over preservation in Seattle today? Today we take a closer look at historic preservation, memory, myth and nostalgia with an eye to the future of Seattle. The Lynne Varner reference is to her July 18 column, "Let's not get hysterical about historic preservation," in which she wonders whether "nostalgia" is running amok and Seattle is going overboard to consider landmarking so many downtown buildings. Oh, and she's not an Amtrak fan, either. Should be an interesting show.