show me how you spend your time and I’ll tell you what you value

A cartoonist could have some fun here…

Citing sidewalk obstruction, the city of Seattle cleared a longstanding tent encampment that sat right across from city hall, on 4th avenue. It’s the latest move by Mayor Bruce Harrell’s administration in response to the city’s ongoing homelessness crisis.

Picture a 1 acre hole in the ground across from City Hall, surrounded by a wooden hoarding, and a figure of a little man looking like the mayor clearing tent campers off the sidewalk who could be living in clean safe social housing on the other side of that barrier. “Clear out, there is no room for you here…,” as the 1.3 acre lot, vacant since 2005, continues to accrue value for a Canadian speculator.

The economist’s take could be a huge pile of gold behind that barrier but the mayor is more concerned about a penny on the sidewalk. Protecting that pile of wealth by securing the sidewalk is more important than the people who were living on it. People like to say Seattle is a wealthy city but it’s really not: it’s a poor to average city with a lot of poor and a few very rich people, all getting richer as the others get poorer. It’s propertarian, not progressive. “Progressive” is about more than LGBTQ rights and legal weed.