This is typical (from a recent newspaper endorsement to vote “no” on a large transit levy)…
“Imma vote on improvements I won’t use/won’t live to see while I bitch about property *values* getting to where I can’t afford the assessed tax on my house I bought for a fraction of that price.” I can’t comment at the newspaper, I’m not a subscriber, but this is a really common take. To be clear property taxes are not going up, though levies do increase the tax burden…property values are rising faster than people are comfortable paying their taxes on. These, of course, are the same people who sneer at young people living beyond their means.
There are a lot of Seattle homeowners who have stayed in their 2500+sq ft houses too long and now can’t part with them, because they can’t find any place local to move to (imagine that, a housing shortage) but can’t accept that they are making it worse for the next generation. Ideally, Seattle would have options for people to move into and keep their independence while still feeling connected to their neighborhood. But Seattle’s voters consistently vote against anything that will expand those options to local working people or even longtime residents.
And by “voting against” I mean voting for city council members whose policies protect the libertarian status quo, rather than the so-called “progressive” view so many people think of when they think of Seattle. Pro-tip: legal access to weed and support for LGBTQ rights are not enough to be progressive, not in the face of dual multi-year housing and homelessness “crises.” A multi-year crisis is not a crisis: it’s the new normal and people are fine with it. This is a libertarian city, where property rights are more important than human rights.
Many Seattlelites would rather see the same tent encampments on their drive to work than a new multi-use building anywhere near their single-family fortress. I used to wonder how people travelled to cities outside the USA and didn’t want to bring home the same benefits of density and reliable alternatives to driving…until I was in Paris and realized US tourists don’t use those. They stay in hotels and take cabs. I stayed in an 18th C flat and took the Métro everywhere because why wouldn’t you?