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Accretionist posted:You're assuming a perfectly spherical housing market of uniform density. The question then becomes, how does building that set of luxury condos affect nearby rents, when compared to not building and having rich people snap up the existing housing stock?
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Apr 6, 2014 00:22
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Hedera Helix posted:The question then becomes, how does building that set of luxury condos affect nearby rents, when compared to not building and having rich people snap up the existing housing stock? It's a somewhat off topic discussion but places such as Dallas have much more reasonable rent costs since the total supply is so much better than hot spots like the Bay Area. Also new class A housing helps the problem since people with higher salaries can move out and thereby create more options . To get back on topic the seattle underground is pretty fallout esque 
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Apr 6, 2014 00:27
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^^^The Underground is awesome, take any tour you want^^^Hedera Helix posted:The question then becomes, how does building that set of luxury condos affect nearby rents, when compared to not building and having rich people snap up the existing housing stock? Historically in the region, this usually means the wealthy buy bigger houses out on Mercer Island et al and suffer the transit for the their housing status-symbol. But with the push towards urban living with minor commuting- and with the lax development rules- it results in fewer living spaces for working families inside the city, and larger living expenses for the those with the least to expend as they are pushed into the margins. San Fran is not the goal (partially because the gentrification pressures exist at any density), but the city of Seattle can do far more in creating solutions for working families. And when they have, they've been challenged every step of the way by developers fighting for the right to profiteer off of the housing crunch.
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Apr 6, 2014 00:29
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Accretionist posted:Or a bunch of apartments whose rents are at least a standard deviation above the mean? Unless the answer you expect here is "rich people appear out of thin air to move into those apartments" then yes those apartments will still help to bring down rents, because prior to their existence the rich people were living in non-rich person housing and thus driving up those rents. The problem is if there is no non-rich person housing available whatsoever and that is a real threat, but pretending that more apartments are somehow a bad thing is the opposite of a solution.
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Apr 6, 2014 00:35
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The city did build some affordable housing after passing some success bond measures and also tax levy: http://www.seattle.gov/housing/levy/docs/Levy_photos.pdf
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Apr 6, 2014 00:43
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etalian posted:The city did build some affordable housing after passing some success bond measures and also tax levy: And they're pretty cool! I like living in Seattle, I like paying my taxes here more than I would elsewhere, and I do believe that there are people in this city that are trying to make it work for everyone. But treating real estate and living situations as if they are interchangeable widgets is something worth correcting. And yes, I think there are troubling issues when your living situation is also limited by your lively-hood, because it takes too much leverage away from labor and into the hands of management. If you were also forced to move if you were fired from your job, your recourse to any abuses of that power is limited. It is this relationship structure that makes company-town situations inherently worth questioning. I mean even in the given example w/r/t Amazon paying in gift cards as acceptable scrip: it is that lack of leverage the worker has in response to said monopoly on goods and services that causes the deprivations associated with company-towns, not the act of getting Funbux rather than real money.
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Apr 6, 2014 00:53
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Gerund posted:And they're pretty cool! I like living in Seattle, I like paying my taxes here more than I would elsewhere, and I do believe that there are people in this city that are trying to make it work for everyone. But treating real estate and living situations as if they are interchangeable widgets is something worth correcting. It's sort of the right idea but the amount of new supply is still nowhere close to meeting demand. Just look a the below waitlist: https://www.seattlehousing.org/news/email/housinginsider/EstimatedWaitTimes.pdf
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Apr 6, 2014 01:04
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Gerund posted:And they're pretty cool! I like living in Seattle, I like paying my taxes here more than I would elsewhere, and I do believe that there are people in this city that are trying to make it work for everyone. But treating real estate and living situations as if they are interchangeable widgets is something worth correcting. Well, since that article about UW/Children's said that "employees have *priority*", I wouldn't think that losing your job would lose the home, as non-employees will be able to live there if no employees wish to. Just new vacancies will be to employees first. I would love it if there were more housing options in the city. I have no desire to have a 90 minute commute each way, but I'm not an Amazon employee, so what can you do?
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Apr 6, 2014 01:10
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I'm glad to be in Eugene, Oregon rather than in Portland or Seattle. I haven't really spent time in Seattle, but over the last decade I have seen Portland descend into traffic-clogged hell. From what I have heard, Seattle isn't exactly a traffic dream, either.
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Apr 6, 2014 11:52
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CaptainSarcastic posted:I'm glad to be in Eugene, Oregon rather than in Portland or Seattle. I haven't really spent time in Seattle, but over the last decade I have seen Portland descend into traffic-clogged hell. From what I have heard, Seattle isn't exactly a traffic dream, either. Seattle's worse.
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Apr 6, 2014 12:27
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effectual posted:Seattle's worse. 
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Apr 6, 2014 12:35
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FRINGE posted:Seattle drivers are worse, but I found the actual city/streets to be more frustrating in Portland. I think it's because Seattle had more time to build out. I was in Portland last summer to buy some hiking stuff and it definitely felt like it was more of a smaller town that had received a large influx of people. Looking at some statistics it looks like the population in Portland was more or less static (give or take 50k) from 1930-1980, and then it skyrockets. Meanwhile in Seattle the population started from about the same point (larger Metro area though) but lots of people start moving in more closer to 1940-1950.
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Apr 6, 2014 14:21
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Seattle can't really hold many more people than it already has, so people that want to move to this area are often forced to live in Everett or Tacoma, both of which are, I think, experiencing significant population booms. Building Seattle on an isthmus must have seemed like a great idea at the time, but now the city is sort of boxed in. Western Washington drivers are terrible because everyone's a passive aggressive rear end in a top hat. The worst situation to be in is at a stop sign or blinking light intersection, because it can easily devolve into a game of politeness one-upmanship. NO I INSIST AFTER YOU. Also turn signals are an alien concept to many people. The un-signaled quadruple lane change happens quite often on I-5.
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Apr 6, 2014 17:41
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Spatula City posted:Seattle can't really hold many more people than it already has, so people that want to move to this area are often forced to live in Everett or Tacoma, both of which are, I think, experiencing significant population booms. Building Seattle on an isthmus must have seemed like a great idea at the time, but now the city is sort of boxed in. High rises would fix all of this.
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Apr 6, 2014 18:06
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SedanChair posted:High rises would fix all of this. Yup pretty much the only option is higher density zoning, to once again avoid the SF problem.
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Apr 6, 2014 18:19
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ladyboy pancake posted:I would like to remind everyone living in King County that April 22nd is the day we vote to either raise taxes or cut up to 17% of bus services. As previously mentioned, Washington's tax system is terrible, but losing the buses will hit people, especially the poor,harder than the increase will.  The Bus Vote Is Happening I've received my voter's form and most of you probably have too. If this bill doesn't pass public transportation services are going to be severely cut, so be sure vote YES before April 22nd!
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Apr 6, 2014 18:42
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ladyboy pancake posted:
I'm voting for the bus funding, but that Proposition is poorly written and confusing. From reading the Proposition, "...an annual vehicle fee of sixty dollars ($60)..." I thought it was imposing an additional $60 annual car fee, but then I read that it is actually just $40 more a year? Between that and the sales tax increase I don't think this is super likely to pass 
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Apr 6, 2014 20:59
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Metro has tried so hard to educate people on why this is happening and how they've lost so much funding since 2008 and are basically running a shoe string budget. There's literally no where else they could tighten their belt with out actually cutting routes but i'm still hearing people whine about how they give metro so much money.  Sorry guys, more of your gas and car taxes are going to lovely roads in the middle of the loving state.So yesterday at the market a guy asked me to sign a petition for the state of Washington to say that corporations aren't people. I can't figure out how the legal mechanism would work for this but the guy claimed that if enough states got together they could push for a constitutional amendment. That doesn't totally sound logical to me so I took a flyer and told him I would read up on it and seek out a petition to sign when I was ready. Any clue guys? silicone thrills fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 23:07
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Tigntink posted:So yesterday at the market a guy asked me to sign a petition for the state of Washington to say that corporations aren't people. I can't figure out how the legal mechanism would work for this but the guy claimed that if enough states got together they could push for a constitutional amendment. That doesn't totally sound logical to me so I took a flyer and told him I would read up on it and seek out a petition to sign when I was ready. Any clue guys? The corporations and their purchased politicians have gone from "corporations are people *" to "corporations have Constitutional rights" to "that means free speech" to "money is speech" to "unlimited bribe money is just like talking a lot!". * At this point its like arguing with a Catholic about Natural Law. All you can do is attack the faulty premise. One way to shortcut this is to "assign" a physical person as legally culpable for every act a corporation takes. So we would see a constant death-row cycling of patsy CEOs for various war crimes, environmental crime/mass poisonings, economic/political crimes/treasons etc... Suddenly there is no longer a body-less fear-less agent of destruction siphoning money out of the economy with no real repercussions.
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Apr 7, 2014 00:13
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For the bus issue, what's the argument against raising bus rates a bit? I know $2.25 or so is already pretty high, but drat $60 on top of car registration is a bit high. I'm already paying $90 or so per year for car registration, so $60 is a huge increase. I'm really on the fence about how to vote for this one--I understand how critical the bus is for a lot of people, but I'd like to know why the increase is so high.
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Apr 7, 2014 00:18
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mod sassinator posted:For the bus issue, what's the argument against raising bus rates a bit? I know $2.25 or so is already pretty high, but drat $60 on top of car registration is a bit high. I'm already paying $90 or so per year for car registration, so $60 is a huge increase. I'm really on the fence about how to vote for this one--I understand how critical the bus is for a lot of people, but I'd like to know why the increase is so high. It's a $40 increase, not $60. And the reason it's so high is that Metro's major sources of funding have dried up over the years, first with a repeal of a car value tax back in the '90s and more recently just a general decline in tax revenues. Also the legislature hates Seattle and refused to give us the authority to raise other taxes to cover the shortfalls. Increasing fares is pretty much the only way to make this more regressive than it already is. And fares have already more than doubled in the past 5 years or so. You can see the "official" arguments for and against over here.
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Apr 7, 2014 00:59
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Begemot posted:It's a $40 increase, not $60. And the reason it's so high is that Metro's major sources of funding have dried up over the years, first with a repeal of a car value tax back in the '90s and more recently just a general decline in tax revenues. Also the legislature hates Seattle and refused to give us the authority to raise other taxes to cover the shortfalls. Where do you see $40 increase? In my voter guide it says $60 with a $20 rebate for low income households. I assume the majority of people (myself included) will not fall under the low income household threshold.
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Apr 7, 2014 01:23
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mod sassinator posted:Where do you see $40 increase? In my voter guide it says $60 with a $20 rebate for low income households. I assume the majority of people (myself included) will not fall under the low income household threshold. It's a $60 annual increase, but there's a temporary $20 car tab fee for Metro that's been in place for the past two years that is expiring at the end of this year, so when you consider that fee going away it's a net $40 increase.
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Apr 7, 2014 02:05
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Ahh gotcha, yeah they really could do a lot more to improve the wording of that issue.
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Apr 7, 2014 02:26
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To be honest, I think Washington state really needs an income tax, trying to fund basic services through fees and sales taxes are going to have its limits with the public (especially since they are both regressive). Also, it goes back to the other issue of pushing high rise housing, how are high density districts going to work if you don't have much of a rail system to begin with and cut remaining bus services? The freeway systems in Seattle are already overloaded and compared to even Portland there isn't much an alternative. Development is fine to an extent but you actually need to build infrastructure, and the SLUT isn't going to cut it on its own.
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Apr 7, 2014 08:16
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I'll go for an income tax if we dump sales tax.
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Apr 7, 2014 16:55
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Ardennes posted:Development is fine to an extent but you actually need to build infrastructure, and the SLUT isn't going to cut it on its own. Let's build wooden bicycle bridges everywhere   
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Apr 7, 2014 17:07
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BraveUlysses posted:I'll go for an income tax if we dump sales tax. As a top 3%er i'd go for this in a heart beat. I voted for the last income tax that came on the ballot. It would have to be on one single proposition though like "We will eliminate these sales taxes and exchange directly for X% income on X brackets" Idiots would still vote it down because "herp derp derp derp historically everyone raises income taxes derp derp derp"
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Apr 7, 2014 17:34
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In "Astroturfed opposition to a living wage" news:quote:Leaked E-Mail Shows Big Business Trying to Use Small Businesses to Weaken $15 Minimum Wage
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Apr 12, 2014 21:42
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Gerund posted:In "Astroturfed opposition to a living wage" news: I love the bit about lying to waiters and bartenders on how the law would remove all their tip income.
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Apr 12, 2014 21:46
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Gerund posted:In "Astroturfed opposition to a living wage" news: To the surprise of literally loving nobody. Now only time will tell if this benefits or hurts the anti-living wage movement.
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Apr 12, 2014 22:25
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quote:Perhaps one of the most remarkable things discussed was a strategy to involve tipped workers themselves, the e-mail says. One bar owner reportedly said 20 bars and restaurants had a meeting with tipped employees to, according to the memo, spread the idea that 15 Now wants to get rid of tips entirely. They told the employees that if a $15 minimum wage is passed without a tip credit, employees will no longer get tips at all. They are reportedly meeting tonight at a Belltown restaurant to plan a march from Cal Anderson Park to City Hall next Tuesday to call for a tip penalty in their own wages. The kernel of truth in this is that if people knew their waiters were being paid well they'd be much less likely to feel obligated to tip them. Of course that would mean a welcome return to the idea of gratuity being a way to reward exceptional service.
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Apr 13, 2014 00:03
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Republicans posted:The kernel of truth in this is that if people knew their waiters were being paid well they'd be much less likely to feel obligated to tip them. Of course that would mean a welcome return to the idea of gratuity being a way to reward exceptional service. except that is demonstrably not true, and is the excuse used to keep paying servers $3 an hour in many states. Edit: wait, this is a gimmick isn't it?
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Apr 13, 2014 00:31
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ReverendCode posted:except that is demonstrably not true, and is the excuse used to keep paying servers $3 an hour in many states. Not to mention minimum wage for wait staff in WA is $9 with tips increasing it to around $13 However piles of states allow only $2-$3 for wait staff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_States
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Apr 13, 2014 00:35
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ReverendCode posted:except that is demonstrably not true, and is the excuse used to keep paying servers $3 an hour in many states. I've read many a post by the user Republicans and he's more intellectually honest than a gimmick. I also agree wholeheartedly that only good could come with workers that are regulated by the Department of Health are being paid a living wage from the jump. But in other progressive news: quote:Ballard business bumps minimum wage to $15 For those out of the Seattle loop, Ballard is the north-western, largely white-ethnic enclave, largely investment-class contained in the new City Council seat #6 to be elected next in 2015 (along with every other seat thanks to the new 7-2 district charter amendment).
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Apr 13, 2014 00:42
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Republicans posted:The kernel of truth in this is that if people knew their waiters were being paid well they'd be much less likely to feel obligated to tip them. Of course that would mean a welcome return to the idea of gratuity being a way to reward exceptional service. You'd think that because our state allows tips on top of minimum wage, that it alone would've already undercut tipping culture to be more about quality instead of just an institutionalized thing. It hasn't really been the case. In that way, I don't think a minimum wage increase alone will change anything. I'd rather see tips go away completely, anyway. Gerund posted:For those out of the Seattle loop, Ballard is the north-western, largely white-ethnic enclave, largely investment-class contained in the new City Council seat #6 to be elected next in 2015 (along with every other seat thanks to the new 7-2 district charter amendment). It's easy to adopt that when you have the vast majority of your employees as temporary. If it wasn't already easy enough to absorb, she could just shave off a few hours a week and they'd be making the same money every month before the increase.
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Apr 13, 2014 01:53
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Freakazoid_ posted:It's easy to adopt that when you have the vast majority of your employees as temporary. If it wasn't already easy enough to absorb, she could just shave off a few hours a week and they'd be making the same money every month before the increase. At that point your issue is with management having full control over the worker's schedule and the wage system as a whole, not the amount earned per hour.
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Apr 13, 2014 02:00
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Freakazoid_ posted:If it wasn't already easy enough to absorb, she could just shave off a few hours a week and they'd be making the same money every month before the increase. A business owner who doesn't make money by their employees showing up is an idiot or a saint. If she is a remotely rational business person (which she apparently is given the size of her business) then cutting hours would be foolish, because there aren't any pointless hours being worked. She is making money from her employees working. For as business-focused as American culture is, there is a weird misconception that crops up all over the place that employment is basically a form of charity. It isn't. Employers make money by their employees labor. If you can make more money through more labor, but you can't afford to hire more people, you have an issue with capital, not with salary.
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Apr 13, 2014 02:08
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That's what I've never understood about businesses threatening to cut back on employees or hours. What companies employ more than they need or have workers doing unnecessary hours? In positions that cannot be automated this makes no sense at all. Even for jobs that can be automated all this would do is make it happen slightly sooner. Also, why is it such a hardship on the company? Prices are calculated based on costs, raising the minimum wage just means you need to charge slightly more.
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Apr 13, 2014 03:04
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ReverendCode posted:except that is demonstrably not true, and is the excuse used to keep paying servers $3 an hour in many states. Don't get me wrong, they would totally be better off with a higher wage and I think it's disgusting how states let employers count tips as wages. It's your loving job as an employer to pay your employees. I'm just saying that if I eat out and I know the people serving me are being paid decently it puts some pressure off of me to automtically leave a few bucks on the table.
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Apr 13, 2014 21:29
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