Angst grips America’s most liberal city

By Reid Wilson | 30 July 2021

THE HILL — America’s most liberal city stands at an uneasy crossroads.

For decades, Seattle has been the vanguard of the nation’s progressive movement. It was the first major city to adopt a $15 per hour minimum wage, to allow gig economy workers to affiliate with a union and to impose, albeit briefly, a per-employee tax on major corporations.

Along the way, it has experienced the explosive growth of a mammoth tech industry that has changed the face of a racially and economically diverse population. Neighborhoods once defined by commingling populations of immigrants and blue-collar families now teem with new condos, local restaurants have been replaced by high-end pot shops and encampments filled with those who can no longer afford to live in their city now line the its two major freeways.

As a consequence of that new growth, the median household income in Seattle stands at $92,000, up almost 50 percent from a decade before. But the price of a single-family home has more than doubled over the same span, to $1 million, according to data from the Seattle-based real estate firm Zillow. […]

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