printNEW COLUMN IS “Homeless In Seattle, Part 2: Tech Sucks The Soul Out Of The City.” It’s on Townhall.com, WND.COM and The Unz Review.
An excerpt:
Trust the late Anthony Bourdain, the Kerouac of cooking, to blurt out the truth when nobody else would.
Following his Jack Kerouac wanderlust, Bourdain had arrived in Seattle to spotlight the manner in which high-tech was changing the city, draining it of its character and of the many quirky characters that made Seattle what it was.
“Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Expedia, and Amazon are the big dogs in town,” mused Bourdain. “A flood of them—tech industry workers, mostly male, derisively referred to as tech boys or tech bros—is rapidly changing the DNA of the city, rewiring it to satisfy their own newly-empowered nerdly appetites.”
That the “tech boys” “are so dull,” as members of a Seattle band say—and sing—in no way assuages their heated effect on the housing market. A street artist called “John Criscitello … told Bourdain how the high-tech influx has driven up housing costs and forced artists [like himself] out of the neighborhood.”
Yes, Big Tech is exacerbating homelessness in Seattle and the surrounds. While correlation is not causation, the ongoing and never-ending, annual importation of a sizable feudal elite from China and India must be factored in the homelessness equation.
“Buoyed by the city’s thriving technology industry, Seattle has consistently been the hottest housing market in the nation.” Commensurate with the explosion in the number of Seattle neighborhoods in which homes cost $1 million has been an explosion in the region’s homeless population.
“Households must earn about $140,000 a year to afford mortgage payments – nearly double the city’s typical income,” but on par with the “average base pay” of a software engineer in the Seattle, WA area. …
… “Unabashed liberal” outfits like the Economist, the Brooking Institute and the Seattle Times blame inadequate supply for the housing crisis, ignoring the demand side of the supply-and-demand housing equation whereby, “Big Tech is permitted to petition The State for permission to import The World at a price heavily subsidized by the disenfranchised American taxpayer. Through government immigration policies, a ceaseless demand for housing has been generated.” (See “Homeless In Seattle, Part 1.”) ….
… READ ON. NEW COLUMN, “Homeless In Seattle, Part 2: Tech Sucks The Soul Out Of The City,” is on Townhall.com, WND.COM and The Unz Review.
* Image courtesy of The Unz Review.
UPDATED (10/22/019):
Torontonians have been replaced as well, by investors who leave empty buildings. In a globalized world, there is no loyalty towards citizens. The social contract has been broken. #housingcrisis
— centeringpendulum (@centeringpendu1) October 4, 2019