By most measures, Seattle is exactly the kind of urban success story to be celebrated by enlightened planners and city-minded activists.
This is a city with plenty of height and density, after all. It has streetcars and other transit, plus bikes and pedestrians coursing through a grid. There are lots of innovation-economy jobs, too, as witnessed by the Amazon-fueled building boom all along Westlake Avenue. It’s as green a city as they come, and there’s a bustling foodie scene, thoroughly local and organic.
It all sounds great, except for one additional characteristic of this fast-growing Pacific Northwest metropolis of 3.6 million: It’s rapidly becoming unaffordable.