Oh, with regards to skeeviness and bummery, Seattle just:

Completely outlawed all smoking within 25 feet of bars and restaurants.

Instituted a four-foot rule in strip clubs. Patrons must stay four feet away from "that special lady" when receining a table dance.

When they ask you where "Pike's Place" Market is. PIKE Place Market to you, sir.
Ben P

The "4 foot rule" may not survive. There's a ballot iniative next year to repeal it.
Ben P

So insofar as Giulianism was based on the idea that cleaning up these kind of "quality of life" issues is essential to controlling violent crime, and insofar as Jonah's right that Seattle hasn't done so, Seattle would seem to be more a rebuttal of Giulianism than an example of backward-looking liberalism.

Um . . . isn't it unfair to compare violent crime rates of different cities? Doesn't one have to look at the crime numbers before and after Giuliani's changes to see if his policies are effective? If Topeka has a much lower crime rate than New York it doesn't mean the New York should look to Topeka as a model. But if Topeka implements policies that cut their rate in half than perhaps those policies deserve a closer look and possibly should be imitated by other cities.

Any post which has a first sentence stating "but Jonah Goldberg" isn't worth more than a single sentence comment.

Making a sweeping generalization based on very little evidence.

Don't forget, of course, not being burdened by enough experience to have even a cursory knowledge of the subject he blathers about. Anyone remember his assertion that he know more about Iraq than Juan Cole? As other posters have noted, there have been decades-long battles over where the city should locate the services it provides to the homeless and drug addicts - but of course Jonah doesn't need to trouble his pretty little head learning things like that. What. a. P.I.S.S.A.N.T.

In the 4 years I lived in Seattle, I never once heard anyone suggest they would live downtown but for the seediness. What housing there is down there is overpriced, and there's not all that much to do during the day, much less at night. In short, if you're going to live in a pricey condo, why not do it on Pike/Pine, Queene Anne, Belltown, Capitol Hill, etc. Which, shockingly, is exactly what people have done. Given Seattle's let's-hug-each-other-right-until-the-knives-come-out style of civic politics, plus the crazy runup of housing prices, I wouldn't be surprised if some high-powered developer rammed through a provision to move all those services down to the area south of the stadiums (detestably called "SoDo" by a local media ever hungry for some pretext to compare Seattle to New York) to build the "Belltown South Lofts".

To my mind good urban planning involves figuring out how to successfully mix poor people and rich people in the same neighborhood, and I'm not sure how I'd rate Seattle on that score, though it doubtless as done a good job with core services for the poor.

FOREIGNID: 71035
FOREIGNPARENTID: 71033
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AUTHOR: Ben P
DATE: 11/28/2005 03:24:10 PM

An interesting thing about this "pre-Giuliani" mentality, however, is that Seattle has a lower murder rate than New York. So insofar as Giulianism was based on the idea that cleaning up these kind of "quality of life" issues is essential to controlling violent crime, and insofar as Jonah's right that Seattle hasn't done so, Seattle would seem to be more a rebuttal of Giulianism than an example of backward-looking liberalism.

Wow.

Did Matthew even look AT ALL at the statistics to which he linked?

Yes, Seattle has a lower murder rate.  But.

The rates of other personal crimes - forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault - are about the same.  And Seattle has much, MUCH higher rates of property crimes: burglary, larceny-theft motor vehicle theft.

So if you look at the overall "Crime Index" on the link, New York has the lowest overall crime index of any large city, while Seattle has among the highest crime indexes. 

I've been able to go to Seattle once or twice a year in each of the last seven or eight years.  There is a creeping Giulianization.  This time, in particular, I was struck by the developments downtown built around national chains (Rock bottom brewery, and that mall with the Sharper image etc).  Each time I go, the city seems a bit more corporate and a bit less bohemian.  Or, I'm just getting old....

The rates of other personal crimes - forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault - are about the same.  And Seattle has much, MUCH higher rates of property crimes: burglary, larceny-theft motor vehicle theft.

Moron. By that standard, Seattle would be more dangerous than Detroit or Washington. An intelligent person would question the metric he/she was using instead of questioning the post.

Everybody knows that non-murder crime rates aren't comparable across cities because they're so heavily influenced by differences in how the crimes are reported. The only statistic that's worth comparing is murder, because in those cases there's always either a body or there isn't.

You think the CD is a "ghetto"? I mean, yeah, black people live there. But have you ever lived or visited Compton? South Chicago? North Philly? the South Bronx? Newark? Camden, NJ? Large parts of Detroit or Washington DC? The list goes on.
The CD is not a "ghetto" by any means, compared to those places, if by ghetto a neighborhood with a high minority population that is very poor. The

the smoking ban isn't just a Seattle thing--it's a statewide ban.  It passed in every county and by higher margins in Spokane and San Juan counties than Seattle.

well, except for Pioneer Square on the weekends.  but then again, the dangerous people there usually aren't from Seattle.

Howdy, neighbor!
Sorry, but we'll have to agree to disagree on the CD's status as a ghetto: high rates of poverty, crime, run-down housing, etc. I've lived in pretty gritty parts of Chicago (yes, the South Side), so I know whereof I speak. 
Indeed, one of the hallmarks of ghetto-hood is the retail. Going to my "ghetto" bank branch, you see the long lines because of the understaffing, etc. (It's the "ghetto tax" of time required to go about one's daily business.) If I go to the "white" branch near my job in the North End, there's never, ever a line; the shiny happy people behind the counter are always ready to lend a helping hand. And don't get me started on the wildly overpriced Z-grade produce at the Red Apple on Jackson! Anyway, all these are just the classic signs of underinvestment in ghettos all across America. 

It occurs to me that perhaps Herr Jonah was talking about Broadway and not downtown (did he stop in R Place for a drink?), but even the occasional gaggles of street kids and verbose drunks are hardly the stuff of tragic blight, and they certainly don't seem to have done a number on property values on the hill. I really do wonder where he was talking about though, and what he was doing there, because in my time living there I never once came across a transvestite prostitute.

I've been mugged before, but it was in Columbus, Ohio. I've also been accosted several times in Philadelphia - although not physically beaten up. I've never even felt close to having that happen in Seattle, whereas in Philly and Columbus, I've felt nervous on a number of occasions: besides the actual incidents I mention.
I guess my point is is that living in an urban area simply increases the risk of something like this happening. Its a risk one takes because one likes the other beneifts. I don't mean to diminish what happened to you, but I'm quite aware of the risks myself - as my history suggests.
I think you are being slightly hyperbolic about the level of violence in Seattle. I go to the Pine/Olive area quite frequently, and one simply does not get a nervous feeling there. Its not like going into some parts of North or West Philly, where half the buildings on a block are abandoned, large factories sit abandoned, et al, the only people in the street are gangs of youth, et al.. In other words, there are eyes on the street, a liveliness of street life, a living, functioning community which does much to cut down on the potential danger. 
As to homelessness/drug addiction, I agree these are problems - not the least for those stuck in this situation - but "civility laws" don't solve the problem, which has deep structural causes. Frankly, a certain degree of this kind of thing is going to exist in any society. "Civility laws" are primarily intended to make cities seem safe for middle class people. They just push the problem elsewhere, they don't eliminate it.

I agree with you that there is a degree of underinvestment in Rainier Valley and the CD. But this is very much RELATIVE underinvestment. At least there are a fair number of banks, supermarkets, et al.
In fact, I go to that strip mall complex on Jackson and 23rd fairly frequently. There is a Starbucks, a Taco Del Mar, that Red Apple, a Hollywood video, a new pizza place, etc.. I can think of nowhere that new and well-provisioned in the worst parts of Philadelphia, like at around Ridge and 24th, Leigh and 20th, etc..
My point being is that the worse parts of many other American ciities are considerably worse than the supposedly bad parts of Seattle.

OK, I guess were reaching closer to an understanding. I've haven't lived in Rainier Valley or Yesler Terrace.
I think there is perhaps a bit of smug satisfaction in certain quarters about social relations in Seattle, but frankly, if you look at the history of race relations in this city, they do compare favorably to virtually any other major city in America. Granted, I think this has to do with numbers, certainly. But I'd also suggest (if you haven't) reading some of the stuff that Horace Cayton wrote about Seattle (father of the Cayton who wrote the sociology classic about Chicago, "Black Metropolis") about the (again) RELATIVE degree of opportunity for blacks that existed in Seattle. Also, for a very good history of minority Seattle, I'd recommend Quintard Taylor's "Forging a Black Community," which provides quite a lot about the city's various Asian minorities as well.
Ben P

I went to Seattle on my honeymoon.  Nothing says romance like the smell of urine in the street.  Belittle tourism all you want, Seattle is gross.  And it's such a shame and contradiction from the good they are accomplishing in the way of power generation and the use of alternative energy sources.  Clean power for a city with filthy character.

Vancouver and Victoria, BC were far and away more enjoyable cities to visit.

What I find funny about Goldberg's post (and maybe Matt can't pick up on this) is the New Yorker's conceit that the rest of the country is trailing NYC's political development -- if your city haven't cracked down on the homeless, it's just because it hasn't had its Giuliani moment yet.  As a Denverite I could just as easily say New York racial politics are mired in a pre- Peña phase, and I would sound just as ridiculous as Goldberg does imposing his NYC construct on Seattle.

The degree of knee-jerking in the comments on this website is truly amazing.  While your comment is by no means the worst of the bunch, you’re typical enough.
 
Jonah says “there's a lot to like about this town.”  You snort, “the idea that it is a gross city is simply laughable.”  Calm yourself, bud.  He said he likes Seattle.
 
Jonah says, “I'm always amazed at how pre-Giuliani so much of the downtown is.”  He cites some examples “all near Pike's.”  You snort, “We have homeless people and they tend to congregate near Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square (and Belltown, to a certain extent, as well as Capitol Hill).  These places are the ‘urban’ part of Seattle.”  Calm yourself, bud.  He said there’s a lot of scummyness “downtown,” "near Pike's."  You said the scummyness is “downtown, near Pike Place Market.”  No real difference.
 
You say “people like Jonah hate to be confronted with the fact that there are many "have-nots" in our society, and it bugs them that they can't ignore away the problem.”  Evidence, please?
 
To your credit, unlike many commenters you didn't criticize Jonah for saying that “Giulianism was based on the idea that cleaning up these kind of ‘quality of life’ issues is essential to controlling violent crime.”  He may or may not believe that.  I don’t know.  But he certainly didn’t say it in the paragraph MY quoted.

I agree with Matthew both that the contribution of Giuliani's policy is way overstated and yet that the approach can have value. For the first, of course there are too many other factors that reduced crime in so many other places. You know the list, so I can make it brief and no doubt incomplete: economic gains (ouch, that liberal root cause thing), generational demographics (fewer young males), burgeoning prison populations (fewer of them on the street), self-inflicted end of the crack boom, more efficient policing in the data-driven age, and a quite different shift in policy I'll come back to in a sec. (I'm dubious about the abortion theory, which seems to me to me (a) unneeded, (b) way lacking in clear data, and (c) remote anyhow in the connection it requires.)  

Besides, I think Malcolmn Gladwell always gets too much credit himself, for glib analyses like his promoting Giuliani's policy as the answer. His argument here and in other "tipping point" examples seems to be that because so many factors have been put forth, none can be true, so we must find the missing key. That'd be like supporting ID because organisms face too many obstacles to survival and procreation, so we had best ignore those.

For the second, I might place the contribution differently. While the appeal of setting standards, especially moral standards, always has appeal to the right, I bet the contribution is simple: the policy gets more police out of cars, onto the street, visible, and interacting with people. It's not alone in doing so. It extends a major shift in approach begun under a police commissioner appointed by Giuliani's predecessor, and it reversed the approach under Koch, who got away with a lot by talking tough, the usual conservative approach to reality. So I give Giuliani some credit, but put it as him and the right against us wimply liberals, and it's all wrong.

oops, correction:

the no-pay mob and nepotism jobs

should read:

the no-show mob and nepotism jobs

As long as I'm here, I might as well sum it up by saying: the difference between NYC of the 80's like night and day. Every day I marvel at the miraculous transformation, I really do.

I am very very grateful for the way NYC is today: the safest big city in the world. It is now much safer for my relatives in the Midwest to walk around NYC at night than to drive their car to the mall at home. I'm a big fan of authentic 'old New York' and not a big fan of gentrification, but the 80's, they were definitely not it. The safety, the lack of fear that people now have, that's definitely worth a little 'gentrification.'

I like having flowers instead of burn out cars and piles of trash and old refrigerators on the highway. Sorry, I just do. I also like stuff like a Central Park that's not a death trap of roving gangs of teenage thugs picturesquely decorated with bald dirt and litter, and gays being raped by other gays under the bridges.  Remember reading about 'wilding' when you were a kid? It wasn't real cute.

Crime was in charge, crime was in charge.

Guiliani got the ball rolling. You had to have a change in parties, and you needed someone with a dictatorial edge. There was no other way out. Koch was a good guy who lost control of the machine, and Dinkins, hah, a pitiful weakling that they walked all over.

"Koch was a good guy who lost control of the machine, and Dinkins, hah, a pitiful weakling that they walked all over." I'm not going to repeat my post, but that's simply wrong. Or rather, Dinkins made a lousy leader, but Koch had no response to crime and Dinkins had one, which Giuliani picked up.

Artappraiser is right that the 1980s weren't just annoying but also less safe (although I still remember fondly much of New York's cultural vitality, not to mention the illegal loft in which I lived, without using that to excuse anything). In fact, maybe he should check his dates. In leaping from there to his conclusion, he seems to have forgotten who held office. I know and admire his posts too well to believe he's fallen generally for the wingnut rewrite of the Reagan era nationally and globally, so I'm sorry he's fallen for the Koch-Giuliani myth in our own town.

I can narcissistically generalize as well as JG any ol' day:
Tourists are spoiled and self-centered, and whereever they go they want everything to be just like home.
Travelers are looking for experience and adventure, and welcome ambiguity.
JG's post proves that conservatives are tourists, liberals are travelers.

You haven't seen enough of Vancouver: just walk of east of dowtown, into the area between gastown and Pacific Place. I think East Van is actually "scarier" than any part of downtown Seattle.
Ben P

The really interesting thing about Goldberg's comment is his objection to those horrid "halfway houses" and "methadone clinics" existing in the city at all.  Much better, I suppose, to simply let the mentally ill and the junkies stagger around the city and die -- or, perhaps, to quietly sweep them up for tidy disposal elsewhere, possibly in a facility with "Work makes you free" emblazoned over the entrance.  In short, Goldberg has definite Marie Antoinette tendencies, which I presume he got from his grotesque mother.