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OK, I'll agree with your now-qualified and nuanced statement, which started out as a much broader "there is no ghetto in Seattle."
But I have to tell you that in my (admittedly subjective) experience, crime here is in many ways a lot closer to people like me (white, over-educated, middle class) than I've ever experienced. I mean, I have relatives who moved into "lower" Mt Baker/Rainier Valley 10 years ago and heard guns going off nearly every night for years after they moved in. Another friend lives a few blocks from me on Yesler and was literally on the floor evading gunshots coming in through her living room window and frantically dialing 911. These are things that neither I nor anyone I know had ever experienced either in Chicago or NYC.
Yet Seattle is allegedly this peaceful place that "has no ghetto." Sorry, I just don't buy the general image Seattle seems to have of itself as (relatively) racially harmonious, enlightened, progressive, whatever. I mean, for starters, you've got the demographics: of course Seattle doesn't have vast swathes of urban blight -- it's kind of hard to have a massive black underclass when the population is only six percent black!

Posted at November 28, 2005 9:50 PM in response to Seattle and Quality of Life
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.

Posted at November 28, 2005 7:30 PM in response to Seattle and Quality of Life
Ben P wrote, "I don't feel unsafe anywhere in Seattle. I do feel unsafe in large parts of cities liek New York, Chicago, and Philly. There is no "ghetto" in Seattle or areas of obvious, acute poverty - although poverty certainly exists."</span&gt
</span&gtSince moving here a few years ago, I've heard a fair number of Seattleites say that this city has no "ghetto." (Or, actually, they won't use that word at all because apparently it's politically incorrect -- I've been reprimanded twice lately for using that word in a purely descriptive sense.) But the Central District is very much a ghetto. I know because I live at the edge of it. Seattleites, especially those who live in the North End, are just in denial about its existence.</span&gt

Posted at November 28, 2005 6:01 PM in response to Seattle and Quality of Life
"Keep in mind that these poor policy outcomes aren't really mistakes or the much-cited 'incompetence.' It's malice."</span&gt
</span&gtWell, if it's malice, then shouldn't the title of your post be "Domestic Policy by Evildoers"? I mean, nobody would accuse Karl Rove or Dick Cheney of being an idiot. They're bad people, nasty people of ill intent. Morally bankrupt. Whatever. </span&gt
</span&gtI mean, really Matt: it's as though you're some liberal in thrall to moral relativism with this reluctance to call evil what it is. </span&gt
</span&gt(Tongue in cheek here!)</span&gt

Posted at November 13, 2005 5:00 PM in response to Domestic Policy By Idiots
Mr. Baer: Your portrayal of the current political landscape is quite bizarre. You claim that there is a vocal group on the left who is angry, and that the establishment's silence magnifies the perceived power of that left. You then taunt the "left" by pointing out that they haven't won elections.
"The left" knows perfectly well that it holds no power. Indeed, this lack of power is what frustrates "the left" so much.
But I could just as easily throw your taunt back in your face: show me how following the establishment's split-the-difference, mealy-mouthed approach (the approach followed by the Democratic Party for a long, long time now) has been so good for Democrats. In fact, it's been disastrous for Democrats, and your inability to see this is the problem with you establishment types.
More than that, you persist in seeing this as a split between "the left" and "centrists." There may have been this ideological split back in the late 80s and early 90s, but it has evaporated since then. Solid majorities in this country want to withdraw from Iraq and believe that the administration lied its way into war. Are they all "the left"? Chuck Hagel is the Senate's most vociferous critic of the administration. Would you call him part of "the left"?
In fact, the split is not between "the left" and "centrists." It's between the vast majority of voting Democrats and the clueless, out of touch leaders of their party.

Posted at August 22, 2005 9:24 AM in response to Democrats Battling Over Iraq? Stop the Presses!
<mash note>Matt, can we just put you in charge of the Democratic Party? Sigh.</mash note>

Posted at July 18, 2005 10:37 PM in response to A Public Philosophy or a Foreign Policy?
Matt: While it is "futile" to call for Rove's firing, in the sense that such calls are likely not to bring about termination, it is not politically futile to call for such action. Lots of Dems (and, one would hope, a few of the non-partisan or center-right punditocracy) demanding that Rove to be fired serves to shame Bush and underscores the argument that Bush et al., are a bunch of corrupt liars.

Posted at July 17, 2005 10:47 AM in response to Confirm This
MisterFoo: The delusion under which you and Curry seem to be operating is that "we" (as you say, our proxies in DC, the Democratic Party establishment) have any power whatsoever to "work toward" a less evil world. What exactly are "we" supposed to do on those issues you listed? Sit around and suck "our" thumbs harder than "we" did in the run-up to the Iraq war?
I mean, seriously, the only way to reduce evil in the world right now is to reduce the power of the Bush administration. The best way to do that is to get the American public to realize that the Bushies are a bunch of corrupt, law-breaking, liars who happily sell out our national security in order to maintain their grip on power.

Posted at July 15, 2005 2:19 PM in response to What's Wrong With These People?
You mean, the Democratic leadership is full of a bunch of sniveling, spineless, clueless idiots who a) don't recognize the evil in front of them, and b) wouldn't have the balls to stand up to that evil even if they did? Wow, what a surprise!
Thomas Frank, in one of his post-election commentaries, noted that the contrast between the Republican and Dem conventions last year was remarkable: the Republicans were still acting like the underdogs: aggrieved, railing against the powerful liberal elites, etc. While the Dems looked fat and restrained and entrenched in their power (even though they had none). 4
Oh, and I have to say it's amazingly instructive to get glimpses into the actual thinking of these idiotic Dem insiders when they post on blogs. See last night's truly <A HREF="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/mike-mcc
urry/a-little-sympathy-for-sco_4171.html">amazing contribution from Mike Curry</A>, Clinton's version of Scottie McClellan. At a time when the entire Senate Dem contingent is on record as saying Rove's security clearance should be revoked, at a time when the mainstream media seems finally to be waking up to the evil that is Rove, Mr. Curry chimes in with a big shrug: he can't see that anything "consequential" happened with Karl's leak.
What's wrong with these people, indeed!

Posted at July 15, 2005 7:56 AM in response to What's Wrong With These People?
Hey, biztheclown: I am a big fan of Chicago, but I left there 2.5 years ago, and I understand that Daley has really gone power mad since then. So my impressions of Chicago's corruption are much more benign than what's going on now. No doubt Soldier Field is a bad, bad thing (it hadn't been finished by the time I left). But Millennium Park's excess budget was paid for largely with private cash, no? Maybe I heard wrong.
I know nothing about the weird tollway privatization scheme, so I can't comment on that, but I have to take issue with your characterization of "huge swathes of the city are crumbled." I lived there for 20 years, and let me tell you: the city looks simply stunning compared to how it used to look,and I'm not just talking about Michigan AVe. Yes, more beautification dollars went to high-profile neighborhoods, but a fair chunk went to virtually every neighborhood in the city. Compared to how it was, the town is looking sweet.

Posted at July 14, 2005 12:56 PM in response to The Case for Corruption