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yeahbutiguess

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I have. I've lived here for nearly 40 years. I've been active in politics here and I've experience with both the data and the anecdotes.

Seattle has less crime then it did 40, 30, and 20 years ago. The past three years were exceptional and the report does indicate increased rates of violent crime.

But we had a global pandemic, a contentious election, a spotlight on police brutality, etc.

I guess you can make the call, whether you think that's a trend or an anomaly, but when I look at the data I see us having a crime rate half of what it used to be, with an uptick in the most unusual years in a generation.

The goal is simple - individual discrimination and systemic discrimination are fundamentally different things.

And systemic discrimination is what has been used to oppress minorities in the US for as long as the US has existed.

Indeed, I believe the opposite position (that all discrimination against all people based on race is racism) is the underhanded approach, as it waters down the concerns around systemic discrimination by emphasizing the individual discrimination over the systemic discrimination.

Discrimination against someone based on race is wrong. Full stop.

But it's critical we understand that what Black people in America face isn't just a few individuals with backwards ideas. It's fundamentally and categorically different than a few people hating me because I'm white.

Seattle is doing tons of stuff. They recently upzoned a huge amount of the city, approved ranked choice voting, approved social housing, expanded rail, fixed a major bridge failure before it failed, and plenty more.

Crime rates are down, the city has grown astronomically, etc.

I've lived here almost 40 years. In the past 15 years homelessness has risen by 50% but so has population. Rent has doubled, but crime is falling.

In fact, we're seeing record low property and violent crime rates. The last couple years have seen some uptick from the record lows of the 2010s, but Seattle is much safer than it was at basically any time in it's past.

The statistics just don't back up your story.

I've lived in Seattle for almost 40 years. The homeless issue is not really unique to our city, and there's a hugely complex systemic set of issues causing it. (Not least of which is the incredibly high median income driving up home prices, due in part to tech immigration).

The city council has been trying to fix the issue, but had been stalled by the mayor, stalled by other cities in the region, and stalled in how they can build systemic fixes.

Eastside also buses homeless folks out (or at least used to). They very much care about the facade of cleanliness on the Eastside but not about people nearly as much.

And yeah, agree with you and the parent poster - the issue isn't unique to Seattle, local areas aren't doing enough, and housing has not met demand.

Workers, maybe it's time we started collectively pushing back?

I don't care if it's unions, or work stoppages, or guilds, or industrial action, or what.

But they've been squeezing workers too hard.

Both can be true. Just because one is worse does not make the other ok.

A worse situation does not trivialize a bad situation.