Seattle.
For most people - it's a temporary city. You graduate with a degree in business, CS, or engineering and come to the PNW with a lucrative offer from Amazon, Microsoft, or Boeing. You get an apartment in some modernist apartment building named “Mod” or “7even” with a cafe on the ground floor that brags about its signature lavender oat milk latte. Or, better yet, you live in Bellevue, Shoreline, or West Seattle but still have “Seattle” in your instagram bio.
When friends of mine get job offers in Seattle they turn to me to ask whether or not they’d like it - what I think of Seattle. It’s a hard question to answer. What I think of Seattle is not relevant to them. I am only 20 years old but I have seen my city change into something I barely recognize. They would like Seattle. I tell them as much. But, they will see a curated version of the city that - while true to them - is far from representative of the whole city.
The corporations that have dominated our city make me think of cleanliness and structure. Even their buildings look like something from a 1960s space movie.
I learned to swim in the pitch black, freezing cold, fish-scented waters of puget sound. My brother and I found discarded hypodermic needles in our local park. On car rides to school Graffitied walls acted as living mosaics with a new artist contributing their input every few days. Seattle wasn’t pretty. Seattle wasn’t clean. Seattle wasn’t structured. Seattle was home.
Sometimes I feel like Seattle is gone. But, every time I leave I find myself missing the things about the city that have stayed the same.
The coffee scene. I’ve been drinking coffee since I was eight years old (decaf back then). My family has been going to the same roastery my whole life. While Zeus and Gimme can make a perfectly fine cup they cannot copy that feeling of nostalgia I get when I sip my Americano from LightHouse Roasters.
The Pike Place Market. In a downtown that seems to transform like it's in a stop motion video one area remains the same. The market where my grandfather picked up groceries after work in his 20s still stands. I go there to get the freshest fish, sweetest honey, and smoothest Greek yogurt from the vendors that have known me since I had to stand on my toes to order.
The privacy. People call it the “Seattle freeze”. It is supposably impossible to meet people in Seattle because we are all so rude. We are not rude. We are private. Seattle is a city of introverts. The people of my grandparents generation who came out west did so because they could not fit in elsewhere. If they settled in a city it’s because they love people. They love watching people, listening to people, being surrounded by people, all while maintaining a sense of anonymity. Strangers don’t spark up conversations in Seattle. They don’t smile at each other. They just observe. We understand each other. When I am at Cornell or even in other cities I find myself having to be “on” all the time. It is exhausting.
The corporations that came in can and have transformed Seattle. But, Seattle is still Seattle. The question now is: how do we move forward? The surrounding environment leaves Seattle with little space to grow but up. Most of the city is zoned for single family homes. The influx of people and lack of space has shot housing prices up. Racial inequities once maintained through covenants are now maintained through prices. Wealth inequities in Seattle are grossly visual. The glorious new construction of tech giants sits within meters of tent cities. While it can feel queasy to watch my city change I certainly do not want it to stay the same. I do not know what the ‘right’ decision is - nor does my perspective represent the interests of all of Seattle’s residents.
For many, Seattle is a temporary blip - a photo folder on their phone documenting ages 25-32. For me and many others, it is home. These changes to the built environment are permanent. Corporations exist in our city. They do not define our city. The people do.
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