This is a cute statement, but our video is going to have much more impact, at least one hopes - see my comments for Josh's post about a happy fascist future below.

clever

What, did he announce he's supporting No on RTID/ST2 as well?

Watch out for a hit from the other family ...

Ahh...the posterboy for gentrification.

Gentrification is killing Capitol Hill. I would move to South Park, but I don't want children born with flippers.

Nice concept, except that it looks like it says Cohdofather. B-

What was it Lucy from Peanuts would say?

"Nickels, nickels, nickels. How I love the sound of cold hard cash!"

Cute. But. Being out in Philly right now, I have to say that Seattle's corruption issues seem utterly polite and dull.

I'm not sure what the point of that poster is, but Nickels does not force people to move to Seattle and offer high bids for desirable property in the urban core. That's bigger than the mayor. The best he can do is to give more people the change to make that choice (as opposed to being forced into the burbs) by permitting dense growth. That means new condos and apartments.

The alternative is a stagnant city with an established base of longtime, single-family homeowners and an exodus of their children and the working class as home values soar (sound familiar?). Nickels is trying to turn the ship of state off this course. I want to afford to buy here in my home town some day, so I support him on that.

Will -
No such luck. Nickels is strongly supportive of the Roads & Transit measure.

Sims is on his own on this. Too bad Sims has contradicted his own track record. I'm still trying to figure out what is his FOR if he is against light rail, he is against replacing bridges that are his responsibility to have a plan for to replace.

Kudos to the Mayor for standing up with the Gov and Patty Murray on the RTID.

@8 The problem is not density, the problem is a lack of housing for low to middle income families. If I wanted to be surrounded by white affluent people I would have moved to Issaquah. Condos are great, but not if the all cost 400,000+.

Your telling me the mayor has nothing to do do with this problem?

I still am confused by some seattlites hatin' on Condos. Do we want sprawl? Do we want Bellevue to be growing to the top or Rainier? What is wrong with people living downtown or in urban neighborhoods? I actually like walking on a city street with others...jeez.

Nobody hates the Condos, we hate that we have to fucking move out of the neighborhoods we love because we can't afford to live in our apartments when they are converted into condos.

Pay attention.

Give him time, he'll see the light.

give us apartments, or give us condos with upper, middle and lower income units. but don't take and not give....

ME WANT MEATBALLL SANDWICH!!!

What really makes me laugh is that must be a pretty old picture....

The condos of today are the apartments of the future. More housing supply is a good thing. It sucks if you're one of the people ousted during a condo conversion, but in the long run this will help build affordable housing. With the housing market in the process of turning south, a future of large scale condo to apartment conversions is probably not far off.

It would be nice if developers were encouraged to build larger developments but retain a certain number of units as apartments and lower-cost condos. That way, the upscale condos could be additional and not simply displace existing residents. That would help blunt the short-term damage from conversions.

@16:

Looks to me like it was lifted from The Strangers "Mayor Gridlock" cover...

@17 - the apartments of the future will be 100-story inexpensive residential rental apartment buildings. With mini-parks all around.

Will,

How many 100 story residential buildings exist worldwide right now - like two? New mantra, please.

Cascadian @ 17 - I don't give a flying fuck if the luxury condos of today may be affordable in 20-30 years - we are experiencing a major exodus of lower middle and working class people from this City RIGHT NOW - and the Mayor's policies (which actively subsidize and encourage the demolition of existing housing - and render the term "free market" meaningless) are accelerating and exacerbating the process.

Mr. X, it's not going to be 20-30. More like 5-10 at most, with the tide beginning to turn soon. The Seattle housing boom is pretty much over and it's only a matter of time before that hits the condo market.

You'll note that I said something should be done in the short term to deal with condo-conversion problems. Still, the long-term isn't that far off, and building condos is better than not building anything at all.

Tell that to the nearly 30% or so of Seattle's population who have moved out of the City since 1995.

And, I will repeat, if you tear down what's left of the $450-800/month apartments (and most of the people I know pay about that amount, including a new employee where I work who just moved into a $450/month studio in the CD) - they're gone forever. Those condos will rent for three times that much even if the market takes a nose dive - and that's in 5-10 years at best.

Tearing down all of the stuff at the bottom end of the market drives prices up, period.

Mr X hit the nail on the head.

And as someone who is actively house hunting, I can tell you right now the seattle market is not going to cool down anytime soon. Seattle has the hottest economy in the nation. Notice all those cranes?

About that 30% number: First, can you cite your source? How does that compare to the average out-migration in a decade? How many of those 30% were temporary locals attracted by the dotcom boom who left during the bust, or Boeing workers hit by the previous rounds of layoffs?

Anecdotally, it seems as if some low and middle-income people are leaving the city, but the evidence that it's condos forcing them out seems thin. It would be good to have some hard facts in what is largely an emotional debate.

The August NWMLS report on the local real estate market (September's report is coming soon):

http://www.nwmls.com/discover/nwreporter.cfm?SectionListsID=25&PageID=3962

Summarizing: "inventory continuing to grow, fewer homes selling and prices increasing compared to the same month a year ago." Rising inventories and fewer sales are leading indicators of an end to a boom. Prices are last to react. We're very close to the top of the cycle.

In King County (http://www.nwmls.com/discover/library/statistics/getRpt.cfm?obj=recaps/Recap2007/Aug07KCbreakouts), sales are down 23% between August 2006 and August 2007. Seattle's the best local market, but sales in the city are still down 17% comparing those same months.

Rotten666, your best bet is to wait for a few months. Supply should consider to increase, sellers will begin to get nervous, and you'll have much more leverage as a buyer to get the house you want for a price you can afford. That also protects you from the small but real chance that prices will take a huge drop rather than simply stall, leaving you holding a mortgage worth more than your house. Paying a few months more rent is not going to kill you.

sure it's sad that condos displace residents but good lord, the people against condo conversion sound like a bunch of ineffective whiners.

You're right, JBlue. He is much more corpulent now. But Hizzhonor's porcine appearance is not the point. The point is that the Mayor and his developer cronies won't be content until all of downtown Seattle is completely Manhattanized, minus real Manhattan-style amenities such as Central Park. It wouldn't surprise me if Greg Nickels were to propose selling off the few, far between and dinky parks that do exist downtown to pave the way for even more condos.