LAME

Is this from The Belmont? Sorry, I'm nowhere near Seattle...but am anxious to see pics of the night if any exist.

Nevermind..just went to the flickr site and saw it was apparently the Pony. Too bad, I like a seedy bar every now and again. Was looking forward to visiting sometime.

the "offered without comment" bit is getting way overused on slog.

...

Don't worry cunei4m you didn't miss anything. It was just a bunch of uninspired kids doing uninspired things in a derelect building that was destroyed years before the kids ever got to it.

For those that think people won't find another little hole in the wall to sell booze out of just don't know people. These holes are lost, others will be found. Fear Not!

AND we all know how much "people" need holes in the wall to drink out of. Whith out them "people" will never be cool.

"fuck market rate apartments" just isn't as catchy.

Neither does "fuck the creation of a higher economic base to support the lower economic base"

BOOHOO

"FUCK THE MARKET THAT MAKES ALL OF THIS AVAILABLE!!"

what is an out comment? ("without" is a single word, kids)

True story: every time an apartment building is converted to condos, God kills a kitten.

True story: Greg has a job that wouldn't exist if the type of people who are buying these condos went away.

11: It's called a typo. Oh, and sentences start with capital letters, kid.

Hey LAME, (appropriate name, by the way), bravo to you for defending the trickle-down theory of economics. I'm sure George W Bush would be very proud. So if you are so opposed to condo conversion, exactly what are your ideas to prevent the middle class from being priced out of this city? Unless for some reason you actually want the middle class to have to commute to our jobs from Yakima and Seattle goes the way of San Francisco and becomes a place for the very rich (the only ones who can afford the astronomical housing costs) or the very poor (who receive Section 8 vouchers and the like for the city's roach motels). Please offer some positive suggestions.

Just noticed a major boo-boo in my post at @15. My question to LAME and others who share his/her opinion should read "If you are so in favor of condo conversion...", not "If you are so opposed...". My sincere apologies for my temporary lapse into illiteracy.

I am still interested in some constructive thoughts on how to keep housing affordable in Seattle. The market certainly isn't going to do it. And the forced flight to suburbia of the middle class will cause more sprawl, traffic, greenhouse gas emissions caused by longer commutes, and a host of other problems. Ideas?

RainMan: I am just responding to the knee jerk response I see in the photgraph above and that I witnessed last night in The Belmont.
This is in response to the "uninspired" response you have given me: The trickle down theory is not just a right-wing concept. It actually has its roots in socialist theory. For it to work it takes social and governmental responsibility. Something most people are not willing to invest in.

Fuck whiny bitches that scrawl anonymous messages in ugly fonts in public places.

Sorry, RainMan, if my reponses are choppy, but I am working this saturday morning.
What should I or we do?
How much money do you make a year? How much do you need to live? Give the rest to Plymouth Housing, HRG or some other low income housing provider.

Everything is stupid. All of it and everybody: dumb.

@1,5,7,9,13, 17 &19: So people who own condos keep the economy going, but renters don't? Trickle down economics is socialist? But then, what do you know about "work" or economics if your job allows you the leisure to blog all morning long?

TEAR THAT SCHIT DOWN!

the only way anyone is ever going to be able to afford a place to live in this town is if they can live close to where they work and play. that means that bars get torn down. they're not an endangered species. bars will survive.

...without comment of course.

Where the hell did all these right wing developer lovers come from??? And the the FUCK are they commenting on Slog???

Part of me hopes they sell all those condos to "hip" 20-30 somethings from Bellevue and Renton and they go out on a Saturday night only to find all the clubs they were promised for Cap Hill's night life are all gone.

@19: LAME, thank you for responding. I am not sure who you are quoting when you put the word "uninspired" in quotation marks in #17. I certainly never claimed my response was an inspiration. A light bulb did not suddenly go off over my head when I saw the photo. The question of affordable housing is one that many of us have been asking for quite a while.

You suggest I donate to Plymouth Housing or some other worthy organization. Fine. As a matter of fact I do donate to a similar organization in Seattle and one back east where I used to live. I trust, also, that since you are offering me this advice it is something that you yourself also practice. But donating to charitable groups, as wonderful as these are, are not in itself the answer. Most of these organizations are aimed at those at the very bottom of the financial spectrum. They help individuals find housing, employment, addiction treatment or whatever they need to reenter society as healthy and productive citizens. And that's great. But these organizations do not address the problem of mentally healthy, law abiding, able bodied people who work full time being priced out of the city by soaring housing costs and condo conversions. For a good book on the subject of full time working people having trouble making ends meet (admittedly at low income jobs including Wal-Mart employee) I would recommend Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.

I fully realize that developers and landlords want to make money on their investments. I don't have a problem with that and doubt very much that most people do. Unfortunately they do not appear to have much incentive, either in the form of a carrot or a stick, for them to build or develop their properties into anything other than places aimed at the top end market. Could they possibly work with government officials, renters rights organizations, low income advocacy groups, charitable organizations like Plymouth and other interested parties to come up with a solution that everyone can live with? One that provides safe and affordable places to live for lower and middle income workers while allowing developers to make a reasonable profit? What has worked in other cities? Has anything worked in other cities? I will admit I am not an expert in this field. That's why I threw out the question for discussion. But this is a structural problem, not one that will be solved by encouraging the financially well off to just simply give more money to shelters and soup kitchens.

Seattle is becoming more like New York and that is a good thing. Cities change and grow so that new exiting restaurants, night clubs and artist lofts can be built. I'd like to see Seattle more like Portland's Pearl district. We need a Whole Foods on Capital Hill.

Lame is lame. Trickle down economics is exactly the same BS in the Nickels era as it was during the Reagan era.

@25 - you can walk for miles in lower Manhattan and never see a new building, so your "point" is way off point.