What were we concerned about 15 years ago this week? Kool Keith. Also: Seattle City Council candidates and what they were saying about the pressing issue of growth in Seattle. An article exploring the candidates' positions on the matter, by Alex Steffen, began this way:

GROWTH IS HARDLY a forgotten issue this campaign year. The city council candidates, in fact, can't stop yammering about growth and related problems like traffic and rising housing prices. Unfortunately they aren't too clear on solutions.

Growth is kicking our ass. King County's population is expected to grow by almost 300,000 in the next 12 years. Growth is pushing rents up, crowding neighborhoods, and gridlocking traffic. Meanwhile, sprawl continues to chew up farms and forests all around us, and gentrification drives the poor out of Seattle.

We have only one rational choice for dealing with growth, and that's to become—very quickly—a denser, less car-dependent city. Are the candidates—despite all their talk about "finding transportation solutions" and "preserving affordable housing"—just exploiting voters' concerns about growth without tackling the thorny politics of growth management?