One of the more common complaints I hear is that Seattle is growing too much and too fast; too many people moving here, the growth is unsustainable; the cost of living is out of control from so many high-paid new employees (e.g. Amazon) and a litany of other related things. Without getting into whether or not these views are accurate or the goals are good or bad -- I *really* dont want to debate that AGAIN -- how could you really legally stop growth under state, county or city laws? Say the anti-growth people or restricted growth people, broadly defined, actually got a majority of the City Council and the Mayors office in an election: #1. How could you actually limit the ability of businesses to move to Seattle? #2. How could you actually limit the ability of businesses to add more employees to Seattle locations? #3. How could you actually limit the ability of Seattle businesses to pay higher wages to employees, to keep the cost of living from escalating? #4. How could you stop builders from building when zoning is already in place and many, many projects are already green lit legally? #5. How do you stop the cost of real estate and rentals from rising? Note: Rent control is illegal under state law and no one but extremely fringe political thinking says this will change any time soon. #6. How could you simply stop new people from moving here? If 1-6 arent your goals -- they seem to be, based on the constant complaints -- what are the explicit end-game goals and how would you actually enact their achievement? Any answers have to be compliant with the Constitution, Federal law, and state law. Im genuinely curious as to what solutions are proposed to these ends which are not pie-in-the-sky improbable or illegal. What remedies exist to reach the desired ends? Even if youre not in favor of these things, weigh in -- how COULD they legally be done? Im at a loss of figuring some of them out. Tagging some people who may be interested in the exercise, or their friends may. I spent a decent amount of time thinking about this while Vicodind out from my injury last week and almost posted this Sunday.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 19:01:25 +0000
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