As I’ve mentioned previously, my lack of posting in recent weeks has been due to a house move. My wife and I sold our 1950s style house in Maple Leaf and bought a larger and newer house in the outskirts of Renton. The primary motivations for the move were to get a home that better fit our growing family (my son just turned one) and to find a place that was quieter (for 6 years, we lived next to a rental property that had a number of late night gatherings). The latter issue became especially more difficult as the former issue became a reality. There’s nothing more infuriating than being woken up by a drunk college girl yelling “woooooooooo” outside your window at 2am when your baby is actually getting some sleep in.
We’re now nestled in a quiet cul-de-sac with a three car garage. No bus access, no ability to walk to the grocery store or the pizza place. Even with my wife so determined to leave the city behind, as the time approached, she began to think more and more about how hard it would be to let go of those niceties. Everything is a trade-off though, and you can’t go through life moping about the things you don’t have. You’ll never have everything, so it makes sense to just appreciate what you have. And despite all of the totally fucked up things I write about here – from war to corruption to our broken political culture – I don’t let that overwhelm the fact that a person in my shoes is luckier than most in this world.
That trade-off, between living in a dense walkable area and living in a spread out suburb, is one that sparks a lot of political judgments. I’ve never quite understood the passion behind those judgments. Urban vs. suburban living is a matter of personal choice. In the years previous, my desire to avoid having to drive to work outweighed just about all other factors in my choice of where to live. This time, other factors informed my choice and the outcome was completely different. As we did our house search, I became fascinated by the effect that the Growth Management Act had on the way we valued potential homes. While I don’t question the need for the GMA, it certainly made us more inclined to look at older homes with more of a yard. In the end, we still bought a house built after the GMA took effect, but we hardly looked at new construction at all, as most of them had hardly any yards at all.
The biggest change for me might also be the most politicized aspect of the trade-off. I’m now car-dependent again. Commuting across the 520 bridge to Microsoft in the early 2000s was my last straw then, and I now find myself with another notorious commute (although nowhere near as bad) – going from Renton to Bellevue. I recalled the old debates over roads and transit that occurred in years past, and I’ll soon recognize myself as someone who is the target of folks whose desire is to “get people out of their cars”, which I’d most likely do again – if there was a realistic alternative for me. But knowing that I’d end up in that boat had little effect on my valuation trade-off, and I’ve taken the bus for years. I’d imagine that few of my new neighbors would consider public transportation – even if it were available.
Other than that, I’m enjoying my new suburban paradise. I hooked up a toddler swing to the play area we inherited from the previous owners. I’ve baby-proofed my new kitchen cabinets and set up baby gates. And Sunday night, I watched from an upstairs window as what appeared to be bobcat sniffed our garbage. But I think the real fun starts when I start going door-to-door trying to get people to sign the I-1068 petition.
Man, you are carrying a lot of guilt with you. Sad isn’t it that you have a choice of where to live; better to be in Bucharest in 1980 or Havana today, and live in government dictated housing.
Mellow out, now you have more time to listen to balanced talk radio on KVI and KTTH.
Predictably, one of the resident ‘morans’ pulls the ‘liberals are communists and we true patriots must always drive that home with stupid ass examples’ cannard out of his ass on the first post.
Three car garage?? Damn, I’m jealous. You’ll be sick of the commute in a week, dude.
@1
Man, you are carrying a lot of guilt with you.
Excuse me? You might want to read this post again with your head not up your own ass.
Sad isn’t it that you have a choice of where to live
Not at all. Are you trying to make a point, or are you here to win Seattle’s stupidest citizen award?
better to be in Bucharest in 1980 or Havana today, and live in government dictated housing
Who’s saying that? Has anyone at this website ever said such a thing – or even implied it? If so, please provide a link. If not, why are you saying it? Are you mentally disabled? Is there something else wrong with you?
Mellow out, now you have more time to listen to balanced talk radio on KVI and KTTH.
Sorry, but my IQ is over 15, so I prefer to do more productive things with my time than to be an automaton who doesn’t think for himself.
LOL.
Fucking moron.
Slingshot; for a poster with incorrect spelling and poor grammar, its ironic you have the nerve to call others “morans” (sic).
“There’s nothing more infuriating than being woken up by a drunk college girl yelling “woooooooooo””
Of course, there are certain situations where a drunken college girl yelling “woooooooooo” outside your bedroom window wouldn’t be so, um, infuriating. But then, you’re married with child so I do see you’re coming from on this one.
@4
Oh, the irony.
LOL.
Fucking moron.
Congratulations on joining the world where the grown-ups raise their families.
The city might be fun when you are young and single…but is sure as hell isnt the place to raise children.
good on you Lee.
yeah, yeah. All you Seattle socialists hate the ideas of nice home w/ big yards. Better we all live in 8 story projects in Denny Regrade or along the new light rail line.
You can see poor Lee is guiltridden and apologetic. Renton? Wow, the dude is going to be in a mini van, w/ pampers, wife on the cell phone, soccer tournaments ad nauseum.
I love it.
@8….lol…so true.
Lee will be voting Republican in 2 years…:P
Lee, cut through the Renton Highlands by taking Duvall Rd in Renton Highlands which becomes Coal Creek Pkwy through Renton-Newcastle-Bellevue and get on 405 at Factoria.
Newcastle and Renton just completed the final section of the Coal Creek Pkwy widening project that now has 2 lanes in each direction. It used to be a parking lot from Sunset Blvd in Renton up until the other side of the May Creek bridge and was as bad as 405 itself that people took Coal Creek to avoid 405 in the first place, but now it moves great and there are no backups!
RE: taking the bus or light rail.
Lee, you will soon see how public transportation is worthless when you have to drive from work, to the kids soccer game(and with w 2 kids, 2 soccer games at two different parks), to the grocery store, and then finally home.
I see an SUV in your future…hahaha
Too bad chief dip**it Ron Sims decided to kill the rail line from Bellevue to Renton; you could have enjoyed reasonable commuter rail transportation.
Don’t you love having a torn up rail line that will be a hiking trail? Sitting on 405 when you could be on a good train?
Instead of the stupid SLUT, they could have kept the rail line, put some cheap and quick stations, and run trains.
Yeah, i know, too common sensical and not worthy of empire building.
@8
yeah, yeah. All you Seattle socialists hate the ideas of nice home w/ big yards.
Once again, read the post again with your head dislodged from your ass first.
Better we all live in 8 story projects in Denny Regrade or along the new light rail line.
For a large number of people, that’s certainly ideal. For others, it’s not. As someone who spent a lot of time in NYC as a young person, I’m well aware of the value of density and how much people will pay for it.
You can see poor Lee is guiltridden and apologetic. Renton? Wow, the dude is going to be in a mini van, w/ pampers, wife on the cell phone, soccer tournaments ad nauseum.
And I’ll love every second of it. My son and my family are more important than anything to me. A jackass like you could never understand that. That’s why people here laugh at you. Because you’re a fucking moron who has no clue what I’m about.
@7
Congratulations on joining the world where the grown-ups raise their families.
Incorrect, grown-ups raise families in the city, in the suburbs and in rural areas. There’s no one ideal for everyone. In fact, there’s more and better park space in the area of the city that we left than where we live now. And if you’re diligent, the best city schools are often better than the best suburban schools. We made a trade-off based on a number of factors, but we’re not stupid enough (and my finger is very clearly pointed at you) to think that this choice is the right choice for everyone.
The city might be fun when you are young and single…but is sure as hell isnt the place to raise children.
I couldn’t disagree more.
@9
Lee will be voting Republican in 2 years
How much money you want to put on that?
@10
I might try that as an alternative, but honestly, compared to the 520 bridge, the 405 traffic is nothing. I also work a very early work schedule (6:45-3:30), so I beat the traffic anyway.
there is no value in density. There is value in proximity to a center of commerce, and therefore econ 101 kicks in and people bid up what they’ll pay for the land, and thus then people have to scrimp on what they buy.
We may like density in that it theoretically limits fields turning into subdivisions, but it has no intrinsic value
@12….I wonder how much money moved under the table in Sims’ direction in that deal….the guy always was a slimeball….
@11
Lee, you will soon see how public transportation is worthless when you have to drive from work, to the kids soccer game(and with w 2 kids, 2 soccer games at two different parks), to the grocery store, and then finally home.
Again, completely incorrect, but it highlights how most people don’t understand the benefits of public transportation.
I realize that this is like trying to explain quantum physics to a squirrel, but I’ll see if you can comprehend this: When you build more public transportation and give people more options, even if you yourself don’t use the public transportation because you’re carting around children to various places on a tight schedule, you benefit from the fact that less people are using the roads and clogging up the traffic. That’s the whole point. Public transit benefits even the people who never use it. But like a lot of things that government does, it’s never quite understood that it does it.
I know its hard to admit lee, but deep down you know I’m right… :)
anyway, congrats on the new home…and keep the pot smoking in the garage…
I’m glad you’re enjoying your new digs.
@17
Absolutely incorrect. I’m actually travelling for business this week, and I’ve been working with two people who live (have lived) in Atlanta. The lack of density planning there has created a traffic nightmare of epic proportions. Not to mention that we’re almost forced to concern ourselves with density due to our rate of growth combined with geography.
You believe what you believe because you want to believe it. When you want to join the grown-ups and understand the complexities that we deal with in this world, then maybe you can step up to the plate here without being laughed at.
But you came here acting like a jackass, you got called on it, and I’m sitting in a hotel room in the midwest right now looking forward to making fun of you until I go to sleep.
Let’s play ball.
@20
I know its hard to admit lee, but deep down you know I’m right…
I know it’s hard to admit, but you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
@21
Thanks. I’m excited about it. I’ve already met some of my new neighbors and everyone seems awesome.
@23…keep talking smack..but your actions say otherwise…
then again you could have moved in next door to goldy and his ramshackle racoon infested out building in the rainier district….haha
@25
I realize that this is strange having to explain this to someone over the age of 4 (then again, I don’t know who you are), but just because a person makes a value judgment, it does not mean that that person think that differing value judgments made by other people are wrong.
That’s at the heart of how you’re making a thorough and complete ass of yourself in this comment thread.
But please don’t stop, we all like a good laugh.
Congrats on the new place. How long until part of that 3 car garage gets turned into your secret laboratory? I can hear the evil cackles already…
You’re just a short drive away from some really good rambling around at Cougar and Squawk mountains.
I’ve found that most older, first tier, suburbs are pretty bike friendly and make good places live. I’ve got everything I need within a 5 mile radius of my house.
@27
Congrats on the new place. How long until part of that 3 car garage gets turned into your secret laboratory? I can hear the evil cackles already…
Dude, I love the extra space, but my wife is also planning to set up her treadmill out there and make it a home gym. We’ve also got some lofted storage out there. All around great.
You’re just a short drive away from some really good rambling around at Cougar and Squawk mountains.
Looking forward to taking Z-man on some hikes when he gets older.
I’ve found that most older, first tier, suburbs are pretty bike friendly and make good places live. I’ve got everything I need within a 5 mile radius of my house.
Yeah, I’m not far from the nearest grocery store/drug store/shopping center area. It’s a drive, but it’s not bad.
Still waiting for you to read the econ book; density per se has zero value. Urban areas get dense because of supply and demand, or say on Redmond plateau, cuz of government carrot and stick.
again, density is an outcome, not a valuable resource.
Random off-topic side note here – I’m in Nebraska right now with the hotel TV on behind me. They have Larry the Cable Guy in their anti-drunk driving commercials. Awesome.
@29
Still waiting for you to read the econ book; density per se has zero value.
Incorrect. Density has value because it will allow you to build a cheaper transportation system. It also has value if it does a better job of protecting the environment.
there is no market for density per se. Gov’t wonks might claim it has value, ….which exchange can i buy some density ….
Its maybe an attribute, same as views or something. But it has no intrinsic value.
you should pull out Gideon or Book of Mormon instead of the cable porn.
“we hardly looked at new construction at all, as most of them had hardly any yards at all”
They’re also thrown together from crap materials. The 100-year-old houses probably are good for another 100 years; owners of the chipboard boxes they’re throwing up today will be lucky if they still have a structure 40 years from now.
@33…you can thank your fellow progressive enviro-nazis for that and their war against the logging industry…
@6 “Fucking moron.”
I’m pretty sure he’s a moran.
@8 “All you Seattle socialists hate the ideas of nice home w/ big yards”
Your mind’s all fucked up, kid. We all live in nice houses with big yards. You should already know that, you moran.
“There’s nothing more infuriating than being woken up by a drunk college girl yelling ‘woooooooooo’ outside your window at 2am when your baby is actually getting some sleep in.”
I’ve had my own run-ins with inconsiderate assholes who keep the whole neighborhood awake ’til 2 AM and then everyone has to stagger sleep-deprived through the next work day. This could literally cost someone their job if they screw up at work because the tenants next door kept them awake all night. But there’s not much you can do about it, except:
1) Drowning out their music and conversation by continuously operating an air raid siren until the party ends;
2) Setting off smoke bombs at the property line;
3) Calling the police repeatedly throughout the party;
4) Making the renters who hosted the party feel extremely unwelcome in the neighborhood, letting them know in no uncertain terms they’re persona non grata and you will make their lives a living hell until they move;
5) Having your attorney send a registered letter to the landlord threatening him with a lawsuit for maintaining a public nuisance on his property;
6) Ramming the tenants’ vehicles on your way out of your driveway;
7) Firing a few shots through their windows;
8) Letting your pit bulls run loose through their yard;
9) Throwing plastic bags full of dog shit into their yard;
10) Mowing your lawn under their bedroom windows while they’re trying to sleep off the party the next day;
11) Toilet papering their yard and vehicles; and, if nothing else works,
12) Calling in an airstrike on their position.
On the flipside, my son turned 12 today. We moved from Everett to Seattle, at first a condo up the street from the mosque in northgate. Everett is no place for me and my wife to raise a child, our choice.
Half a dozen years later the third and final chapter in family planning prompted us to leave the condo cube to a house with a yard, in North Seattle, our choice. The mass transit support near me is about what it is for Goldy in Renton. Unless you worked downtown you end up driving.
Fwiw, this is a chance to think about personal transportation choices. I have a SUV, 33 mpg, escape hybrid.
having a backyard means, for me, wanting to have parks that are more than just grass.
It is simply absurd to knowingly buy a condo to support “density” and then demand a fucking park because the cude dweller was too fucking cheap/stupid to buy a building/land combination that actually fits the way you want to live in a free country.
Good for you Goldy.
why do you guys always curse? is it the long bus ride home? or the library gets noisy around closing time?
you could make your same crazy points w/out the profanity;
@8 “Better we all live in 8 story projects in Denny Regrade or along the new light rail line.”
Hmm, must suck to be you, huh?
@1 You’re nothing but a weed, and we rabbits piss on you.
“Because you’re a fucking moron who has no clue what I’m about.”
That’s “moran”, Lee.
@8 I love owning the stocks of companies that sell electricity, natural gas, and gasoline to people like you.
@13 You’re whistling in the wind, Lee. Righton was born with his head so far up his ass he can lick the underside of his own tongue.
@32 “there is no market for density per se”
Well I agree with you, righton, and that’s why we need the GMA. Markets aren’t so great after all. We have market failures all around us, such as the huge whirlpools of plastic trash in our oceans, and a health insurance system that values profits above human lives. That’s why we need more, not less, government and people of your ideological persuasion should be quarantined to protect the rest of us from the social pathogens you spread around.
@32 “there is no market for density per se. Gov’t wonks might claim it has value, ….which exchange can i buy some density ….”
I love the way you use dots. That’s so cool! I see that you can find the shift key too. I had my doubts earlier. Now if you’d only learn when to use it you’d be just so fucking awesome!
Lee:
Are you one of those guys who wants everyone else to live in a “smart growth” ratmaze, except for yourself & your Family?
What if everyone had what you have?
We’d have endless sprawl, right?
I thought you were the kind of man who lived the convictions he preached? Guess not.
@8
I’m neither in Seattle or a socialist.
“you could make your same crazy points w/out the profanity”
Just a reminder, my little fucked up moran, the fucking shift key is on the fucking left side of the fucking keyboard.
@45….there goes Goebbels Rabbit with his gulags again…..
@34 Bullshit. There’s nothing left to log around here, because greed-driven capitalists cut down all the trees, as anyone who flies in and out of SeaTac can plainly see from the plane windows. Back in the ’70s, when logging activity peaked in Washington state, trees were being cut 5 times faster than the sustainable regrowth rate. Environmentalists had nothing to do with it. When you log at a sustainable rate, you have fewer logging jobs, but you have them forever; when you cut everything, you have a lot of logging jobs for a few years, and then you have no jobs — that’s what happened in the Pacific Northwest because profit reigned supreme and no one gave a rap about the future. As for today’s crappy construction, that’s a result of greed, nothing else.
@39 “why do you guys always curse?”
Why do you guys always vote Republican? Our cursing does far less damage than your voting.
and you live in a concrete house, right?
hypocrite.
“Why do you guys always vote Republican?”
Lemme guess! Because they’re morans??
@43
And then there’s me. My electricity comes from the BPA via a small, local, co-op and, unless I take a trip out of the area, it takes me about a month to drain my car’s 14 gallon gas tank.
@50 Kiss this:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com.....e42a_b.jpg
The funny thing about righton is that he comes in here, disses the way Lee chooses to live his life, calls people stupid, but complains about profanity.
One thing I know is that it’s 1000x more likely that righton is watching child porn right now than Lee
@55 I like to make my money off wingnuts. Their spending habits play right into my investing strategies.
For some reason wingnut morans seem to be down on “NIGGARS”. What’s up with that, Righton? Why don’t you teabagging folk like black people?
@ 37 Roger Rabbit
Dad?
The best dwelling is one that’s paid for, which is what I own. I pay no mortgage or rent, which leaves more money for lettuce.
@60 HTF would I know? I have 10,000 children and I’ve never even met most of them. If you have long ears, fur, and a cottontail, and were born in Seattle, yeah you might be my son.
max rocktansky (or whatever) I knew I knew who that dickhead at 53 (and all the other brain dead posts) was.
What a rock-stupid motherfucker that asshole is.
What a jaw dropper. I won’t even try to comment on this bigoted and fucked up bullshit.
And wrongon.. Yikes, what a sad diminished empty shell of a right winger.
Sorry, good for you Lee.
An old man is sitting on a city bus, riding downtown. The bus is half full, everyone is reading or knitting or snoozing, and the bus stops.
Kid gets on.
Kid’s got 150 piercings in his face, tattoos all over his arms and neck, his hair is bright green and yellow and he’s dressed in metallist leather with a big brightly colored patch on the back of his jacket.
Kid walks back and sits down across the isle from the old man.
The old man, can’t take his eyes off this kid. After a while of being stared at, the kid turns around and says; “What the fuck ya old bastard, what the hell are you looking at?”
Old man just shakes his head, says, “Ya know, when I was stationed at Bremerton back in the 70’s, I got drunk and fucked a parrot, I was just wondering if you might be my son.”
kurisu@57; where did i call anyone stupid. Don’t beat yourself up too much
rujax is a little slow on the draw….took him a while…
@64…how is it bigoted?
unless you got a cool $800,000 minimum for a house in a good neigborhood and send your kids to private school – would you want to raise kids in that city? hell fuckin no…
Welcome to the 8th Lee!
66
That’s awful. It’s also hilarious.
Lee,
Great post, one of your best. Choosing where to live always requires compromises between ideals, personal quirks, and the pocketbook. The compromises become more complicated when a spouse, then a child, enter the picture. I love Seattle. I work there. My mother was born there, as was my son. I consider myself a bit of a native, but I was born in Alaska and raised in rather rural areas, including eastern Washington. I don’t like having neighbors very close, so we left Ballard for Kitsap County. Good education for a child. I have a few acres around me, which permits me to piss outside with nobody complaining. I miss living in Seattle, however, when I have to catch a late ferry home from a concert, M’s game, or dinner with friends. There’s no right answer, except the answer at the moment that seems right.
@69 “hell fuckin no…”
I have mixed feelings about that, Max. While I grew up in the arm pit of the city and wouldn’t change a thing, except for a brief stay now and then I haven’t lived there for 25 years. There must be a reason for that. Hmm, I can’t seem to put my finger on it. But to entertain the thought, I like some of those old places on the West Seattle waterfront. Maybe a upscale downtown hi-rise condo penthouse for that cosmopolitan lifestyle. Hey, maybe I could find one built by Sellen!
Kids? In say, Rainier Valley? I don’t think so. I always dreamed of raising my kids on a goat ranch in Montana. Just kidding. I had a taste of the good life at Lakeside, then ended up at Franklin back when Black Panthers were holding sit-ins at school and a friend was “Minister of Defense”. At one point we had over thirty police cars parked down at the stadium waiting but they did nothing. Teachers were beaten. Students were beaten. Classrooms were trashed. Kids smoked on the school porch, even in class. Drugs were everywhere. The hallways during class could be very dangerous territory. There might have been one good teacher for every four mediocre or worse. So some say the Seattle public schools are worse now? WTF? I really wouldn’t know. While I got a kick out of it all, I’d never put a kid of mine in a school environment even remotely approaching what I once knew. So I took the easy way out, Max. I never had any kids. I spent all that Lakeside tuition I saved on wine, women and song.
Steve @ 73
Nice. There ain’t no better way to invest your dough than in wine, women, and song. Maxie doesn’t understand anything, of course, not even the wingnut radio he worships. Seattle is one of the finest cities in the nation. If you’re a city person, which most people are because most people live in cities, then Seattle is a helluva place to live.
@73…wine, women, and song…not a bad choice steve, although I hope you save a little bit of dough on some golf too..
LOL….the city was so great for proud leftist, that he decided to raise his family elsewhere..
thanks for proving my point, PL.
Thumbs Up … but sadness too …
When BRS and I moved to Seattle in the 70s we were likely not all that different from Lee and Mrs Lee … nut we stayed here.
Today, Goldy .. his daughter anyway … and now Lee have chosen the burbs or .. perhaps more realistically been driven out.
So kudos to Lee on his new home. But sadness too that Seattle can not keep people like the Hims here.
@75 I’ve stayed at the lodge at Pebble Beach many times. That’s some of the best money I’ve ever spent.
What an asswipe. Some of us (like Goldy for example) got in early for a lot less than that and we sent our kids to public school.
My kid’s going to start high school next year in a place, when the renovation is done, is going to be pretty nice. He’s going to take geometry in the 9th grade (I took it in the 10th) and in his (public) middle school he just polished off a 16 page term paper with citations. I didn’t get to that shit until senior year high school. As a topper he’s going to give a power point on that paper. No we didn’t have powerpoint back in the day. Fuck, he was preparing powerpoints in freaking (public) elementary.
Let me tell you something more about the high school asswipe. They overdid their dog and pony show on parents night and they paraded the kids who were going to ivy league schools after graduation.
Bigoted? And ignorant. To say the least.
Your post doesn’t make any sense. You like living in the Seattle, but because the neighbors in the house next door were noisy, you decided to move to Renton?
And you moved because you have a growing family? It sounds like you have just one small kid. And even if you have two, you can’t raise two kids in a house in Seattle?
Sounds to me that you’re a big phony. That you’re pulling a Goldy. You espouse all this crap about liberal progressivism, but you don’t actually believe it. For some reason, you don’t want your kids going to school in the liberal (and very urban) Seattle public school system.
Another liberal hypocrite. Another liberal who doesn’t walk the talk.
80 – It was a family decision you miserable idiot.
If you’d stop for a day or so being so ignorant and read something about the development of Seattle, you’d realize that North Seattle qualifies more or less as a first ring suburb – late 40’s, fifties style.
The stupidity of right wingers never ceases to amaze me.
righton’s twin brother
@82
KNBR TV found out that that guy was a liberal plant.
@81 Wasn’t north of 85th annexed by Seattle in the early 1960’s?
Nope, 1953.
http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/.....x_list.htm
#80 LOL. You’re so silly it’s just CUTE! It’s like watching a 8 year old argue politics (ruffles Troll’s hair). Awwwwww.
You should leave this to the grown ups. What ‘walk’ do YOU follow? What government functions do you reject and do yourself? Do you arm yourself and not trust the government Army to defend you from the foreigners? Do you not call the fire department if your house is on fire and just put it out yourself? Do you not drive on the socialist roads or use the communist national “currency” to pay for things? Like a child that all conservatives are…you just want stuff and don’t want to pay for it. You need the grown ups (Democrats) to come and and explain that if you WANT stuff you have to pay for it.
And moving to cheaper homes because your family is growing and you need a bigger house isn’t a Democrat or Republican thing, but a money thing. Most people WANT to live in town, that’s why market forces make a home on Capital Hill FAR more expensive than a home in Gold Bar. But not everyone can afford that BIG of a home on the Queen Ann hill, so they “settle” for what they can afford in the rural areas.
AWWWWW…you’re SO cute when you try to think like adults!
I take it that Troll, who has claimed many times here to be a Democrat, has at long last bolted from the Democratic party.
@86
If I were a liberal (and I am), and I didn’t want my kid going to a mostly black school, I wouldn’t tell my liberal friends that ‘s the reason I moved. I would make up some story about needing a bigger house.
YOU JUST GOT SERVED!
At least he still claims to be a liberal.
@79….golf clap…..YLB and his cleveland steamer sure are getting defensive about this…wonder why?
Lee –
“Outskirts of Renton” – did you join us in D8 or just miss us?
– TT
“I might try that as an alternative, but honestly, compared to the 520 bridge, the 405 traffic is nothing. I also work a very early work schedule (6:45-3:30), so I beat the traffic anyway.”
Enjoy it while you can. When they put tolls on both floating bridges, it’s going to suck being you.
@88
The demographics aren’t that different between Maple Leaf and Renton.
@93…that would depend on what part of Renton you are in I would think..
@94
That would apply to just about anyone, just about anywhere. ;-)
I lived in Renton for about a year back in the 60’s and there were like four blacks in the entire city. I went shopping at a Safeway there about 15 years ago and it seemed like it was mostly minority shoppers. Demographics have changed in huge ways over the years. Federal Way is another example. And Rainier Beach was an almost entirtely white school back in the day.
An aside. One of the pocket communities of blacks living in the region a century ago lived in Renton where they worked the coal mines.
http://www.rentonhistory.org/p.....Q-3-07.pdf
There’s more to this than just the GMA. Like your 3 car garage for example, not very common on houses built in the 50’s and 60’s. My house has what we jokingly refer to as a 3/4 car garage- it’s 12×24 and there’s a second story above it. Houses are bigger nowadays and they tend to sprawl across lots.
@96…I think you can add Kent to that list as well.
@96
Yup! Like when my mom was growing up in Gig Harbor in the 1950’s. Whitieville right? Wrong! Gig Harbor had a ton of Croatian Catholics in it in the 50’s and back then they wouldn’t have been considered white.
@99 Interesting. Any idea why Gig Harbor?
Another liberal sellout. So pathetic!
@101
Um… Lee’s a sellout because he moved from liberal Seattle to blue collar Dem Renton? Besides, the work the left has done on housing/planning for the last 30 years insures that there will be high, medium and low density housing in the future instead of just medium density sprawl for as far as the eye can see. Nothing wrong with moving to a new place.
@99
Yeah, they were fishermen so they needed water front and they were short, brown, catholics so the welcome mat wasn’t exactly out everywhere for them. Gig Harbor had plenty of cheap, open space, for them to move into.
Lee,
My wife and I just purchased a condo on Benson Hill (Cascade neighborhood) near Fred Meyer. Congratulations on your move to Renton. I’ve lived all over our region, from Lake Stevens to Vancouver, WA to Centralia to Seattle (Queen Anne) and after living in the Renton Highlands for almost three years, I’ve fallen in love with our growing city. I had the 520 bridge commute for about a year and now have the same commute (Renton to Bellevue) as you. I agree, it’s not as bad as 520, and the good folks of Renton are by and large, just that, good folks. We’re about to have our first child (he was due Tuesday) and I personally could not see raising kids in the “City.” But, as you so correctly point out, that’s a decision that each person/couple must make on their own. I was raised on a 20 acre farm, which was the decision that my folks made. It was an awesome way to be raised; some people would even say ideal. But that would be characterizing any other way of raising kids as “less than ideal,” and would literally not be fare. Kids can be raised in the heart of Brooklyn or the heart of Texas, but it’s how they are taught to interact with others that matters.
And this is from a guy that most of you would probably call a right-wing nutjob!! :) See you “Ahead of the curve!”
Lee,
You out there in the East Highlands in the Lake Kathleen Lake McDonald area? Almost sounds like it by your description. I used to live there. Nice area.
@104 I believe that values, as well as personal neuroses, are instilled by the time kids are four years old.
Hmm…
@83, Right, sure, yeah, uh-huh.
Where’s your link? Prove it. You’re a fucking worm.
90 – yawn.. some of the right wingers (like Stupes) at least have some style to their batshit insanity
You bore me totally bigot.
@109….well that kinda makes sense that you are bored and all…I mean it must take equal parts sicko and equal parts boredom to join the Cleveland Steamer team..