Times)
You're paying a premium to live here: The cost of living has risen faster in Seattle than in any other American city.
Share story
By Gene Balk / FYI Guy
Seattle Times columnist
How’s this for irony? While we’ve been worried about Seattle becoming the next San Francisco, it turns out other cities have been worried about becoming the next Seattle.
That’s right. “Seattle-ization” is a thing now, at least according to a New York Times article published last week. It’s described as “a particularly dire diagnosis,” and characterized by high housing costs and tech wealth, a combination that’s thoroughly transformed the city in an alarmingly short span of time.
Even in New York City, apparently, some folks are terrified that the planned Amazon campus there could turn the place into “Seattle on steroids,” according to Vice Magazine.
It’s a little unsettling to find out we’ve become other cities’ worst-case scenario. But it’s also understandable, when you consider not just how expensive Seattle has become, but how quickly it happened.
In 2013, when census data showed that Seattle had suddenly become the fastest-growing big city in the nation, it seemed to come from out of the blue. Of course, that turned out to be just the beginning.
But think back to right before then, in 2012. Amazon had consolidated its workforce in South Lake Union only two years earlier. The gears were already in motion, but most of us were oblivious to the tidal wave of change that was about to hit.
I guess we thought of Seattle as a fairly expensive place to live back then, which is a little funny in retrospect. That year, the Cost of Living Index scored Seattle at 115.2, which meant that living costs here were 15.2 percent higher than the national average (100 is the index’s average).
Most Read Local Stories
'Seattle-ization'? American cities fear what's happened here | FYI Guy
Gov. Jay Inslee offers pardons for thousands with misdemeanor pot convictions
The orca and the orca catcher: How a generation of killer whales was taken from Puget Sound WATCH
Seattle police release video of fatal shooting by officer on New Year's Eve
2 more Puget Sound orcas predicted to die in critically endangered population
That score ranked Seattle 35th among the more than 300 cities included in the index that year. We were just about tied with Portland. A few of the cities that had higher living costs than Seattle in 2012: Sacramento, Philadelphia and Anchorage, Alaska.
Fast forward to today.
The most recent Cost of Living Index release, for the 3rd quarter of 2018, pegs Seattle at 53.6 percent above the national average. In just six years, our index score jumped by about 38 points. No other city comes close to matching that.
We’re now firmly established as the sixth most expensive place to live in the country, according to the index, a mark we first hit that at the end of last year. And yeah, we’ve left Portland in the dust, even though the Rose City is also in the top 10, with a 13-point gain in its index score.
The Cost of Living Index is published quarterly by the Arlington, Virginia-based Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, a nonprofit research and policy organization. They’ve been producing city-to-city cost comparisons since 1968, collecting data at the local level on prices for more than 60 goods and services in six major categories: housing, health care, transportation, utilities, grocery items and miscellaneous goods and services.
more,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-ization-american-cities-fear-whats-happened-here/
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
| 