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Weed is not Green Energy

From Seattle

Weed is not Green Energy

Using marijuana for fun and relaxation or to aid healing for a medical condition is an issue as private as the decision to drink alcohol. It’s nobody’s business but your own. Marijuana use only gets fraught with complication when someone under the influence drives a car, operates heavy machinery or engages in every day activity that requires good...


Riding the SURF

 

The word surf has an etymology that connotes many meanings. Both a noun and a verb, surf is the wave that breaks upon the shore as much as it describes an action: the dude who surfs—on the crest of a wave, or by searching for information on the internet and by cruising TV networks. For Seaton Gras, the founder of the SURF Incubator in Seattle, the word Surf expands...


The Young, the Restless and the NEET

I was at a private fund-raising dinner, where I sat at next to the CEO of an early-stage technology company. The topic of of Seattle’s new light rail expansion came up. The new light rail line would provide rapid transportation between downtown Seattle and the wealthy neighborhood where the CEO lives. “The light rail will bring them close to my home,” he said.

The them he referred to are the people who he would never hire or sit next to at a dinner party because they are NEET.  There is more to this story than I can share at the moment, but I can comment on the NEETs who are them—the other—those who have been cast aside by the great economic divide that only favors people who come from privileged circumstances. 


Tent City 5: A Home is Not a House

3234 17th Ave. W. occupies half a block in the trendy Interbay neighborhood, but it is not a prestigious address. In fact, it does not even warrant a mailbox. Instead of concrete condos or live-work housing mushrooming from the spot, rows of crayon-blue and khaki-green tarps stretch over camping tents pitched on wooden platforms. For some 60 people, single men and women, couples and at least two families with teenage kids, right now, these...


On the Towne

Last Spring, we covered a story about the Queen Anne Helpline, a Seattle-based non-profit organization serving people-in-need in the neighborhoods that are experiencing unprecedented job growth from the growing influx of Millennial technology workers. The demands for housing exceed the supply and the prices of apartments and residential homes in many Seattle neighborhoods continue to be hyper inflated.  According to a recent article in the Seattle Times, Real Estate Developers are expected to add 11,000 more units in 2016 and even more in 2017.  The operative spin is with so many more units coming onto the market, then eventually the demand for housing will be met and the prices will become more affordable for working and middle class renters. However, in the interim, the Seattle boom continues unabated and unfazed by the displacement of the elderly, families and individuals, who are being shoved out and thrust into a crisis situation.