DarkRange55
🎂
- Oct 15, 2023
- 2,421
Before we start talking about price gauging I want to address some fundamental economics.
So this is just first rough draft of part 1.
I'm sure I've said this before on here but… Most big cities are more round and have primarily westerly winds which would blow factory smoke east so the nicer parts were in the western portion of the city like in London, NYC, LA. So historically cities have had an east/west divide. But Seattle is more constrained being narrow due to geography, its on an isthmus. So it has a historical north/south divide: South of Capitol Hill and a couple neighborhoods north of it. South Seattle was called Sawdust: it was industrial, the sawmills were there, it was literally built on sawdust (see Denny Regrades). The lakes prevent growth in Seattle, it can only build up, but Dallas is open and sprawling which is good for keeping cheap rent. There's no room to expand otherwise roads would be going everywhere.
The problem is value, Seattle food feels overpriced for the quality relative to peer cities. Seattle has spectacular waterways running through the city, and hills and old growth forests. It's a city of incredible neighborhoods, each with their own flair. And that makes the food (and rent) more expensive.
All the inputs are expensive here. Rents for restaurants (and apartments) are high due to zoning, and lack of land to expand on. (There is a huge lake to the east (Lake Washington), and Puget sound to the west). Wages are also high, as the Seattle area has passed living wage initiatives. There is also a shortage of workers, so they have to raise pay to attract workers.
Retail rental costs, which are staggering high downtown. It's the 8th most expensive city in the USA and much of that is tied to housing costs.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...n-seattle-is-more-expensive-than-u-s-average/
Some would say, many things are shipped here from long distances away. Seattle is in the far corner of the country, a long ways away from where many things are grown or produced. Also, any downtown, things are always likely to be more expensive than a bit further out. However,
most produce is grown in California and Washington State has some of the most fertile soil on earth and eastern Washington's economy is agricultural (and timber or you work for the federal or state government or road construction). (Tons of produce is grown all the way in Florida. Large percentage of fruit on the east coast comes from there. Florida is an agricultural powerhouse in its own right. The entire center of the state is agriculture and they can grow year round. They're also right next to the Caribbean which also grows a ton of produce). We also have the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma for all the major shipping from China/Japan.
NYC, San Diego, Dallas, Miami, and SFO all of those cities have lots of cheap immigrant labor in the food industry. Seattle has a worker shortage and high wages. A lot of the Puget Sound region's immigrants are Pacific Islanders and Asians due to proximity to Washington State.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes353031.htm
There is a high alcohol tax and sugar tax (though it's on select items for distributors the cost may get passed on to the customer), so drinking is more expensive. If you're eating in downtown Seattle or tourist areas then it's just going to be expensive there. This is a HCOL region where people make high tech salaries.
All those reasons occur in HCOL like New York City. Tech workers, Wall Street and bank executives making high salaries.
Seattle no longer has as much of a diverse mix of people working here - it's so heavily tech that it drives all the choices other businesses make. This is one of the reasons there's a housing shortage - builders have no incentive to build anything but luxury housing here, and there are no "starter homes" being made.
However, not everyone working in tech is making "tech" money. Seattle blue collar unions are pretty big, too.
…
To be continued…
So this is just first rough draft of part 1.
I'm sure I've said this before on here but… Most big cities are more round and have primarily westerly winds which would blow factory smoke east so the nicer parts were in the western portion of the city like in London, NYC, LA. So historically cities have had an east/west divide. But Seattle is more constrained being narrow due to geography, its on an isthmus. So it has a historical north/south divide: South of Capitol Hill and a couple neighborhoods north of it. South Seattle was called Sawdust: it was industrial, the sawmills were there, it was literally built on sawdust (see Denny Regrades). The lakes prevent growth in Seattle, it can only build up, but Dallas is open and sprawling which is good for keeping cheap rent. There's no room to expand otherwise roads would be going everywhere.
The problem is value, Seattle food feels overpriced for the quality relative to peer cities. Seattle has spectacular waterways running through the city, and hills and old growth forests. It's a city of incredible neighborhoods, each with their own flair. And that makes the food (and rent) more expensive.
All the inputs are expensive here. Rents for restaurants (and apartments) are high due to zoning, and lack of land to expand on. (There is a huge lake to the east (Lake Washington), and Puget sound to the west). Wages are also high, as the Seattle area has passed living wage initiatives. There is also a shortage of workers, so they have to raise pay to attract workers.
Retail rental costs, which are staggering high downtown. It's the 8th most expensive city in the USA and much of that is tied to housing costs.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...n-seattle-is-more-expensive-than-u-s-average/
Some would say, many things are shipped here from long distances away. Seattle is in the far corner of the country, a long ways away from where many things are grown or produced. Also, any downtown, things are always likely to be more expensive than a bit further out. However,
most produce is grown in California and Washington State has some of the most fertile soil on earth and eastern Washington's economy is agricultural (and timber or you work for the federal or state government or road construction). (Tons of produce is grown all the way in Florida. Large percentage of fruit on the east coast comes from there. Florida is an agricultural powerhouse in its own right. The entire center of the state is agriculture and they can grow year round. They're also right next to the Caribbean which also grows a ton of produce). We also have the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma for all the major shipping from China/Japan.
NYC, San Diego, Dallas, Miami, and SFO all of those cities have lots of cheap immigrant labor in the food industry. Seattle has a worker shortage and high wages. A lot of the Puget Sound region's immigrants are Pacific Islanders and Asians due to proximity to Washington State.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes353031.htm
There is a high alcohol tax and sugar tax (though it's on select items for distributors the cost may get passed on to the customer), so drinking is more expensive. If you're eating in downtown Seattle or tourist areas then it's just going to be expensive there. This is a HCOL region where people make high tech salaries.
All those reasons occur in HCOL like New York City. Tech workers, Wall Street and bank executives making high salaries.
Seattle no longer has as much of a diverse mix of people working here - it's so heavily tech that it drives all the choices other businesses make. This is one of the reasons there's a housing shortage - builders have no incentive to build anything but luxury housing here, and there are no "starter homes" being made.
However, not everyone working in tech is making "tech" money. Seattle blue collar unions are pretty big, too.
…
To be continued…
