Seattle leaders pick park over people

I saw a press release that I heard a little bit about on Friday whilst I was in Copenhagen and it was maddening in how little sense it made, but is a great example of how competing ideological beliefs conflict with each other and the worse idea ends up winning.

So there is a case happening in the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle where so-called slum lords are having their housing complex taken over by the city of Seattle after decades of housing code violations, according to the city.

And so the city is buying the land, tearing down the housing complex and, in the midst of a housing crisis where we’re told the cost of living continues to increase and hurts the poorest of the poor residents in the city, the mayor and city council is building a park.

Not more housing, not affordable housing to accommodate the influx of people into the city and perhaps make it a little cheaper for some folks to live here, but they’re building a park.

“Roosevelt has long wanted more park space to help accommodate the increase in residents coming to the neighborhood. Now we will have the resources to help make it happen,” said Mayor Ed Murray.

Make sense of that statement for me.

You have way more people moving to Roosevelt, which means housing prices will go up because of supply and demand. You have a city and a mayor talking about how out of control rents are, so when the opportunity comes to build more affordable housing options, instead, they’re building a park.

It’s not even a combination park with housing, but just a park.

How does that make any sense?

This is an example of competing ideological views resulting in one idea winning out despite it being the worse option.

So you have two issues: green space and housing affordability. Both issues are important. Both issues are primarily motivated by ideological beliefs. It’s a pretty progressive idea to talk about creating more green space and affordable housing. When it’s used in those terms, it’s generally coming from progressives. It’s not that conservatives don’t want affordable housing, they just don’t talk about it in terms like that and they obviously have a different view on how to come about housing that’s affordable.

So the mayor has two progressive ideas butting heads and he chooses not to help people afford to live in Seattle. Instead, he chooses the environment.

Now that seems odd to me but I guess it’s subjective. I just don’t see how the mayor picks a park over housing. I don’t see how the city council doesn’t take this opportunity to help build affordable housing units.