Seattle Looks to San Francisco—For What Not To Do

"Nowhere… has there been a more concerted effort to create a San Francisco-like tech scene with fewer downsides than in Seattle, the country’s second-biggest tech hub by some measures," according to an article by Nick Wingfield.

Wingfield cites examples of similar concerns in cities like Boulder and Austin, but focuses on how Seattle has reacted to the evolution of San Francisco in recent years as a result of the influx of residents and businesses connected to a booming tech industry.

Seattle, too, has been attracting varieties of tech businesses—none with more capacity to change the fabric of the city than Amazon. According to WIngfield, "[w]hile the city’s mayor, Ed Murray, praises Amazon, he has also said he wants to keep the working-class roots of Seattle, a city with a major port, fishing fleet and even a steel mill. After taking office last year, he made the minimum-wage increase a priority and reassured representatives of the city’s manufacturing and maritime industries that Seattle needed them." Mayor Murray is pinning his vision for the city on the idea that a bustling tech sector need not cause the demise of the manufacturing industry.

One key difference between Seattle and San Francisco, as examined in the article, is each of the city's construction of housing. "Last year, Seattle had a net addition of more than 7,500 homes, a record for the city, compared with just over 3,500 in San Francisco, according to planning departments in both cities." To be fair, according to Wingfield, "Seattle partly benefits from having a larger area and about 185,000 fewer residents than San Francisco."