You hear this sort of thing about the "Disney-fication" of Times Square in NYC all the time. Not that I'm a fan of Times Square for a variety of reasons but anyone who looks nostalgically back to the 42nd Street on 1985 has some seriously rose-colored glasses.

It's the dreaded gentrification. If your neighborhood isn't kept in its run down and decrepit state the land values might go up and push out people who can no longer afford to pay rent.

I don't think there's a need to be sardonic; the full paragraph that I believe you're referencing goes on to talk about other common sights and elements of various Seattle districts; the complaint that some Seattlelites are putting forward isn't "we want a decrepit city" it's they want their decrepit city.

The complaint about the changes Amazon and other companies are making is not about keeping the city in a state of disarray and filthiness, it's about control over the tone and feel of the city, preferring that a single corporate entity not be able to set or dictate the tone/feel to accommodate their interests. Even if there is a net positive as a result, the local residents have no choice in the matter - as was written in the article, those parts of the city are no longer Seattle in some people's minds, it's Amazon's territory.

I'm not condemning or condoning this position - I did live in the Seattle area for about 5 years, and while I loved it, didn't really have the same historical attachment most Seattle folk have, and they love their city, what it was, is, and what it can be.

It's not too difficult to empathize with the position either; suppose, in a rather silly example, that a wealthy business whose owners had a love for early 1900's german expressionism moved to your city (which you feel a connection to); over the course of a few years, a large part of your city begins to take the form of stills from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or from Metropolis. The owners clean up the area very well and bring in new trendy restaurants that meet their aesthetic vision. Even if you agree that the area has been changed for the better in terms of infrastructure and economics, are you really satisfied with having expressionism forced on you?

Again, this isn't to say that feelings should override progress with civil infrastructure improvement, but there's a bit more to the gentrification effect, specifically from the tech world, than just a bunch of grumpy people angry about losing their run down and decrepit land. People have seen what happened with San Francisco and they're scared, and rightfully so; while the standard of living in Seattle is decent, the average wages are no match for SV style tech money.

As someone who is a Seattle Native, I don't see many employed adults complaining about it nearly as much as I see early 20 somethings complaining about it. The same people who don't remember much of older Seattle. Yes, we had "grunge" but really, we are not missing much with these changes. I do dislike how expensive housing as gotten, but its not that.

Plus, Amazon is not the only player here. Microsoft, Oracle, Facebook, and Disney are all in the area as well. Google is also building a new office in the SLU area as well.

A true Seattle native is like a unicorn. Practically everyone around here is from somewhere else originally. This remains true even in the suburbs.

The exodus in the 70s really did a number on the area.

The only thing that neighborhood lost of any value was the Jones Soda bottling plant.