Seattle looks to rein in state policy used to push back on big projects

Re:Seattle looks to rein in state policy used to push back o... by techsupporter on Monday October 07, 2019 @01:49PM (#21183810)

I think both of you are right. The Venn diagram of "people who moved to Seattle to take a job paying 5x the prevailing wage" and "people who think Seattle was perfect and should never change from the state it was in the day after they arrived" seems, in my experience, to be almost completely overlapping. The voice of "build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody" often originates from locals but is amplified by the people who newly-arrived and who can afford a $900,000 single-family residence in a "bucolic neighborhood" and now live in mortal terror that four-floors-and-corner-stores will be built nearby.

And then they have kids so everything turns into "that will severely impact my family and my children" so the rest of us are monsters for proposing such a thing.

Sorry for being hyperbolic; this raises my hackles a bit.

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Re:Seattle looks to rein in state policy used to push back o... by balls187 on Monday October 07, 2019 @02:47PM (#21184522)

This isn't a problem that exists alone in Seattle.

Tour elementary schools across the nation, and you'll encounter lines of cars waiting to pickup/dropoff children. This is emblematic of the shift that has occurred in pockets of American society--the needs of the individual over the good of society.

Seattle just has unique geographical constraints that exacerbate the issue of individualistic thinking.

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Re:Seattle looks to rein in state policy used to push back o... by Noos on Tuesday October 08, 2019 @01:33AM (#21189069)

They have this because people don't trust their kids to walk home or be unsupervised any more, not because of individualistic thinking. And to be blunt, they are not entirely wrong; a dirty little secret of the old days is how much bullying or worse happened among unsupervised kids.

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Re:Seattle looks to rein in state policy used to push back o... by balls187 on Tuesday October 08, 2019 @02:00AM (#21189219)

> And to be blunt, they are not entirely wrong

Actually they are. Humans are notoriously bad for understanding risk.

The rise in helicopter parenting DESPITE the fact that in no time in American history have children been more safe [1] is due to the fact that we (parents) have access to more information and news, and stories of children being harmed are sensational.

Our children would be fine riding the bus and waiting for the bus stop like we did as kids, but the fact that it's MY child means that I must do everything I can to protect them, regardless of the rationality of it. It is very much about individualistic thinking.

1: https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/infant-child-and-teen...

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