So Here's a Strategy: Seattle-as-Hellhole

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By Joel Connelly

Seattle basked in the national limelight some years back. We were America’s “most livable city,” gorgeously located and with a booming, technology-fueled economy. We placed near the top as a place to be young and to find rewarding employment or even romance, in most of those magazine “best places” nationwide surveys.

People magazine depicted a young architect and family on a Saturday morning trip to the Pike Place Market. The cover of Newsweek was decorated with a picture of transplanted Washington, D.C., pundit Michael Kinsley wearing rain gear. He wore it when we went on a subsequent backpack trip to Twisp Pass.

We were the host city for an Asia-Pacific leaders’ summit. Arriving in America, Chinese leaders made us the first stop. With the demise of the Soviet Union, we were headquarters for three entities bent on world domination — Amazon.com, Microsoft, and Starbucks.

Nowadays, however, right-wing media and Trump are sullying our reputation and depicting the Emerald City as a crime-infested hellhole. They’re working to generate fear and are pretty damned artful at it. We are the target of the dark arts of disinformation.

https://www.postalley.org/2025/09/11/so-heres-a-strategy-seattle-as-hellhole/