Editing Seattle (section)

==Neighborhoods==
According to the Seattle City Clerk's Office, Seattle is made up of about 16 distinct neighborhoods. Seattle is a new city, with distinct waves of movement in and out of the city, creating patterns of development and redevelopment.  The local papers have a strong influence on public perception, and they divide the city according to what businesses advertise in their papers.  Areas of the city without a lot of advertisers are generally ignored.  These are usually the residential neighborhoods that many of the couch surfers will be staying at.  

Neighborhoods with lots of bars and restaurants (the mainstay of Seattle papers) include Downtown, Pioneer Square, SoDo (the stadium district) Belltown, the International District (“The I-D”), Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford, the University District, the Admiral District in West Seattle and Alki Beach in West Seattle. These neighborhoods tend to have apartment houses, rather than single-family detached houses, and have better transit service, and are quite interesting to walk.

Another area of Seattle that visitors might find interesting is the waterfront.  Seattle has a long waterfront, with many parks, restaurants, a marina, and it's very accessible.

The north end has nice walkable neighborhoods of mostly single-family homes.  These neighborhoods are well-landscaped, and it is like walking through a well-maintained park.  The older neighborhoods closer in, like Wallingford, Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, Mt Baker, Madrona (along the shores of Lake Washington), View Ridge, Roosevelt, Ballard, etc have older homes, built in the early part of the 20th century, in a style called Craftsman. There are mansions and mini-mansions, many of which fell into disrepair during the Seattle depression of the 70s.  They have since become renovated, and are quite beautiful.  Since they are on hills, there are dramatic views of the city.  There are a number of streets that end in stairs, hidden away in these neighborhoods.  There are usually neighborhood cafes and coffee shops every five or ten blocks, and the traffic is usually quiet. 

The valleys were built for the lower-paid peons - Rainier Valley, Cascade neighborhood, Ballard, Interbay, and the east side of West Seattle hills. There has been a lot of renovation in these areas in the past ten years, mostly apartments and condos, with mixed effects.  But most of the new businesses that are going in are corporate chains, nail salons, gyms, etc.  The Cascade neighborhood, especially has changed.  I call  it the Cascade neighborhood, for those who looked up the city map referenced at the beginning of this article.  But it is now commonly referred to as "South Lake Union".  It has been purchased by Paul Allen, a local billionaire, and is the location of many new high-rise, expensive condos, and high-tech employers like Amazon, Microsoft, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research, etc.  The businesses cater to high-end customers.  It is undergoing dramatic changes, and under heavy construction at the time this article was written (autumn, 2012).  There is a street-car that runs from South Lake Union through downtown, to the waterfront.  This would be an interesting ride for visitors to the city.


There are a number of quiet residential neighborhoods that were built up in the 40s, 50s and 60s, to support the technical workers at Boeing and their contractors.  These are residential neighborhoods further out - Northgate, Shoreline, Renton, Tukwila, the south end of West Seattle.  Generally speaking, these neighborhoods are not suitable for walking - few businesses within walking distance, the roads are arterials, with lots of loud traffic, and few businesses for the neighborhood, mediocre landscaping, architecturally tedious housing, no views, etc.  This also describes Mercer Island, although it is for rich people, which means that the lots are large, with big trees and the big houses are mostly hidden away.  The tract homes are boring, as is the lanscaping, but it's not unpleasant.

Even further out, Federal Way, Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Lynnwood, Sammamish, you get the neighborhoods that may have been settled decades ago, but that has been torn down or completely overshadowed by development in the past twenty or thirty years, where miles of condos and apartments have gone up, with shopping malls and few if any local businesses - all corporate chain.  Bus service here is difficult to get to, they assume you will drive to a park-and-ride lot, which are spaced many miles apart.