7 ms·

In the case of Seattle, Kirkland and Bellevue are host to quite a few small and large tech companies already. The office space is plentiful and cheap on this si

In the case of Seattle, Kirkland and Bellevue are host to quite a few small and large tech companies already. The office space is plentiful and cheap on this side of Lake Washington, and there is less of a worry of being hit with poorly planned taxes and regulations that Seattle is, at this point, infamous for enacting. With the way the housing market is going, and the upcoming King County property tax hike, I wouldn't be surprised if tech workers started creeping out into Snohomish County and favoring jobs on the Eastside instead of Seattle due to traffic.

taurath 8y ago
Traffic from Snoqualmie isn’t great either, nor are the homes a lot less expensive. The east side is as expensive as Seattle.
mrep 8y ago
90% agree (homes don't look to cheap on the east side). I was recently team matching with google for the seattle area and my girlfriend and I were more interested in the kirkland office over fremont/soon to be SLU because of this.
- NotSammyHagar 8y ago
  you don't want to work in downtown seattle for google because of a 275 dollar tax? that's ridiculous. google probably doesn't even have any software engineers working for less than a 100k, and you think about $25 / month?
  - mrep 8y ago
    Not at all. I'm against taxes that cost me more money on the homeless problem while disproportionally effect me more than others. Spending more money locally on the homeless giving them handouts is only going to attract more worsening the problem. My girlfriend was recently assaulted downtown by a homeless person which is why we liked kirkland when we checked it out because there seemed to be less of them in kirkland. I think the homeless problem should be tackled on a federal level since it is easy for them to move states but not countries. Thus, any non-federal government that spends tax revenue to help the homeless will likely just attract more homeless people from other areas worsening the local populations lives through the negative externalities and the costs which only reduce other local areas homeless externalities/expenses. Seattle seems to be growing strong with this methodology which is why I am against taxes like this that incentivize the homeless to move here.
    - taurath 8y ago
      The lack of empathy for those being displaced by huge tech companies moving in and eclipsing everyone else's salary in this thread is incredibly stunning. Not to say that homelessness is entirely caused by this, but its definitely a factor. 91% of the homeless in Seattle are from the greater Seattle region. Home prices have doubled in 10 years, and tripled if you count the bottom of the great recession. Renters have had to move further and further away. Saying there's no effect on people falling into homelessness is both silly and dangerous. That's not to say Seattle doesn't have some of the blame - they are not great at solving actual problems with their tax money, they're slow, and they don't tend to enforce a lot of quality of life things like panhandlers or break-ins. But for heavens sake, if you suddenly drop a huge amount of upper class people that buy up all the housing in an area you should have to be at least partially responsible for cleaning up the consequences.
      - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
        I agree that it does feel like a terrible self-centered choice to be so against this. I'm actually working in Seattle at a smaller software company where I will have to pay that tax. I used to work at Google in Seattle, so I would have had to pay it there too. There's a tremendous problem here with homeless people. I can believe that rich techies coming in and raising prices by increasing demand must have helped push people out of seattle. I want to help, and I support taxing rich people like me to help pay for it. I also want the city to build way more housing so that the prices go down (via usual market forces) and we should also build housing for lower income people with lower prices.
        taurath 8y ago
        I agree with all of this as well. I am saddened that most of the time it is the rich techies (along with existing landed wealthy people) that come in and prevent any additional housing from being built - I live in an area well known for its NIMBYism. If they raised everyone's taxes on my pay scale and above by 2%, and un-restricted building in much of the city, it would go a million times further to make it a more livable city for everyone than this tax.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
The north and east side are the worst places to live in the Seattle area, however, if you are young and without a family. It is very much like comparing San Jose to San Francisco (I say this living in Bellevue and having grown up in Bothell).
- NotSammyHagar 8y ago
  i think the east side is the best place to live, the worst place is sodo.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    I don't know many young people that agree with that. Families, sure, east and north side is better for schools and such, since it is basically suburbia. Most of Sodo still isn't zoned for residential.
    - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
      I have a family and live in the east side :-) I've seen it a million times, people move to seattle, get an apartment, then couple up and buy a smaller condo, have kids, need space, move to the evil eastside.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        Well, who knows what it will be like in the future. Seattle isn’t losing population, some more suburban part of Seattle (e.g. West Seattle) are booming also. It is possible that millenials will stay put and not migrate to the east side.
        NotSammyHagar 8y ago
        my kid is almost finished with school, I might move to seattle after that.
NotSammyHagar 8y ago
redmond has a head tax, they seem to be doing okay. maybe that microsoft company will move somewhere else. /s
jorblumesea 8y ago
East side is far more expensive, and so is office space, head tax notwithstanding. Does the over/under on that work out? My guess is no. Seattle has far better transit, still cheaper housing and office space.
- NotSammyHagar 8y ago
  The problem with location is that for almost all the companies I have worked for in the Seattle area, almost every single person lives on the east side (cause we are older, have families, etc and got imported here by Microsoft). New people, those young college kids, they all start in Seattle, whether at amazon or not. When I moved here years ago I wanted to be close to my work, so I was at Microsoft.

taurath 8y ago

Traffic from Snoqualmie isn’t great either, nor are the homes a lot less expensive. The east side is as expensive as Seattle.

mrep 8y ago

90% agree (homes don't look to cheap on the east side). I was recently team matching with google for the seattle area and my girlfriend and I were more interested in the kirkland office over fremont/soon to be SLU because of this.

NotSammyHagar 8y ago
you don't want to work in downtown seattle for google because of a 275 dollar tax? that's ridiculous. google probably doesn't even have any software engineers working for less than a 100k, and you think about $25 / month?
- mrep 8y ago
  Not at all. I'm against taxes that cost me more money on the homeless problem while disproportionally effect me more than others. Spending more money locally on the homeless giving them handouts is only going to attract more worsening the problem. My girlfriend was recently assaulted downtown by a homeless person which is why we liked kirkland when we checked it out because there seemed to be less of them in kirkland. I think the homeless problem should be tackled on a federal level since it is easy for them to move states but not countries. Thus, any non-federal government that spends tax revenue to help the homeless will likely just attract more homeless people from other areas worsening the local populations lives through the negative externalities and the costs which only reduce other local areas homeless externalities/expenses. Seattle seems to be growing strong with this methodology which is why I am against taxes like this that incentivize the homeless to move here.
  - taurath 8y ago
    The lack of empathy for those being displaced by huge tech companies moving in and eclipsing everyone else's salary in this thread is incredibly stunning. Not to say that homelessness is entirely caused by this, but its definitely a factor. 91% of the homeless in Seattle are from the greater Seattle region. Home prices have doubled in 10 years, and tripled if you count the bottom of the great recession. Renters have had to move further and further away. Saying there's no effect on people falling into homelessness is both silly and dangerous. That's not to say Seattle doesn't have some of the blame - they are not great at solving actual problems with their tax money, they're slow, and they don't tend to enforce a lot of quality of life things like panhandlers or break-ins. But for heavens sake, if you suddenly drop a huge amount of upper class people that buy up all the housing in an area you should have to be at least partially responsible for cleaning up the consequences.
    - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
      I agree that it does feel like a terrible self-centered choice to be so against this. I'm actually working in Seattle at a smaller software company where I will have to pay that tax. I used to work at Google in Seattle, so I would have had to pay it there too. There's a tremendous problem here with homeless people. I can believe that rich techies coming in and raising prices by increasing demand must have helped push people out of seattle. I want to help, and I support taxing rich people like me to help pay for it. I also want the city to build way more housing so that the prices go down (via usual market forces) and we should also build housing for lower income people with lower prices.
      - taurath 8y ago
        I agree with all of this as well. I am saddened that most of the time it is the rich techies (along with existing landed wealthy people) that come in and prevent any additional housing from being built - I live in an area well known for its NIMBYism. If they raised everyone's taxes on my pay scale and above by 2%, and un-restricted building in much of the city, it would go a million times further to make it a more livable city for everyone than this tax.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

The north and east side are the worst places to live in the Seattle area, however, if you are young and without a family. It is very much like comparing San Jose to San Francisco (I say this living in Bellevue and having grown up in Bothell).

NotSammyHagar 8y ago
i think the east side is the best place to live, the worst place is sodo.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  I don't know many young people that agree with that. Families, sure, east and north side is better for schools and such, since it is basically suburbia. Most of Sodo still isn't zoned for residential.
  - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
    I have a family and live in the east side :-) I've seen it a million times, people move to seattle, get an apartment, then couple up and buy a smaller condo, have kids, need space, move to the evil eastside.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Well, who knows what it will be like in the future. Seattle isn’t losing population, some more suburban part of Seattle (e.g. West Seattle) are booming also. It is possible that millenials will stay put and not migrate to the east side.
      - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
        my kid is almost finished with school, I might move to seattle after that.

NotSammyHagar 8y ago

redmond has a head tax, they seem to be doing okay. maybe that microsoft company will move somewhere else. /s

jorblumesea 8y ago

East side is far more expensive, and so is office space, head tax notwithstanding. Does the over/under on that work out? My guess is no. Seattle has far better transit, still cheaper housing and office space.

NotSammyHagar 8y ago
The problem with location is that for almost all the companies I have worked for in the Seattle area, almost every single person lives on the east side (cause we are older, have families, etc and got imported here by Microsoft). New people, those young college kids, they all start in Seattle, whether at amazon or not. When I moved here years ago I wanted to be close to my work, so I was at Microsoft.