The Seattle Times And Tent City: An Unlikely Love Affair

Hey, there's an editorial about Tent City in the Seattle Times - This oughta be predictable and lame.

Time has come for Tent City to recycle its floor pallets, put away its big plastic storage tubs and fold its tents. The moment has passed for this occupying band of homeless advocates.

Wow, worse than expected. Yadda, yadda, yadda, skip to the end.

Quarterly skirmishes about the next site for Tent City are not worth the energy-sapping, goodwill-robbing, expensive overhead they represent.
Go away, please.

Yeah, it's not for nothing we avoid the Seattle Times opinion section.

Instead of dealing with that (or rather as a kind of warm bath with some salts and oils in there to wash off the Times funk) let's take a semi-serious look at the question, "Are squatter communities sustainable?" Tent City 4 does use a lot of resources moving from place to place every 90 days, but let's pretend that human beings and people who live on the Eastside were a bit more tolerant and there didn't exist a bunch of crazy municipal codes against homeless cities. Say Tent City set up shop in one place, say, the Bellevue Square parking lot, and it stayed there for five years or so. By necessity there's a good deal of materials recycling going on there and because of the density of population other resources can be distributed without expending much energy or infrastructure. Yards, .5 baths and .5 garages are out the window, er, tent flap, also. Then the Anarchists from the Seattle Weekly article move in. Then you start thinking that, hey, it doesn't look so bad and you already gave up your car so why not chuck the rest and joinn them? It grows and grows and takes over all of Bellevue and a little of Redmond where guys like the editorialist for the Seattle Times erect a wall. It's Tent City 4-400. Is it Green?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@seattlest.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Dan in Miscellaneous on August 25, 2006 1:30 PM

Comments [rss]

Charles

This is why I avoid the Seattle times altogether. It never ceases to amaze me that of the two dailies, The Times is the one with the most readers. But of course, the real progressives in this city are young and wired and get their news from less traditional sources which explains why none of us actually buy the papers.

It's worth noting though that the PI, while far from progressive across the whole paper, has consistently better writing and is the paper that makes the effort to appeal to younger, smarter city-dwellers like me. and you. (no, I don't work for them).

And as far as the "is it green" question: Greener than Bellevue where they all drive to Whole Foods in massive SUVs and think they've done their good deed for the week. Let's take 'em over!