Here’s the part of the mayor’s state of the city speech that deals with Seattle’s longstanding debate over single-family zoning:
If we do not build more housing, we have seen what happens: more and more people compete for the same homes and prices go up, creating an invisible wall around our neighborhoods and locking people out.
Allowing more housing will break down that wall, will create more affordability, more sustainability, and more equity.
We cannot be a city where people protest the exclusionary agenda coming from Washington, D.C., while at the same time keeping a zoning code in place that does not allow us to build the affordable housing we need.
But we have shown we are a welcoming city. A city that breaks down walls.
A lot of the coverage seemed to pick up on it.
For example, the Seattle Times wrote:
Throughout the address, the mayor contrasted his initiatives in Seattle with the president’s policies, at one point comparing opposition to his proposed upzones of growing city neighborhoods with Republican-controlled Washington, D.C.’s “exclusionary agenda.”
P.s. It was surreal to have PubliCola write about the speech.
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