[patmcguire]

This isn't a situation like the North Dakota oil boom, where there's a massive spike on a small base that's clearly going to end. It would a long time to build out enough to have the potential problem, and a long time to decline enough to have it.

Detroit is overbuilt for its population now, but it got a good 50 years of use at that size.

[sbaoufbasfub]

I could get behind that position, but what factors make you think the boom is sustained? I'm not from Seattle, so I'm kind of in the peanut gallery, but if Seattle's economy is based on a few large companies or a single industry, that would be a problem. What does the economic composition of Seattle look like?

[patmcguire]

1) It's pretty diversified. Medicine, Tech, Aerospace. The area has cheap electricity thanks to the Columbia River, which is good for the last two. 2) Even if it's not, we're not talking about 10x. We're talking about maybe 1.5x or 2x at the very most extreme end. It's not like Vegas where there's endless desert to fill, it would take time to build that much around Seattle.

[freyir]

Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Nordstrom, umbrellas.