[poulsbohemian]

Tangential thought here: Today it’s fashionable to say that the reason for Seattle area housing costs is “Amazon,” so why wasn’t it the same thing in the 90s with Microsoft? My guess is that it’s a difference of scale: that back then there was still room to build on the eastside, and now it’s not just Microsoft yielding high incomes and wealth, but also Amazon, Google, Facebook, and others. Still, interesting to ponder the real role of these companies in housing costs (since that’s the knee-jerk assumption)

[WalterBright]

Housing prices in the eastside were definitely blamed on Microsoft.

Before Microsoft, for example, Kirkland was where you bought a house if you didn't have much money. Microsoft built their campus next door, and that was the end of cheap Kirkland real estate.

Housing prices were closely related to commuting distance from the campus.

[taeric]

My guess would be location. Amazon is one of the only companies to locate in the city. Not near it, in it.

Such that the "campus" of other companies is a discrete thing.

How this fits for housing is that many new hires to Amazon don't have cars, and choose to live close to where they don't need them. Not really an option for the campus centric companies, where folks live further out and commute.

[WalterBright]

Seattle commutes are pretty miserable. Always have been. The problem is the metropolitan area rings a huge lake, so a grid arrangement of roads is impossible.

The current problem is Sound Transit does not recognize that the metropolitan area rings Lake Washington, and the sensible thing is to build mass transit around that ring. I don't think the ST people have ever looked at a map. Even worse, the old rail corridors that ringed the lake were deliberately destroyed.

[taeric]

I mean. You aren't wrong. But Atlanta commutes were easily as bad back when I lived there.