[com2kid]

Seattle is a narrow city bordered by water on the west and the east, so a lot of its expansion has happened along the north/south axis.

If I want to buy furniture, I need to go either to the far north or far south of the city to a suburb just outside the city limits (cheaper land).

Culturally, lots of food can only be found in certain areas of the city, which means north/south traveling.

In regards to services overall, obscene land prices means that not much new is being built that isn't owned by large corporations, so we are pretty much stuck with what we have, and what we have is rather quickly disappearing.