[vessenes]

I'm not sure the data backs up your assertion -- in fact, it looks to me like Seattle's crime rate is roughly steady -- and bad -- over the last 20 years.

Seattle had the highest burglary rate in the nation of any large city as recently as 2023 (1201 per 100k residents!). https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state...

from 1999-2018 (most recent I can find a chart for), Violent crime ebbed and flowed but ended essentially where it started: 680/100k residents, almost double the US average. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/us/wa/seat.... I believe this uses FBI numbers.

Seattle Police report 5394 violent crimes in 2024, with 755k residents that's ~700 violent crimes per 100k, or roughly where it was in both 1999 and in 2018. https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2025/04/28/crime-drops-2...

I note that the Axios article says 2025 is on track to be a big drop; I have no idea what crime seasonality is, so I'd take that news story with a grain of salt until the year is out. Either way I just don't think Seattle's crime rates are "way less of a concern" over the last 40 years. Well, people may have become acclimated or stopped caring. But the rates are high, and don't look to have changed that much.

[energywut]

Look back further - https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/F...

In the 80s and 90s, violent crime rates were well above 1000/100k residents, and property crimes 12k/100k.

[vessenes]

OK, but that drop occurred roughly when Kurt Cobain died. Since then it hasn't moved that much. I believe you that Belltown is safer than 1993. That's just not that recent!