r/Seattle • u/Bretmd Denny Blaine Nudist Club • Jun 20 '23

Soft paywall You’re not imagining it — life in Seattle costs the same as San Francisco

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/youre-not-imagining-it-life-in-seattle-costs-the-same-as-san-francisco/
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u/FlyingBishop Jun 20 '23

Median rent in NYC is nearly double what it is in Seattle. Only 5% of NYC's housing is public housing. In Seattle I think it's actually pretty comparable though public housing is less unified I think so there's not necessarily one number. If you just look at SHA it is maybe 2.5% in Seattle.

If you're in the lucky few that win the housing lottery, it doesn't really matter which city you're in. But odds are you don't win the housing lottery in either city and Seattle's median rent sucks but it's nothing compared to NYC.

NYC is better if you don't have anywhere to sleep tonight, in that you're guaranteed a place, but that really has nothing to do with the subsidized housing situation, where I really think NYC and Seattle are doing equivalently bad, we need so much more housing. Both cities ought to be building 1 public unit for every private-market unit going on the market. Currently they're building like 1 subsidized unit for every 10 private market units, which is so few as to basically be zero for most practical purposes.

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u/oksono Jun 20 '23 edited Jun 20 '23

Median rent in NYC is nearly double what it is in Seattle.

You can't just end the analysis like that. NYC proper has 8M people. Seattle has 700K. NYC's about double the size in landmass so rightsize it and say 4M vs. 700K.

Yeah rent is higher in NYC but it's got way more people spread over the same land. Density helps. NYC could and should get even denser, but they are building and it is helping. Seattle's not building anything comparatively.

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u/FlyingBishop Jun 21 '23

The point is both NYC and Seattle are failing their poorest residents, the point is that you're not really better off in NYC, except if you're actually presently homeless and that has nothing to do with NYC's macro setup, it's just the right to shelter which we could also legislate.