The departure of our artists

The Stranger has an interesting article this week about artists no longer being able to afford Seattle so they’re moving to Portland, Seattle’s Hottest New Hood:

Over the past couple of years, significant members of Seattle’s music community have been drifting south, drawn by Portland’s inexpensive cost of living and vibrant creative community.

While many of Seattle’s established neighborhoods have the requisite amount of vibrancy what about a neighborhood like South Lake Union? It’s not one of those neighborhoods where the artists moved in first to be followed by the yuppies. Instead the reverse is going to occur and even worse it’s going to be a planned community. A planned community with no plan for providing affordable housing to our artists. I know Vulcan is giong to tell us that the artists will be living at Veer where they can revel in what they create but I imagine that the average artist can’t afford a glossy new loft with banana countertops (I do still hope that they will surprise us with the pricing).