It's the first week of April, and things on the city council are heating up faster than a sunny afternoon at Denny Blaine Park. First up: A debate over developer profits and a controversial proposal to expand the Mandatory Affordable Housing program (MHA) to former single family zones. Why can’t we quit bickering and build more shit? Then, rising gun violence. An audit's in, tensions between council and the executive branch are increasing, and the question we all want answered is, "Why is Seattle's rate climbing when others are dropping?" Plus, a resolution on "defund the police" that had us perplexed. And why did some skip the resolution vote? Finally, a potential $47 million payroll tax shortfall. Can Seattle afford … Seattle?

Our editor is Quinn Waller.

About Seattle Nice

It’s getting harder and harder to talk about politics, especially if you disagree. Well, screw that. Seattle Nice aims to be the most opinionated and smartest analysis of what’s really happening in Seattle politics available in any medium.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

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Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

This is a special preview of an episode of a new podcast, Blue City Blues. Click this link to hear the entire episode wherever you get your podcasts.

Keith Humphreys: Why Drug Reform Failed In West Coast Blue Cities

The wave of bold new decriminalization-centered approaches to drug policy reform that swept West Coast cities from San Francisco to Vancouver, B.C. starting around 2020 has failed, according to one the nation’s leading drug policy experts, former Obama White House drug policy advisor and Stanford psychiatry professor Keith Humphreys. On this week’s Blue City Blues, we invited Professor Humpreys on to explore why.

Our editor is Quinn Waller.

About Blue City Blues

Twenty years ago, Dan Savage encouraged progressives to move to blue cities to escape the reactionary politics of red places. And he got his wish. Over the last two decades, rural places have gotten redder and urban areas much bluer.

America’s bluest cities developed their own distinctive culture, politics and governance. They became the leading edge of a cultural transformation that reshaped progressivism, redefined urbanism and remade the Democratic Party.

But as blue cities went their own way, as they thrived as economically and culturally vibrant trend-setters, these urban cosmopolitan islands also developed their own distinctive set of problems. Inequality soared, and affordability tanked. And the conversation about those problems stagnated, relegated to the narrowly provincial local section of regional newspapers or local NPR programming.

The Blue City Blues podcast aims to pick up where Savage’s Urban Archipelago idea left off, with a national perspective on the present and the future of urban America. We will consider blue cities as a collective whole. What unites them? What troubles them? What defines them?

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller. Get more information at hearthprotection.org

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

Breaking: Council President Sara Nelson tells Seattle Nice she’s open to considering new progressive taxes to fund drug treatment and that she supports involuntary commitment for people who are “severely impaired through years of addiction.”

We also dive deep into the epic battle over Sara’s plan for affordable “workforce” housing near the stadiums. Why were some urbanists opposed? Did billionaire Chris Hansen pull the strings? What really went down at the marathon city council meeting before the vote?

Quinn Waller is our editor.

About Seattle Nice

It’s getting harder and harder to talk about politics, especially if you disagree. Well, screw that. Seattle Nice aims to be the most opinionated and smartest analysis of what’s really happening in Seattle politics available in any medium.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller. Get more information at hearthprotection.org

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.