City, Interrupted

Shocked by the dramatic makeover of his favourite American city, Nitin Chaudhary explores the streets of Seattle, wondering how this techled transformation will affect residents and travellers

- Nitin Chaudhary

A city brimming with high-paid, well-educated people seems like a great place to visit. However, the once-sleepy Seattle I used to frequent appears to have changed for the worse—and, at first glance, it looks like it’s because the city is plagued by too much success.

The flywheel of this tech-town is powered by global heavyweights, Amazon and Microsoft, not to mention over a thousand other startups that now call Seattle home. I saw their increased influence on the appearance and workings of the city the last time I visited, two years ago, but I certainly was not prepared for what I saw when I returned to the city centre in 2019.

Seattle still maintains quite a bit of its charm, but half the time I turned a corner downtown, it looked like the city was undergoing surgery, wretched with all the construction going on in its heart—a building frenzy of blocked lanes and closed sideways. Cranes stood perched at almost every corner, and the innards of downtown Seattle lay dug up in the open. Okay, I may be exaggerating slightly, but I blame that on the shock.

Even though I was struggling to come to terms with how much the cityscape had changed, I figured I was there to explore, so I might as well get to know this Seattle that seemed to be caught in the middle of a makeover. It became immediately apparent that the best way to get around was walking, my usual approach to exploring cities. Given the streets were choked with construction and traffic, I could definitely see travellers who like to rent cars or take Ubers struggling with the city’s current commuter predicament.