Jet City Journal

Fixing Aurora Avenue North

Thunderbird Motel, originally uploaded by Kevin Pedraja.

If you live within a quarter mile of Aurora Avenue North, you're probably familiar with the problems highlighted in a recent Seattle Times story.

"About 20 motels operate now from North 40th to North 145th, the Seattle city limits, and peeling facades, burned-out neon signs and buckled asphalt lots hint to conditions inside."

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"The density of cheap digs has fueled Aurora's reputation as a magnet for drugs and prostitution. An average room goes for $50 a night."

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"'Crime on Aurora has been a deeply ingrained problem that's lasted for decades," said Seattle police Capt. Mike Washburn, commander of the North Precinct. "Aurora is a state highway, it's easy to get in and out of ... and the motels are certainly a piece of this.'"

While the article points out that many of the hotels on Aurora are well-managed and not contributing to the area's crime problem, there are clearly some landlords who permit illegal activities to take place on their premises.

I'm probably not alone in wishing that the motels would just go away. But advocates for low-income and homeless families insist that the motels are a necessary evil, as they provide much-needed housing for the city's less fortunate. That's a fair point, but many of the motels charge outrageous sums for rooms that are, in a word, horrible. Even worse, the city, state and Federal government are actually paying for this squalor through various housing assistance programs. Put another way, you and I are keeping slum lords in business through our tax dollars.

So, here is a modest proposal to address the problems of Aurora Avenue. The city and state should start a program to acquire the offending motels through eminent domain, refurbish them, manage them and rent them out to low-income residents at reasonable rates.  Couple that with the establishment of a Seattle Police storefront station on Aurora somewhere between 85th and 120th streets and the initiation of regular foot patrols. Clean, well-managed motels and a stepped up police presence would do much to eliminate the underlying problems that have made Aurora Avenue a boulevard of broken dreams.

As long as Aurora Avenue continues to be a haven for petty crime, drugs and prostitution, there is no hope that it can rise above its current seedy circumstances. Respectable businesses won't want any part of a neighborhood where potential customers fear to walk.

Simple thought for the day

I voted, therefore I am.

Building a logic model for handling the financial crisis

A company called Austhink has developed a graphical logic model for evaluating the Paulson and Dodd proposals for handling the financial crisis.  It's a really interesting way to look at the problem. 

In which I apologize to TypePad

The posting problem is fixed and I got nice personal messages from a TypePad community manager giving me status updates.  Apple, please take note of how it's supposed to be done.  And thank you, Ginevra.

Credit where it's due

A couple of weeks ago, when my work MacBook died for the second time in less than six months I brought it to the Apple Store at UVillage.  While the machine was still under warranty, my apologetic Apple Genius couldn't repair it until I produced some documentation.  My previous failure had required a hard-drive replacement, during which the techs had failed to put the machine's serial number on the new drive.  As a result, Apple couldn't track the repair or even find my machine in their system.  After a drive home and then to the office in an annoying but ultimately successful search for the old repair order, Apple agreed to replace my machine with a brand new one and even copied all of my data from the old machine to the new.  They've even called me to follow up and make sure the new MacBook is working properly.  That's pretty good customer service and it turned me from a grumpy customer to a happy one. 

Truly civilian space flight

An Arizona engineer is jumping into the civilian space race with a truly home-grown spacecraft. Unlike the massively funded projects by Virgin Galactic, Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin and others, the Hermes Spacecraft (not to be confused with the proposed but never built 1970s-era French shuttle of the same name) is being built without major corporate sponsorship or cash.  The creator, Morris Jarvis, and his team are getting a bit of technical help from companies like Intel to make their dream, and hopefully the dreams of many others, a reality.  His plan calls for early flights in which the 6-8 passenger Hermes craft will be taken to the edge of the atmosphere by a large balloon and released.   

Providing that all the test flights work out safely, the first commercial trip would have the craft towed by balloons tethered to safety parachutes to 113,000 feet—about 21 miles high. During an undoubtedly scary free-fall back to the ground, passengers would experience about 5 minutes of weightlessness.

On later missions, the craft will ride on the back of a rocket to suborbital altitudes.  Jarvis estimates civilians will be able to fly on Hermes for $25,000 for a balloon flight or $100,000 for the "E-ticket" (bonus points if you get the reference) rocket-powered version. That's quite a bit cheaper than the competition.

The Hermes virtual cockpit, which allows the craft to be piloted remotely during testing, will be on display at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco starting on August 19th.

KEXP Summer BBQ

KEXP's Summer BBQ is fast becoming the anti-Bumbershoot.  It's inexpensive. The music is good.  You can actually see and hear the bands. There are no hippies trying to sell you stuff made out of yak hair.  And the only time you have to stand in cattle lines is when you need to use the bathroom.  The beer is better, too.

Courtney Taylor-Taylor of the Dandy Warhols

Carkeek Park

When summer doesn't start until July, it's easy to forget that Seattle is a coastal city with real, honest-to-goodness beaches.  Carkeek Park is one.  It's a mecca for kiteboarders as well as plain folk.  (Too bad I only had my iPhone with me.  Hey Steve, how about a real camera in the next version, m'kay?)

High tide, with a train passing by.

Sunbathers and kite boarders.

Nickels tackles condos ... kinda

Now that he's gone after McMansions, Greg Nickels is taking on the real development problem in Seattle, Craptastic Condos.  But, while his proposed reforms seem to address some of the design issues that make these condos a blight, he doesn't address my biggest concern: low quality materials and shoddy construction.  You don't have to look far to find a new condo with substandard, misaligned siding or cheap windows.  In fact, it's hard to find one without them. 

Facebook uses its power for good ... or evil?

So, I just got a Facebook message from a friend who will be visiting Seattle with his daughter later this summer.  He asked for recommendations on what to do.  I made a few and then suggested he check out The Stranger for additional ideas, typing out the Web address.  As if by magic, an ad for The Stranger appeared within my message.  I didn't ask for it and had no way to delete it.  I'm not too bummed because in this case it was totally relevant.  But still. That's weird.  And kinda creepy...