Condos

My daughter knows the word "condo" now. It's because her mama and daddy talk about the condos constantly, and tsk-tsk the development up and down California each time we travel that way. We are house snobs now - we have the luxury of owning our own home on our own property, and even have a yard where our dogs can run around. I don't know that we have all that much against condos or townhomes, really. We just don't like the way THESE condos around here are shaping up, for the most part. They seem to be getting slapped up without much regard for the history and future of our community; they are unabashed symbols of capitalism. They are land-hogs, stretching their structures all the way out to their property lines, and all the way up to their coded height limits. They make me feel yucky. And P.S., What kind of people are going to live there? That also makes me nervous. And don't go telling me this is "affordable housing." These places are starting around $4-500K. So it's not going to be friendly, middle-class families who just want to live in a nice community. It's going to be single-ish, couple-ish upper-class-ish people who are choosing to spend their money to live someplace tacky, a.k.a. TACKY PEOPLE. Ugh.

I am not sad that structures like the burned-out Schuck's or the nasty Hancock Fabrics building (hey - isn't that also a Schuck's?) are getting torn down and revamped for mixed retail and living spaces. I just want to see more consideration taken for the values of the community when the new structures are designed. I have learned (and please correct me if this is inaccurate) that according to city restrictions, developers constructing buildings with eight townhomes/condos or less in this area do not have to go through any sort of community design review process prior to initiation of their projects. Ever notice that a lot of these places going up, particularly the really generic, disheartening ones, are exactly eight townhomes big?

Now onto the subject of Whole Foods. Honestly I have mixed feelings about this whole thing, though I'm not exactly sure how this is really going to affect me because I shop mostly at Safeway and Fred Meyer and WinCo (do you know about WinCo? An amazing place! I will save this topic for an entire post!), and generally more cheaply and inorganically. I know, I know - I should buy organic, blah blah blah, especially now that I am pregnant. But find me a store that sells organic for only slightly more than regular price, and washes off the dirt for me (why does it always have to be so dirty? I still believe it's organic without seeing the soil still on the leaves!) and I will go running with my hemp bag to load up. Ha ha. Until that time, it will be me with all the other rag-tags in our sweatpants at the Safeway, buying our non-dirty produce and discount meats. Not to mention the human drama that unfolds each time I shop there. Yesterday I saw a guy in the Safeway wearing a t-shirt that said "Hola Bitchola," shopping right next to a little old lady who had been bussed in from the nearby rest home. They smiled pleasantly at each other. Now, tell me when I would see that at PCC!

Sure, I love to go to Whole Foods occasionally when I visit Portland, and look at all of the gorgeous fruit stacked up perfectly, the tantalizing sausages in the meat case, the amazing fish section. I love to go to the cheese section when I have a little dinner party, and try fourteen samples of fresh cheese from all over the world before I pick one. And I love to look at all of the lovely desserts and the prepared foods section to get a little snack and lots of ideas for what I might whip up at home. It's a beautiful experience, really. And cheers to all those people who can do their weekly shopping there, buying bags and bags full of that awesome produce and meat and 360 brand rice cakes and bottled water and flax seed oil. You will probably go to heaven for filling your bodies with only the freshest, purest foods. But I do not believe that most of us can shop there like this. So I guess I wonder how these three stores - Whole Foods, Metropolitan Market, and PCC - are all going to survive in our little old neighborhood. I would hate to see Metropolitan Market have to leave West Seattle, for example, as I feel this is a wonderful, local community-minded business (although I do very little shopping there, either. It is a great place to get the occasional coffee, though! And of course the samples. And it's a good place to see some West Seattle gays.).

So, we shall see. Happy Friday, by the way!