Crosscut Seattle - The Crosscut Blog

Crosscut Seattle - The Crosscut Blog: "Royer, who is a national expert on urban problems from his 12 years as Seattle's mayor and then as director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, worries about the teachers, firefighters, and invaluable Seattle workers who make decent salaries but simply can't buy into Seattle's superheated real estate market -- and don't qualify for low income housing. They have to live far away, spend hours in long commutes, and contribute to sprawl and carbon emissions. Families are moving out (a problem Royer as mayor tried to address in numerous 'Seattle is a Kidsplace' initiatives), making it harder to support public schools and parks. Some figures Royer cites put the situation in a nutshell: In 1980, the median value of a house in Seattle was about $65,000. The entry-level firefighter qualified for a house valued at about $75,000, some 15 percent more than needed to buy the 'average' house. In 2006, the median home value in Seattle was about $449,000. That year, the entry-level firefighter could qualify for a house valued at about $228,000, some 95 percent less than needed to buy the 'average' Seattle house."