downtown, in view

This place, I couldn't help but noticing, has gotten really gentrified.
Downtown Seattle a couple of decades ago seemed a place with at least its share of grunge and rough edges. Scattered buildings and blocks had an upscale look to them, but many - even many with overlooks of the Puget Sound - looked low rent, and probably were. How this circumstance managed to maintain for so long is unclear, but for a long time, it did.

Most of my visits over the last decade - and most often when I visited Seattle I would bypass downtown, if only because of the awful parking situation - I was most overcome with the scense with construction. Streets were torn up evertwhere. Buildings were either being built or rebuilt. The place seemed a mess to get around.
Right now, downtown Seattle has ongoing what may be the single largest construction project in its history, the rebuild of the underground bus tunnel. But that is mostly invisible. What you see at ground level is quite different.
I could pay more notice this time in part because I took public transit into downtown, eliminating car worries. The trip from the Tacoma Dome transit hub was painless (and parking at the hub was free). And once in downtown, I was surprised how much of it has been upscaled and gentrified - practically everything outside of Pioneer Square (where a few rough edges remain amid the trendy glitz) and Pike Street Marketplace *which still, blessedly, has that human look to it). Everything in sight looks spiffed and expensive. And, until you wander south of Jackson Street or so, and excepting an incursion around 2nd, no one is likely to feel unsafe.
The Nickels Administration has been promoting a new sense for Seattle's downtown for a while now. Looks like it has matched up with reality.