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Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

capitolhillautonomous.zone

101–110 of 920 posts

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#101
post #84

A friend lives in Seattle and texted me today about his visit last night: > I was there last night and it's such a cool pseudo utopian place > The media coverage of it is WILD > People on the internet are convinced it's protected by armed guards and people are dying of hunger and instead its...like a music festival campground > There are speakers, musicians, art walls. I took a group pic for a bunch of black guys las…

"they were so proud of what was built"

Curious, since I can't trust news media to not sensationalize this:

What has been built, according to your friend? Have they set up infrastructure of some sort for housing people? Kitchens, latrines, etc?

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#102
post #40
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not even remotely "by all accounts". There are plenty of accounts that isn't "cool and unique" but is just another place ruled by violent thugs: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/h077uv/raz_simone_... I'm not passing judgment yet since the days are young and the political bias on the ground is thick in both directions. But it is definitely not "by all accounts". But my personal bias on the table is that y…

I watched that video, I saw someone coming in and defacing peoples homes. The people filming asked if they had permission, then asked the person to stop. The person refused to stop painting and pushed the group of folks and there was a scuffle that ended with the tagger walking away. Aside, intentionally or unintentionally, calling a group of predominantly black people "thugs" is a common dog whistle.

>and there was a scuffle that ended with the tagger walking away.

That was just the beginning of the confrontation. If you watch the full video the group then followed and hassled the tagger for several minutes before the tagger was hit in the face and had their glasses broken (and their smartphone was stolen from them). Someone also threatened to blow the taggers brains out.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#103

Two fascinating observations I've seen others have point out that are worth pondering: - One of the first things they did after seizing six city blocks is setting up a border and controlling who enters the CHAZ - How would the media have reacted if right-wing groups had commandeered several city blocks of any American city? This is super interesting to watch unfold.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_Nati...

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#105
post #84

A friend lives in Seattle and texted me today about his visit last night: > I was there last night and it's such a cool pseudo utopian place > The media coverage of it is WILD > People on the internet are convinced it's protected by armed guards and people are dying of hunger and instead its...like a music festival campground > There are speakers, musicians, art walls. I took a group pic for a bunch of black guys las…

Sounds a lot like Occupy

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#106
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The list of demands is extremely tame for a fricking anarchist commune. Look at the list of "economic demands." The biggest ask is de-gentrification and rent control.

Those asks seem pretty incompatible with property law and the legislative process. You can't just unilaterally demand something like rent control and de-gentrification measures. The city government shouldn't even have (and probably doesn't have) the power to meet such demands.

Degentrification could trivially be achieved by eminent domain, condemning existing residential property for public housing for which eligibility would be governed on rules which are incompatible with gentrification. It might be expensive, even prohibitively so, to do on a broad scale, but in terms of legal authority it's well within the scope of powers that local governments usually have.

Note that rent control, even if the city doesn't have the power to establish it for private rentals, can effectively be achieved by the same means.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#108

I believe Denmark had something like this for a while. It started with squatters taking over an area kind of like this. Turned into a serious drug venue and eventually fell apart. Sounds like it sort of restarted, albeit with regular Danish law enforcement and other city resources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania

> Turned into a serious drug venue and eventually fell apart. Sounds like it sort of restarted, albeit with regular Danish law enforcement and other city resources. As someone living in Copenhagen, I would not consider that anything near an accurate description of the history of Christiania. What happened was that an old military area and barracks was left abandoned and disused, so a group of squatters moved in, fixe…

That place consisted of people selling weed, people consuming weed, or someone decrying the perception that it was all based around flouting Danish laws relating to weed. It's situated in a nice area of the city, though, if it was just a random suburb it would likely not be a place you'd go.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#109

Seattle doesn't want to be beaten by Minneapolis to becoming the next Detroit

Yes, I'm personally very worried about this as someone who is heavily invested in the real estate market here. The issue of how to deal with the rapid growth in the city is multifaceted and it's difficult to pitch a stance on.

At the very least, you could easily make an argument that a rising tide does not lift all boats; i.e. many people are personally not benefiting much from the tech-boom in the area. On the other hand, if your stance is that our collective goal should be to produce the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people; then we want more people to move to the city have prosperous lives to fulfill the new roles available here. In that scenario it's hard to keep income inequality from expanding.

It seems like thusfar the city council has done a good job at striking a balance; MHA (mandatory housing affordability) is a level-headed way to redistribute some of the gains that tech has brought to those who are less fortunate. However, our current city council is much more left-leaning and I'm worried that their stance towards growth is far more "progressive" and anti-business.

Should people really be entitled to live in an expensive city that they cannot afford? Cities like Manhattan or SF have sort of taken a stance on that and it favors the prosperous. I'm not sure how I feel about the matter; but I certainly do not want us to dampen our potential future potential by encouraging businesses to set up shop elsewhere. We need more initiatives like MHA and fewer like the business head-tax.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#110

It’s funny; this being HN, some of you must live in Seattle. So instead of spreading sub-Facebook level rumors and FUD, why don’t you walk over to CHAZ and see the reality for yourself?

I live in Seattle, went over yesterday with no preconceived notions of what must be there. I had seen some posts that it was pretty lawless, but really took them with a grain of salt. Nothing I had heard about it was true. I didn't see any guns, no violence, or anything, no checkpoints (just barricades stopping actual cars from coming in, but not stopping people/bicycles). Just a bunch of people kind of hanging out listening to speeches near the East Precinct building. The live stream link on the OP shows it, basically people hanging out, walking around, etc.

If you do live in Seattle, you should head over and see it for yourself. It's a very unique thing and who knows how long it will be there. I assume at some point the police will drive a tank through it or something.

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