Arena or Amazon: Does Seattle know what's important?

[mhays]

Can you be more specific?

We have a bad economy like everyone, with unemployment in the 8s and massive state budget problems, but you'd hardly know it walking around. Much of the metro is seeing very little construction, but greater Downtown is in a construction boom despite some sectors doing nothing, relying on housing and tranportation, with a little office, museum, and laboratory thrown in. Amazon is booming. Boeing is booming. Paccar (Kenworth & Peterbilt), Nordstrom, Starbucks, and Costco are seeing their best sales volumes ever. The Gates Foundation is pouring money into research organizations. The military, which is huge on the metro edges in three directions, is solid as ever and a big construction sector. The University of Washington is as busy as always with construction from a previous budget cycle, even while not starting new stuff except for dorms which finance themselves, and labs which also partially finance themselves.

We're lucky to have a lot of companies that pull money in from elsewhere rather than mostly cycling it through locally. If you're valued by companies like that, then you're probably doing well.