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I live in Pierce county and have been thinking the exact same thing recently.

It has to be part of why employers have become so dependent on immigrant labor. Foreigners weren’t brought up in the toxic social stew that American life has become since about 1965.

Of course, their kids grow up with this crap and start to act just as crazy. I work mostly with foreign born coworkers these days and some are beginning to wonder if they should just go back home.

I also go down to Portland a lot for shopping. Even the upscale neighborhoods are becoming overrun with derelicts and the local government refuses to help business owners.

I’m convinced cities like Seattle and Portland are just asking to become Detroit.

I mentioned the bus, and I suppose you might find a lower-income level there, but even going to my local Fred Meyer, there are people who basically do their personal hygiene in the men's room (at least they CARE about personal hygiene!), and there are people hanging out on the front bench all day, people with "homeless vet" signs at the driveway, vacant-eyed people roaming the aisles, people living in cars around the fringes of the store, and people who just look unemployable, e.g., white or black young men with saggy pants, hoodies, a street dialect, and seemingly no hope for change or improvement.

The other day, I was sitting in a Subway store and there was a man going through the garbage can in front of the store, looking for food. Ten minutes later, I was in a 7-11 and a baggy-panted young man tried to buy a soda, but had no money - maybe he was hoping for a freebee, just so the clerk would be rid of him. In my local bar, a man comes in several times a week and buys or begs one cigarette from the bartender. People go through the ashtray outside the restaurant, looking for the stubs of partially-smoked cigarettes. These people are legion, and this is a relatively comfortable suburb.

I can vouch for Portland more than I know Seattle. Portland is a sinkhole of tie-dyed, pony tailed, hippie, drug addled puss. I would not recommend it to my worst enemy.

Seattle is vying for at least a tie in that matter.