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Comment by NotSammyHagar | Hacker News Reader

As someone from Seattle, I can only say this makes me unhappy, because even more people will want to move from SF to here. We have enough people here, please consider moving to another fair city. :-) Our own media brags about how we are the fastest rising city by price, yet quotes numbers smaller than this, say 19% yoy as of January - http://seattlebubble.com/blog/.

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It's always interesting to me that a progressive city, like Seattle, has a bunch of people who proudly push a protectionist/exclusion stance similar to the anti-immigration stance on the far right.

> similar to the anti-immigration stance on the far right

I'm not on the far right, but I can tell you that of those I know who are, precisely none of them are 'anti-immigrant'. The majority of them would like to reduce illegal immigration and improve border security, but that's also true of the vast majority of Americans as a whole.

Perhaps when you say 'immigrant' you are actually referring to illegal immigrants? Even in that case, over 3/4ths of Republicans favor a pathway to citizenship for existing illegal immigrants (including 'dreamers').

[1] Previous Gallup research has shown that 77% of Americans say that "controlling U.S. borders to halt the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S." is extremely or very important. And 83% favor "tightening security at U.S. borders." http://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/209384/buildi...

[2] http://news.gallup.com/poll/193817/republicans-favor-path-ci...

You're using surveys of all republicans and all Americans to dispute my comment about 'the far right'?

There comes a point where the system (Seattle) can't support additional traffic (immigrants) without expanding. Expanding pushes out people lower on the ladder, which is often people you could consider locals, which often changes the underlying chemistry and vibe of the city.

I grew up in Oregon and most of my friends and family have a general disinterest in people moving to the state, especially from California. A neighboring town, often regarded as one of the better towns in the area, has seen drastic immigration (mostly from California) in the past 50 years. On the surface, you might not see much damage, and in fact you might see only improvements. But when you look at the side effects, such as multi-generational families getting kicked out due to excessively high taxes brought by wealthy Californians, and general road traffic increasing in speed beyond what locals want (Oregon doesn't have any speed limits above 65mph, AFAICR), you see another story.

Immigration is great when it works out for you, and not so great when it doesn't.

I completely understand that. However, the only solution to that problem is to try to halt change and protect existing residents from outsiders. Not to mention that existing property owners do really well when prices skyrocket.

Edit: I guess the broader question is to what degree do locals get to infringe on the rights of outsiders to buy property?

I'd support a voting system where your vote is proportional to how long you've been a resident of the area that elected position or ballot question covers. That would save a lot of cities and towns from losing their identity to inter and intra state immigration.

Toleration is a broad, complex spectrum, and all too often people put little thought into their principles. Instead we tend to define ourselves amongst our peers, some distance from the issues. The true test of your principles comes when its happening to you.

Have you seen the comments on HN whenever H1B changes news are on?

Its pretty anti-immigrant. Everyone is progressive with other people's pockets.

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