Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation

Timothy Egan writes about the history of Seattle’s social landscape and remembers a time in the 1980s when he frequently sought part-time work as a dock worker, unloading goods imported from abroad. He worked alongside career longshore workers, an industry practically destroyed in today’s Seattle and replaced by the technology industry, which has brought gentrification. This shift has driven up the cost of living, rent, and home prices in the city, much like in the modern Bay Area described in Rebecca Solnit’s opening essay. According to Egan:

Walking up the hill from the waterfront, past a place that used to have a six-a.m. happy hour and another address that was a refuge for sailors called that Catholic Seaman’s Club, and you find a town with barely a trace of its odiferous past (147).

When politicians visit Seattle now, they are swept away to the homes of wealthy elites rather than giving speeches in working-class settings like the Pike Place Market, Seattle’s historical farmer’s and fish market. Amazon’s presence had replaced the mechanic shops, apartment buildings with reasonable rents, and other working-class businesses.

Egan struggles to make peace with his city’s new façade because he knows that “the gulf between the rich and everybody else grows by the day” (148).