Everyone else has been talking about the new arena we’re going to get in SoDo, so we might as well go at it.
It’s my kind of sports arena. As a person who never attends sports events, I think it’s wonderful that we’ll have an arena that serves no team. This is consistent with my personal goal in life: never do anything useful.
You’ve all seen that device that consists of a box with a switch that when flipped causes the box to whir and shake. And then, after a bit of time, the box opens and a mechanical hand reaches out to flip the switch back. Then the hand returns inside the box, which closes with a snap. There is no better machine than that, in my opinion.
I’m sure we’ll hear a lot soon about how the building of a basketball arena, even without a basketball team, will be fabulous for the local economy. Think of the construction jobs the project will create.
Thinking of the construction jobs that the project will create, I am thinking further, “Hey, if this is the way to boost the economy, why don’t we build arenas everywhere?”
I have been all over Seattle, and I have seen miles of streets that I personally have no use for and wouldn’t mind if a big box building were set on top of them, blocking traffic access.
There are people — people I could name who work with me right here at Real Change — who are aghast that the proposed arena will eliminate a couple blocks of Occidental Avenue. I say it’s not enough. Streets can be enjoyed as abstract ideas. We can savor those blocks of Occidental when they have gone, forever, perhaps assisted by Paul “Now & Then” Dorpat.
Seattle has eliminated whole hills for the sake of progress. Who should mind a few blocks of streets here and there? I could make a list of thousands of blocks of Seattle streets that I would not miss. For example, is Seventh Avenue really necessary? I only use First through Fifth, and that’s all any decent hard-working citizen needs. Let’s drop a roller derby arena on snooty Seventh and fancy pants Eighth. For the jobs.
Another street no one needs is Dexter between Denny and Howe. We need Dexter north of Howe for now, until the Swedish Club can find a new home. But until then the stretch of Dexter south of Howe to Denny ought to be the world’s greatest skateboard park. It will put Seattle on the map, as far as national — no, international — skateboarding competitions are concerned. Again, think of the construction jobs, plus a huge future tourist draw. For sure.
We can build arenas anywhere and everywhere in the city. I estimate there’s room for 10,000 arenas within the city limits, even allowing for parking. And you remember what they say: Build them and they will come. We’ll be the sports capital of the world.
There will be so many teams of every kind of major league of every sport that the probability that not one Seattle team wins a national championship in any given year will drop to less than one percent.
Or, if some of them go vacant, no problem. We could use those for shelters for some of the more than half million Seattleites who would have been displaced by then. That’s just clear thinking.
Where else can this thinking get us? We can save society.
The proposed arena in SoDo is expected to cost so much that if the residents of the city proper paid the whole cost through taxes the bill would average $750 each. Think about the good it will do us to each be relieved of the financial burden of $750. Make a case for spending that money on an arena on the grounds that we all would have otherwise spent it on recreational drugs, alcohol and fast living.
Sports arenas are important means of preventing the moral decay of America.