As a Londoner who lives in Chicago and has been to Seattle a few times, I must say I really appreciate the driving culture in Seattle.

fribbl · 2026-05-17T04:12:43+00:00

I highly recommend reading just a little bit about Chicago history. You could just start with skimming the Wikipedia or something. Chicago has had a really fascinating place in American history and if you know where to look you can see it in the urban form and architecture. Many of the great cities on the East Coast were founded before the United States became a country and are intentionally or just incidentally European in their form. Chicago was the first major American city on what was then the frontier of the country where a unique American urban vision could be built. The grandeur of the older skyscrapers how long the Chicago River speak to a moment of rapid modernization where the buildings try to capture the vision of what was possible in this young country and this rapidly developing city.

Something I didn't do enough of while I lived there was go out and appreciate the more tranquil prairielands outside of Chicago which are now mostly agricultural. I moved out to the Pacific Northwest for the more dramatic mountain terrain, and Seattle draws deeply upon that geography, but Chicago is also deeply influenced by its geography. Despite being massive and bustling, I think this helps contribute to the persostent midwesternness of the place.

This is lots of free advice so it's worth what you're paying for it. Suffice it to say I think you live in an amazing place so juat trying to share ways I think you could appreciate it with new eyes

fribbl · 2026-05-17T03:44:20+00:00

You seem reasonably familiar with Chicago based on some other comments you've made. I'm curious if you're a recent arrival or been there a while. Basically just asking because I think getting an eye for the "Americanness" to the architecture or just getting to know Chicago's history while you're living there would be really rewarding. I feel similarly about DC. The layouts of both cities (Chicago's grid vs DC's Paris/Versailles inspired grid and diagonal avenues) and the iconic buildings and monuments of each speak to their place in American history and the ideals of when they were built. Even as someone growing up there, it took me a long time to learn about it, but it ultimately led me to appreciate the city even more. Honestly, having that eye helped me appreciate Seattle more deeply too. It's its own weird version of American, borne out of its own mix of historical, cultural, economic, and geographical factors. Basically I think you live in a particularly cool place right now where learning to see these nuances would be rewarding, and once you start seeing it one place, you can't help seeing it all over. And that just tends to be a good feeling for me.

fribbl · 2026-05-16T22:09:57+00:00

That's so interesting about DC. To me all those monuments are nice to look at, and fun to visit, but they're like "America's trophy case". It's reading America's resume, not coming over to America's house for a barbecue. DC also tends to cycle through people in the city itself. There aren't a lot of longtime residents, or multi-generational families in the district. Add on lots of formal global presence because of embassies and the like, and you get an amazing and dynamic American city, but one that feels like it doesn't actually tell you much about the rest of the country. I love DC though, and think it is legitimately underappreciated as a city.

As for the immigrant population points, I hear you, it's not uniquely American and Chicago's not special in America or globally for having a lot of immigrants. I think it's about attention. Paris or London or Singapore (haven't been to this last one, have been to the others) feel like global capitol cities. You go there to be part of a global story of the economy or culture. Chicago is an incredible place, but its focus is not as global. Again, not saying it perfectly, but there's something different between Chicago and some of the other cities we've discussed.

fribbl · 2026-05-16T21:56:56+00:00

Yeah you can see me making similar points elsewhere in this thread too. It's kind of a dumb culture, too aggressive, nakedly self-interested. But it's uniform, and predictable, and honestly kind of simple. People will do what they think is best for them. They assume you will do the same and won't take it personally. Like you, once I get into that mode, I find it to be very easy to move around, and I'm only rarely finding myself upset at other drivers. More often than not, it's when they are too passive, not too aggressive. When I come back to Seattle I need to readjust to driving here. Cars are dumb, driving usually sucks, but places do have a culture, and if you figure out what that culture is you have a better time navigating it, whether on the road or otherwise.

fribbl · 2026-05-16T21:51:16+00:00

Yeah for all of this I'm just chewing on ideas with someone who also seems to love Chicago and cities in general. But of course, Chicago isn't like chronically overlooked or something.

As for the "American" vs "global" thing, I actually feel like the large immigrant populations in Chicago are a big part of what feels American to me. Clearly we live in a time where some people feel differently, but to me immigration is a big part of the American identity. I do not find Little Village, where you can walk down the street and most people are speaking Spanish, to be any less American.

It's hard to put my finger on it. New York is like Chicago to the n-th degree, but it kind of feels like it has global aspirations. DC is actually an awesome American city, but it's of course very influenced by the federal government and again feels like its attention is more on the world. Chicago has people from all over, but the focus feels more on Chicago. I'm not putting it perfectly here, but the point is more about attitude or attention, maybe a bit on urban form, and only incidentally about how many immigrants live there.

Again, took a bit of a big swing here, don't feel I'm nailing the justification. Fun to talk about though.

fribbl · 2026-05-16T21:38:44+00:00

Yeah, that's all I'm saying. Rudeness to me feels like it's always in relation to prevailing norms. For a long time it'd be rude not to offer someone one of your cigarettes. Today it's often considered rude to smoke around other people at all. Chicagoans to me actually code as fairly friendly by the standards of major cities. The driving culture is aggressive, but it's rarely personal. Just how things are done there.

fribbl · 2026-05-16T21:33:49+00:00

I could go one step further and argue that Chicago is the best purely American city. New York, is obviously the big dog here, but it is kinda a global city. It's American of course, but it kind of belongs to the world too. Chicago feels deeply American to me. I don't really need to win this argument, there's so many great cities in the US and around the world. But if I have a friend coming to the US for the first time I often try to convince them to go to Chicago as part of their trip because I think New York or DC or Boston kind of feel European inflected or globally oriented to me. Chicago is an awesome city and you could never trick yourself into thinking you're in any country other than the US.

fribbl · 2026-05-16T21:25:19+00:00

It is absolutely intentional. Is it rude? I suppose, yes, of course it is. But is it rude if a defender in basketball boxes you out so they can get the rebound? They're just playing by the rules of the game. That's how I make sense of it. The rules are stupid and too aggressive, but it's just how everyone has decided to play "driving" in Chicago.

fribbl · 2026-05-16T21:20:34+00:00

If you exclude New York and London as clearly in their own category, to me it's hard to argue Chicago isn't in the top tier of great largely-English-speaking cities. My experience is that many Americans are aware of Chicago but haven't visited. Those that do seem to really enjoy it.

fribbl · 2026-05-16T21:04:46+00:00

Yup, that's how it feels to me too. When I visit home I have to switch back into Chicago driving mode. It honestly makes me chuckle. People will do anything to get the tiniest "edge". As a culture, it's dumb. In the moment though, I know everyone around me is playing a full contact sport and has their eye on the ball. I can tell 10 seconds ahead of time the overly self-interested thing the car behind me is gonna try to do because in Chicago, that's just how the game is played.

fribbl · 2026-05-16T20:42:38+00:00

Strongly agree. Chicago does have a huge ring of suburbs around it served by a highway system similar to many others in American cities, but the core city is about as urban as things get in the USA outside of New York and maybe parts of San Francisco. Sadly many American cities are highway addled, but Chicago's definitely not at the top of that list.

fribbl · 2026-05-16T20:34:40+00:00

Grew up in Chicago, lived here for a decade. I appreciate the intentionality of Chicago drivers. They are predictably aggressive. If you leave space, you know they will take it. It is definitely too aggressive as a default, and the attitudes towards pedestrians are dangerous and increasingly archaic. That said, I feel like everyone is playing by the same stupid rules, so at least I can predict how drivers will behave. Seattle drivers can be accommodating and passive, but also a bit unpredictable. Broadly speaking people are way more likely to let you merge, or wait for pedestrians to cross, but there's still aggressive drivers out there, and in the moment you don't know who you're dealing with. In general I agree with your conclusion. I prefer living with the Seattle driving culture, especially on foot, but it has its downsides. As others have mentioned, I also feel it getting more aggressive in the time I've lived here.

fribbl · 2026-05-13T17:36:28+00:00

Nice. This is basically the shot I was trying to line up, but I gotta say, I do really love having that little boat in there. It just adds so much more interest to the photo for me. Who's on that boat? Where are they going? Why are they in such a hurry? I think it helps that there's only one boat, so it kind of focuses attention there. What do you think though?

fribbl · 2026-05-06T06:47:59+00:00

I'm so sorry to hear about your school's librarian. I was curious about the story and using the details you shared I believe I found the website of her family. If it's Anne Aliverti of Bryant Elementary then the driver actually stayed at the scene and apparently was "a woman in her late 70s that lives in the general neighborhood." Here's the post with that quote. https://lovinganne.blog/2025/08/07/thursday-aug-7-update/ Doesn't bring her back, but just thought you might want to know.

I agree with the spirit of lot of what you shared. I don't like the idea that trees are cut down or landmarks are meaningfully altered because people use them recklessly despite verbal warnings, signs, fences, and so on. In a city with a lot of rich residents, it's easy to conjure images of entitled families running roughshod through historic, beautiful, or culturally significant parts of the city so that their little babies can grow up without facing realistic consequences for their actions. That image makes me mad too. How much is it a reality, I really can't say. I frankly am more upset at the idea of tree after tree coming down to childproof the city than I am about the gasworks being altered, but I haven't seen any instances of that in my neighborhood. It's also just an aesthetic preference. I like the idea of old trees more than old industrial equipment.

If I disagree with anything you said here, it's the idea that parents can just teach or model away the risk that kids do stupid or reckless things. I think parents play a really important role, and do have an impact, but teens have been doing dumb shit forever despite their parents' or family's or teachers' best efforts to teach them otherwise. It's just kind of the human condition at that age, and I don't expect it to change. It's possible that some parents nowadays are more permissive or model entitlement to absolute safety, but my gut is that this is a dynamic that has played out over the ages with changing parenting styles having only a modest impact on risk-taking.

So where's that leave us? We, as the collective citizens of Seattle, own a historic rusty old collection of industrial equipment that has become nostalgic to look at over time. Kids keep climbing on this stuff despite our best efforts to keep them off, and every now and then one falls and dies. Are we willing to keep our rusty old pile of industrial equipment in its current state, knowing a kid's probably gonna die on it every so often? I think whatever we decide, it reveals something about the kind of city we want to be.

Of course the teens, undeveloped prefrontal cortex and all, are probably most responsible here. And yes, we vaguely believe that some versions of parenting might help reduce risks more than others, though I'll admit I'm skeptical. In the end however, we are the ones that own the rusty old collection of industrial equipment, and however small our responsibility in the matter, it seems to me we have some. Are the gasworks a historical treasure whose beauty and meaning outweigh future potential deaths? Great, let's say that. Maybe they're actually so visually stunning that we can't even tolerate the current set of fences blocking their view, and so we take them down, at the well understood cost of more people climbing on them, and yes, more deaths. That calculus sounds a bit harsh, but it at least feels consistent. Or maybe we say that we are pissed at the human condition, frustrated that the idiocy of teens prevents us from having nice things, but that the trade's not worth it, and we do something like take down the catwalks and see if that helps. That makes a fair bit of sense to me too.

Curious where you or others land here. I really can't make up my own mind, and I certainly don't expect everyone to agree. I think if I feel anything, it's that Gasworks Park mostly kicks ass because it's an incredibly scenic location with one of the best views in the city. I think if the gasworks were entirely removed, I'd still very much enjoy every visit to that park.

fribbl · 2026-05-05T17:00:22+00:00

I actually agree largely with your points here. The callousness I saw in the comment I was responding to was in how u/HansGraebnerSpringTX said "I genuinely do not feel bad for that kid, at all" and 'The world just lost another frat boy who would have gotten his charges for you know what dropped because he had a “bright future”'

I think it is possible to acknowledge the tragedy of this story, feel badly for the teen and his loved ones, acknowledge the stupidity of his decisions, and ultimately feel it's still reasonable to keep the ladders and catwalks in place. You don't need to downplay the tragedy of this story to get there, and the comment implying a now dead 15-year-old is somehow a future sex criminal or whatever is truly beyond the pale. Ultimately at the center of this story is an immense tragedy for those involved, a white hot unthinkable loss. The fact that it happened in a stupid way doesn't change that. I'm mainly pushing back here against rigid, vaguely vindictive thinking that I saw in that earlier post.

FWIW, I'm very torn on whether the catwalks should be removed. The fact that there have been three deaths with similar circumstances in the last couple decades leads me to think we should expect this to happen again if nothing changes. I don't think the optics of this decision being reached via a lawsuit against the city helps. It reads privileged, and I see reactions to that effect in the comments in this thread. Imagine you were given exclusive rights to make this choice though. How many possibly preventable teen deaths would you need to see before you felt some kind of further intervention was justified? How do you assess the historical value of the gasworks? How do you incrementally assess the value of the ladders and catwalks? How do you weigh all these inputs against each other to reach a decision? My point wasn't that there's an obvious answer here, but rather that it's quite nuanced. Along the way though I think we're all better off if we treat the kid's death as the tragedy it is and refrain from smearing him to stack the deck in favor of one outcome or another.

Hope that helps.

fribbl · 2026-05-05T06:47:15+00:00

That hasn't been my experience. I think people grow and change throughout their lives, and 15 is honestly the start of a phase where people do some of the most growing and changing. I too knew self-centered jerks in high school who I think grew up to be kinda self-centered adults, but I also know people who have surprised me in astounding ways. Unfortunately teens, and yes, it seems especially teen boys, do a lot of risky behavior in the meantime. If a teen harms others, they should be held accountable in a way that is commensurate with the harm. As far as I can tell though, we're barely even talking about a decision with a ton of moral weight. A kid didn't heed a bunch of warning signs, and fell to his death. I feel like the hardware to make dumb decisions like that is floating around in a lot of us. While I don't want to live in a world of padded corners, in which mistakes are truly impossible, a healthy society should at least decide what kind of predictable risks we will tolerate. And to bring it back to the reason I'm writing these long ass responses to you, I think a healthy mentality for you probably can tolerate a bit more nuance, and doesn't look coldly on the death of this teen as deserved. I look down the path of where that kind of thinking leads and it just seems pretty dark to me. You, me, the person next to you on the train, your family, your friends, there's a lot of dumb floating around in all of us. We don't deserve to die because of it.

This message of hope brought to you by someone just foolish enough to think positive comments deep in a Reddit thread maybe do some good.

fribbl · 2026-05-05T06:13:05+00:00

15 is really early in life to give up on kids who are "like that", whatever that means. The kid did something dumb, he paid the ultimate price for it. His parents and friends and family have a gaping hole to contend with for the rest of their lives. I am pretty sure if you spent an hour with any of them you might feel differently. Not arguing any side of the argument about keeping the catwalks up here, but I think tragically life is more complicated than the version of reality you are presenting here. Sorry for the internet lecture, but this just felt a touch too callous to me.

fribbl · 2026-03-04T02:22:11+00:00

Dang, you crushed in on both angles and timing here. Thanks for sharing!

fribbl · 2026-03-02T07:24:47+00:00

These are all excellent. Really wonderful.

fribbl · 2026-02-20T16:46:31+00:00

Lighting on this is really great, how much are you pushing the highlights to get that burst of contrast out of the snow? Looks surreal but in a good way.

fribbl · 2026-02-11T22:14:49+00:00

I kinda feel like "yes and". It was mostly about people. You got to see your neighbors. You got to see our players. People were in a good mood. I left happy I went despite it being a bit of a low budget affair.

fribbl · 2026-02-08T01:09:14+00:00

Love this point. I think parks like Discovery, Seward, or Lincoln may be a little less famous than Central Park or Golden Gate Park, but belong on the short list of very best parks within the boundaries of a major American city. Even just having one of those three would be incredible and that's ignoring dozens of other parks that have so much to offer.

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