Laments over unbridled growth in our beloved Northwest are nothing new

It might seem like just yesterday that an avowed Pacific Northwesterner wrote: “I hate this many-headed thing called Civilization that is tearing away from us Westerners the things we love!”

And it would be easy to find people today who would unequivocally agree with this plaintive cry, who have glumly observed the vestiges of old Seattle torn down and replaced by gleaming angular towers, who have witnessed Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon occupy Puget Sound like bristling corporate military camps, who have been backed up in the traffic that chokes our roads, and who have seen the spectacular beauty of the Northwest gradually transformed beyond recognition and rarely for the better.

Note: By Laura Laffrado, Western English professor