Artist’s View of New UW/Tsinghua University campus in BELLEVUE. Inside Higher Ed reported that the University of Washington’s interim president, Ana Mari Cauce said that professors will come from existing UW in art and design, business, computer science, engineering, and law. The impact is likely to be a lot greater than the UW’s failed effort to create biotech hub at South Lake Union. While the University, the city, and the state but millions of dollars nto the campus, all bit a small cadre of companies have left … including the huge loss of AMGEN last year. In contrast to the failure of private industry to follow thew State’s lead in SLU, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s executive vice president said that “the h a physical presence … in Puget Sound was really a unique opportunity to pursue. ….Ultimately, if GIX is a success, every company in every part of the technology ecosystem in Puget Sound will benefit from that success,”
The UW plans to have 3,000 students at its new high tech Bellevue Campus. The investment in this new campus will be huge. It will start with a $40 million in funding from Microsoft. Nobody in Seattle seems to care.
I care because 30 years ago my wife and I chose to live on Capital Hill to live near the campus and to take advantage of the fact that many other young faculty were moving in here. These young faculty wanted to raise families in a multicultural neighborhood.
So, now District 3 has an election. The only ethnic groups moving in here are the techies. The Black community is now less than 12% of the District and other ethnic groups … Jews, Catholics, Greeks, Mexicans, certainly are not choosing District 3.
Ok, I suppose techies are their own ethnic group but can we solve the Amazon techies housing problem by assuring that UW faculty and students to live in Bellevue?
I guess it is just politics. The UW does not seem to be an issue. Running in District 3 Kashama Sawant, has managed to get voters to focus on global warming, racism, and socialist taxing rich folks. Sawant’s rhetoric has shaped the campaign city wide. Red shirt partisans drown out real Seattle issues by yelling about Palestine, Global Warming, and how to tax the wealthy. Meanwhile no one seems to be commenting on the plans of the UW … the campus next to this District … to move its major development out of Seattle. While we all agree that Black Lives Matter, so do students.
I guess jobs and students in Seattle do not matter?