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Seattle in fact has achieved a stunning comeback from the "Boeing bust" of the early 1970s, when the aircraft manufacturer slashed its work force from 105,000 to 38,000. Since the mid-1980s, the region's industries have diversified into computers, new fisheries and Pacific Rim trade. Unemployment has fallen to a 20-year low of 4.5%. Now business is so brisk at Boeing that not even a record-high work force of 110,000 is enough to meet production schedules. Last month 57,000 machinists went on strike at four Boeing plants, demanding a larger share of company profits. "We have gone through the hard times with this company," a union leader said, "and we want to go through ^ the good times as well."
The effect of what McCutcheon calls an "astronomical escalation of people" has been unaccustomed congestion, a 28% inflation of real estate values in just 18 months and a perceptibly upscale -- Washingtonians would say ostentatious -- change in the appearance and style of some of Seattle's suburbs. With that has come a tendency to tar California with guilt by association -- for damage to the environment, for fast-talking wheeling and dealing, and for the drug trafficking among offshoots of Los Angeles gangs in the blue-collar districts of Tacoma. California has also become a political buzz word. "Any candidate can get a rise out of his audience just by mentioning the bugaboo of 'Los Angelization,' " says Doug Jewett, one of the contenders in this week's mayoral election. One successful antigrowth candidate used the slogan "If You Don't Want King County to Become Another California, Vote for Brian Derdowski."
Antigrowth instincts have stiffened, especially around Seattle, where the citizenry has been increasingly inclined to put environmental conservatism first. Last May, for example, voters overwhelmingly approved new restrictions limiting the height of future downtown skyscrapers to 450 ft. "The California rush is actually useful in crystallizing the debate over our future," says Lois Schwennesen, King County's planning and development manager. "It's helping us face some hard choices, about sewage, transit, road construction and the rest, and it's helping us understand that you can't have it all."
Not all Northwesterners are so charitable. Many have refined the art of California bashing, good humored and otherwise. One auto dealer makes it a point to steer his auto-financing business to local rather than California lenders. The Puget Sound National Bank boasts in TV commercials of being the last locally owned bank in the state. TV anchors play to the crowd by deriding Californians for building show-off "French chateaus." And radio station KEZX has been airing a new local folk song, Don't Come to Seattle.