Northwesterners Can Just Knock it Off : Migration: We hear they don’t like it when Californians move in. But face it, Seattle was pretty dull before the immigrants made it come alive.

We hear word now and then, when it’s a slow news day, that the folks up in Seattle are being unkind, or even downright unfriendly, to Californians moving north. They don’t like the growth, they don’t like the traffic, and they especially don’t like the fact that people moving from California can sell their houses here for big bucks and then buy what they want in the Pacific Northwest.

I think this is pretty silly. I was born in Southern California and live here, but I have enough Northwest qualifications to know what a “gooey duck” is and where to find one. I used to live and work in Seattle, and still regularly visit my two sisters, niece and nephew there.

So I don’t feel too uncomfortable suggesting that Seattle-ites knock it off. Americans can move and live any darned place they please, including Seattle.

If the locals think the place is getting too crowded, let them move out and give other people a chance.

What is ironic about this is that so many of the people in Seattle are from somewhere else, anyway. A hundred years ago Seattle was a one-horse town with a handful of settlers still sliding trees down Yesler Way, the original Skid Road. Even 20 years ago, it was a depressed little city where the sale of one or two jetliners was front-page news.

Newcomers have made Seattle what it is. It is the refugees from other places who have changed Seattle into a charming provincial town. Most of the good urban things that have come to Seattle--restaurants, coffee houses, the arts--came from California in the first place. And new blood does a body good. The indigenous Northwesterner, after all, is a Norwegian in jeans and a Pendleton eating french fries with ketchup in the rain.

Dig deep enough, in fact, and you’ll find that most of the people making the biggest fuss about population growth in Seattle are the folks who just got there themselves. They’re people relieved about escaping the congestion and crime of New York or San Francisco who are now determined to pull the drawbridge up.

This is the politics of selfishness, and it is just plain wrong. What gives any of us the right to deny to others what we claim for ourselves? This is not medieval Europe, where some landed aristocracy has prior claims. This is America, land of the free. We’re all part of one country, and one of the freedoms that made this country great is the freedom to live where you want.

No place is frozen in time. Instead of complaining, Seattle ought to welcome the dynamism and creativity that is flowing to it. A little bit of Hollywood, after all, might do it some good. Seattle has beautiful scenery, some good restaurants, and a fine community ethos. But it’s not exactly life in the fast lane.

Of course, many people like it that way. But they’re not the only ones who get to vote. And if someone from California comes north with a pot of money from selling a house down here, maybe that’s fair for having put up with traffic and bad air for so many years. They ought to be welcomed to the community as people with get-up-and-go, not have noses turned up at them. If Seattle is indeed all it’s cracked up to be, then one should expect a little class from its residents.

So that’s the message from down south, Seattle-ites. You’ll always be welcome at Disneyland, and we can find another spot on the freeways for you. And we’re glad to share our sunshine, too. Welcome.