pat loughery

RECESSIONS, SEATTLE has long believed, were phenomena that happened to other, less fortunate, less blessed and, frankly, less gifted parts of the world.

To hold that belief required some suspension of historical awareness, given that the region has had its own brushes with economic distress, most recently in the earlier part of this decade when Boeing laid off thousands after 9/11.

Still, the local economy had enough other stuff going on — big nationally and internationally significant companies in sectors well removed from commercial aerospace — that when Boeing sneezed, the rest of the region didn’t catch pneumonia.

Thus the region hasn’t had in recent decades the sort of long and deep cataclysm that clobbered other parts of the country, or even other parts of the state. When the economy elsewhere was bad, the Seattle area still muddled through. When times were good here, they were really, really good.

Until now.

Full article at  Once considered recession-proof, Seattle no longer is.