Pugetopolis: A Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice

Knute "Skip" Berger is one of the most recognized commentators on politics, culture, business, and life in the Pacific Northwest. He’s the Mike Royko/Jimmy Breslin of this part of the country. As Timothy Egan describes him in the Foreword to Pugetopolis, he is the region’s "crank with a conscience…a contrarian" thinker who calls out the folly and hubris of mayors, governors, presidents, and gazillionaires. In his signature Mossback column, which ran for years in the Seattle Weekly and now on Crosscut.com, Knute Berger comments on politics (the 50-year odyssey of mass transit), cultural matters (we got art out here in the provinces), the big natural world (what’s left of it), enterprise (as in the Microsoft-Starbucks Industrial Complex), and odd local behavior (car-less living that allows mooching rides). As a third-generation Seattle native, he has the perspective to take the long view, so he knows there was a life without jackasses on jet ski, bear attacks in the suburbs, and not so many millionaires. Gathered in Pugetopolis are Knute Berger’s best commentaries that provide grist for anyone’s mental mill who wants to understand why the Pacific Northwest is a quirky place that is sometimes too liberal for its own good; strangely conservative at other times; blindly does the bidding of the richest guy around so he can make even more money; and is able to jump on the bandwagon of one dumb pubic-works fiasco after another. And then we complain about the rain like it’s some new form of insult. You gotta love this place—warts and all. Berger shows you how with this sharp-witted and observant book.

Knute Berger, former editor of Seattle Weekly and founding editor of Washington Monthly, also writes Washington Law and Politics and Seattle magazine. Both he and Timothy Egan, author of The Worst Hard Time, live in Seattle.