Correlation or Causation in Seattle?
CHS: Capitol Hill Seattle (“Tales from the fancy pants part of Seattle’s Capitol Hill”) has a great theory about growth in Seattle around the turn of the last century:
“You can see that most homes in our neighborhood came into existence prior to 1930 with a big spike in 1906 — that’s the same year as the legendary San Francisco earthquake, of course, so it seems like Seattle may have benefited from the destruction to the south. It’s also interesting to note where most of the area development has occurred post-1950 — you only find the more-recent blue and purple dots down the hill off Madison for the most part with a few scattered here and there between this part of the hill and Broadway.”
Correlation or causation? Does anyone know more about the relationship between the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and growth in construction rates in Seattle around the same time?


June 11th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Well…I don’t think the construction boom in Seattle caused the earthquake in San Francisco, if that’s what you’re asking
April 21st, 2008 at 3:03 am
[…] intern Jason Li sent in this brilliant “maps through time” site that shows growth in urban centers over time. Of particular interest in the Seattle one that […]