The texture of Seattle: Seattle feels, looks, tastes like the cinematic 1980s. Is it because I lived here as a child in that decade? Is it the civic yearning for modernity? Seattle is fairly urban, with big city stores and homeless people. But it lacks the energy of survival, somehow. There is a sense of prefabricated comfort and convenience, like it's not a city at all, but an enormous Pottery Barn.

There must be something I am missing.