Seattle housing prices have been rising for years, a trend often attributed to a booming tech industry and a reverse flight of wealthy Americans back into city centers.
But in Seattle there’s another unsettling force besides: global capital.
Across the world, skyscrapers and mansions are rising in globalized supercities, and they’re becoming a form of “wealth storage” for rich people seeking to diversify their asset holdings. These often anonymous millionaires and billionaires are helping turn Seattle into another “Swanktuary city.”
This isn’t your grandmother’s gentrification. The world’s wealthiest people hold a greater concentration of the world’s riches now than at any time in at least the past century — and they’re hiding anywhere from $8 trillion to $15 trillion from taxing authorities.
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