Amazon Led a Tax Rebellion. A Year Later, Seattle is Gridlocked

The wine was flowing as a group of Seattle’s business elite gathered at Bar Cotto, an Italian restaurant in the city’s trendy Capitol Hill neighborhood, where the menu features an expansive selection of salumi and pizzas topped with truffle oil or Calabrian chili. The topic up for discussion: how to solve the region’s intractable homelessness crisis.

The usual ideas came up. Donations to charities. Tax-code tweaks.

Daniel Malone in Seattle, on June 5.

Photographer: Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg

Then Dilip Wagle started talking. The senior partner at McKinsey & Co. had written a report saying the city needed to double its spending to provide the roughly 14,000 additional homes needed for ...