When you hear about urban blight, you usually think of troubled cities like Detroit, Flint, and even places outside Michigan from time to time. In 1971, though, Seattle was being hit as hard as anyone. This week, The Seattle Times looks back at those woeful days with an interesting story about the billboard above, which appeared near the Seattle airport for just 15 days in April 1971 but whose headline became famous and synonymous with economic downturns—and which gets referenced, in different forms, all over the world during tough times. Bob McDonald and Jim Youngren, the two former real-estate agents responsible for the ad, remember getting hate mail for it back in the day. But they're clearly proud of it, too. "It just won't go away," Youngren admits. Photo by Greg Gilbert/The Seattle Times.
—Posted by David Kiefaber
