Seattle, Washington, the Emerald City is an extraordinarily blessed piece of planet earth. Called the jewel of the northwest, people move here from all over in spite of the rain and overcast days because of the natural beauty, outdoor recreation and job opportunities.

For over thirty years the local economy has been strong. Seattle is home to some of the most successful entrepreneurs and corporations anywhere in the world. The Seattle metropolitan area is cutting edge, and virtually recession proof.

In recent years the shine has been coming off the emerald. The city is becoming a mass of contradictions. First world opulence and third world squalor: impressive natural beauty and appalling, toxic uncontrolled garbage, sizzling economic activity and beleaguered merchants nearing the boiling point, highly educated techies and rat infestations, American dream success stories and heartbreaking human misery.

Seattle is blessed with a tremendous pool of human capital, and cursed with the tragic mismanagement of the city itself.

Within the city is another place. Using a myriad of sources, and plenty of shoe leather the author takes you to the Seattle you don't see in the tourist brochures. You'll meet some of the people who work diligently to document the urban hellscape, and the state leaders who seem to work just as diligently to ignore it.

You will go to a place where 150 years of American economic dynamism meets the quicksand of urban failure.

Open the book, and step into Seatroit, Washington.