The new era dawned with Microsoft, after the local boy Bill Gates returned with a fledgling company. From then on, the mark of a successful city was one that could cluster well-educated people in a cool place. “The Smartest Americans Are Heading West” was the headline in the recent listing of the Bloomberg Brain Concentration Index. This pattern is likely to continue, as my colleagues at the Upshot calculated in picking Denver to win the Amazon sweepstakes.

At the bottom of the brain index was Muskegon, Mich., a place I recently visited. I found the city lovely, with its lakeside setting, fine old houses and world-class museum. When I told a handful of Muskegonites about the problems in Seattle from the metastatic growth of Amazon, they were not sympathetic.

What comes with the title of being the fastest growing big city in the country, with having the nation’s hottest real estate market, is that the city no longer works for some people. For many others, the pace of change, not to mention the traffic, has been disorienting. The character of Seattle, a rain-loving communal shrug, has changed. Now we’re a city on amphetamines.

Amazon is secretive. And they haven’t been the best civic neighbor, late to the charity table. Yes, the company has poured $38 billion into the city’s economy. They have 40,000 employees here, who in turn attracted 50,000 other new jobs. They own or lease a fifth of all the class A office space.

But median home prices have doubled in five years, to $700,000. This is not a good thing in a place where teachers and cops used to be able to afford a house with a water view.

Our shiny new megalopolis has spawned the inevitable political backlash. If you think there’s nothing more annoying than a Marxist with a bullhorn extolling a failed 19th-century economic theory, put that person on your City Council. So Seattle’s council now includes a socialist, Kshama Sawant, who wants “the public” to take over Amazon ownership. Other council members have proposed a tax on jobs. Try that proposal in Detroit.

As a Seattle native, I miss the old city, the lack of pretense, and dinner parties that didn’t turn into discussions of real estate porn. But I’m happy that wages have risen faster here than anywhere else in the country. I like the fresh energy. To the next Amazon lottery winner I would say, enjoy the boom — but be careful what you wish for.