[note: this is only an excerpt]

When Trey Parker, co-creator of the animated television show "South Park," wants a big-city experience, he jets out of Los Angeles. His urban hideaway: Seattle.

"L.A. is just the kind of place where, even though it's a big city, you can't walk to anything," Parker, 36, says. "There's not much of a sense of a community."

Parker bought an $850,000, two-bedroom condominium in downtown Seattle last year. He is part of an influx of wealthy buyers behind a building boom in the once-rustic town, whose down-at-the-heels loggers inspired the term "skid road." New restaurants, boutiques and bars are springing up alongside the condos, to the dismay of some locals priced out of the changing neighborhood.

Parker says he spent $600,000 turning his 1980s-style Belltown condo into a "super-chic urban pad" with dark wood and stainless-steel appliances.

Parker, who created "South Park" with Matt Stone, says he isn't worried that prices might fall. He says he has spent most of his money on real estate -- he owns eight properties, including the Seattle condo -- while Stone invested in stocks.

"I saw what Matt went through with the stock market," Parker says. "You put money into something and it's just on paper, and one day it can just be gone."

[ source: BLOOMBERG ]