In our bi-monthly Seattlemag.com column, Knute Berger–who writes regularly for Seattle Magazine and Crosscut.com and is a frequent pundit on KUOW–takes an in-depth look at some of the highly topical and sometimes polarizing issues in our city.

Back in early 2013, I wrote, “The next mayor will have to possess skills that will help Seattle absorb massive change, capitalize on opportunity and protect pieces of the urban puzzle that are necessary, but threatened, like affordability.”

I was keying off the unprecedented convergence of mega-projects that Seattle would be facing in 2015-16, ranging from the deep-bore tunnel to the 520 highway expansion, the extension of Sound Transit rail and makeovers on the waterfront, First Hill and in SoDo, all in the context of a post-recession development boom.

That challenge is even greater than I predicted.

Bertha is much delayed and the schedule and costs of completing the tunnel are unknown. The waterfront makeover has been slowed, but the massive seawall replacement continues. Work on the 520 expansion project has hit Montlake, though the funds to complete the bridge project have still not been approved in Olympia. Yesler Terrace is starting to change with the help of Vulcan, streets are being remade for bike and streetcars, and a nearly $1 billion city transportation infrastructure plan has been proposed.

Providing a huge challenge, too, is the intense makeovers of many neighborhoods. The Central District is gentrifying and a neighborhood that was once 70 percent African American population could be down to 10 percent within the decade. Capitol Hill is one ground zero for growth, and the pain of construction and change is being felt my many of the small retailers that have been the bread and butter of business on the Hill. More broadly, it has become an agony merely getting around the city this summer with so much construction and obstruction.

Hanging over it all is the issue of affordability, which is a current problem, but also a larger one looming when the current development boom has had its way with the city. Who will reside in all those high-rises? Will any neighborhoods be affordable in the end? Or will we all be Lake Unionized into oblivion?

While the mayor of Seattle alone is not responsible for all of the above, he is the one to hold accountable—and since Ed Murray was elected that year, he has the task of making it work, and keeping it as pain-free as possible. He bears extra responsibility for his role in bringing Bertha to town, and for his ambitious spending plans. He has also responded by putting together a task force on affordability that has been criticized as slow moving, and that issue has become central to the current city council races. His solutions will become a key part of his legacy.

The mayor is no mere manager of change, he’s embraced it and is helping to drive it. Someone, for better or worse, has to have his or her hands on the wheel.

But where is it all heading? One frustrated Capitol Hill business person—one of many confronting the city with poor management of construction chaos—lamented recently about the city that “We’re on a runaway train. I don’t know where we’re headed or what we’re doing.”

I think that speaks to a lot of people who worry about what it all adds up to. It’s one thing to navigate people through the turbulence of rapid growth with the promise of “vibrancy” and “sustainability,” but the overall vision of where we’re headed, and whether market forces will get us there, remains elusive.

I wrote in 2013, “The next mayor will be have to be a puzzle master and steer us to a Seattle that looks like the city we all want to live in. And one that, for all the cost and headaches, works even better than the one we have now.”

Inconvenience and disruption we can deal with, but the case for “better” remains too vague, and largely unproven.