Best of 2009: Does 'smart growth' also create more sprawl?
Urban density, a Seattle and Portland mantra, is supposed to constrain sprawl, but a new analysis suggests that vital, dense cities produce bigger suburbs too.
Editor's note: Continuing our series of Best Crosscuts of 2009, here's an essay originally posted on May 21, 2009.
Okay, this is really interesting because it turns some conventional wisdom on its head. It turns out that the suburbs are not populated with urban refugees. Writing at NewGeography, Wendell Cox comes across what he calls an "unexpected truth:"
Much has been written about how suburbs have taken people away from the city and that now suburbanites need to return back to where they came. But in reality most suburbs of large cities have grown not from the migration of local city-dwellers but from migration from small towns and the countryside.
In looking at data from modern, "first world" countries, including the United States, Cox finds that while the suburbs are growing, most of the newcomers are migrating from smaller cities and rural areas, even in cities like St. Louis that have rapidly depopulated over the last 50 years. And this strong suburban growth is occurring even in the most mass-transit-friendly cities:
This [suburban growth] is true in both auto-oriented and transit-oriented environments. Suburbs have accounted for more than 90 percent of growth in Japan’s metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 residents, both those with high transit market shares and those with high auto market shares, The same is true in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.In Western Europe, where vaunted transit systems carry a far smaller share of travel than cars, all growth and then some has been in the suburbs, as overall core city populations have declined.
What's attracting people to cities? Jobs and economic opportunity. But as cities grow, and even as they densify, the outer rings of suburbs and exurbs grow too with people attracted from smaller markets. "Larger metropolitan areas have more lucrative employment opportunities and generally have higher incomes than smaller metropolitan areas," writes Cox."
Cox argues that suburbs need to be seen differently, not as the hostile "other" to core cities:
[S]uburbs have to be seen not as the enemies of the city, as just a modern expression of urbanization. They are neither the enemies of the city, nor are their residents likely to move "back" there. You cannot move back to someplace you did not come from.
In other words, the idea that suburbanites can be enticed back into dense urban cores is unlikely. In fact, the bigger cores grow and flourish, the more likely they will generate new sprawl.
Richard Florida, blogging about Cox's analysis at Andrew Sullivan's website, agrees that the 'burbs need to be seen in a new light:
While it's common to think of suburbs as draining off city assets, today's metropolitan areas with their urban cores and suburban and ex-urban rings, are really expanded cities. Up until the early-to-mid 20th century, cities were able to capture peripheral growth by annexing new development, until suburbs figured out they could prosper by becoming independent municipal entities — thus the now-famous concentric-ring or, in some cases, the hole-in-the-donut pattern of our metro regions. The growth of gargantuan mega-regions like the Boston-New York-Washington corridor is essentially the next phase of this process of geographic development.
It's important to understand how these two interrelated geographic processes &mdash outward geographic expansion and the more intensive use of existing urban space &mdash combine to shape economic progress.
Florida quotes Jane Jacobs in his analysis but it also reminds me of Jean Gottman's profile of the city of the future in described as Megalopolis (what Florida calls the Boston-New York-Washington "gargantuan mega-region.") It was Gottman's Megalopolis, published in 1961, that gave rise to the talk about the rise of other regional mega-cities, including our own Pugetopolis. The idea was that these super cities would be multi-headed hydras and widely dispersed economic regions, and that the old model of city was too limited to understand them.
But much of our debate about urban growth in Seattle is reduced to very simplistic notions about city and suburb, one good (dense, walkable, and full of the "creative class") and the other bad (SUV-friendly, sprawling, full of folks scared of urban edge). The reality, for anyone who has lived in both or thought about it much, is more complex.
It's interesting that Florida sees the urban/suburban divide as one that is largely jurisdictional, and that's interesting when applied to Seattle. Much of the city of Seattle is composed of annexed suburbs (Columbia City, Green Lake, Ballard). What makes Eastside communities like Kirkland and Mercer Island (once called East Seattle) suburbs is that we didn't absorb them and they are independently governed, not their form. The lifestyles we live in many neighborhoods on either side of the lake are hardly worlds apart for most people, and in many parts of King County, these places are even more diverse and edgy than within the city limits.
It is also accepted wisdom that absorbing growth in downtown Seattle will somehow restraint sprawl, but this has not happened. (As Dick Morrill has pointed out, 90 percent of the population growth in our region has happened outside the city of Seattle in the last 20 years, despite new residential towers and the Growth Management Act). If Cox's analysis is correct, growth in Seattle is in fact driving more suburban growth. Second, mass transit might improve our carbon footprint (in itself a good thing) but it won't restrain sprawl either. You can claim that it's "smart sprawl," though if the dynamic outlined here is correct, even with buses and rail it will simply generate more development. So from a landscape-gobbling perspective, it's not much help. You'll still get new Snoqualmie Ridges, even if residents ride the commuter train.
Worldwide, the areas losing population are rural regions, and some failing cities. If you want to reduce sprawl, re-populating previously populated areas &mdash in effect creating economic opportunities and incentives in rural areas that have and can support larger populations, is one way to go. Repopulating declining industrial cities could be another, if they aren't turned into wildlands.
But making Seattle bigger and denser looks like its throwing gas on the sprawl fire.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, May 27, 8:53 a.m. Inappropriate
Yay Mossback! way to acknowledge that the problem is more complex than City v. Suburb and then immediately oversimplify it to denser cities=bad and sprawl=hey, it's gonna happen anyway. If we continue to distort the land market by subsidizing gasoline and automobiles, then we'll have low-density, unsustainable, auto-dependent development. If we internalize the costs, including creation of metropolitan governance structures, then we'll change the patterns of growth.
Put down the Richard Florida and Richard Morrill (those Dicks are cherry picking facts to fit their theories, rather than observing the causes and effects of metropolitan growth). Now go out and read David Rusk's _Cities Without Suburbs_ and Thomas Sieverts _Cities Without Cities_.
Posted Wed, May 27, 9:11 a.m. Inappropriate
Wendell Cox is the mouthpiece of the suburban sprawl industry. Good lord.
Posted Wed, May 27, 9:15 a.m. Inappropriate
PS, his MO is to selectively pick and choose factioids that match his opinions.
He succeeds because too many editors and columnists take his blather as "studies" rather than thinly-disguised propaganda, particularly when said columnists really want to believe him.
Posted Wed, May 27, 9:17 a.m. Inappropriate
In is no longer acceptable to refer to communities outside large cities as suburbs. They are just small or smaller cities, refering to the size of their population only. Small cities provide all the same services as big cities as required by their state constitutions.
So, let's get into the present and future and stop putting down the outlying communities as suburbs knoting a lesser community.
Art
Posted Wed, May 27, 10:31 a.m. Inappropriate
One wonders: how is a suburb defined now? It used to be a place where people would live but not work. Now though there are lots of people who go from the center out to the periphery. For example, from Seattle to Redmond.
The above comment about terminology is right: if we are going to call a place a suburb instead of a small city, then we need to be willing to change the label when the underlying dynamic has changed as well.
Posted Wed, May 27, 11:09 a.m. Inappropriate
Florida's thoughts on the efficacy of suburbs surviving as stand-alone municipalities doesn't entirely apply to Seattle area burbs. Clearly Bellevue, Redmond, Renton have not only survived but thrived as "independent municipal entities". But I'm curious about areas like Tukwila, Burien, White Center, etc. Those in the list that have incorporated don't strike me as being the model that suburbs should look to achieve. Gerrymandered to capture the tax receipts from a handful of profitable businesses and hell bent on preserving "independence" they are largely reliant on County provided services that would normally fall to a larger, better organized City.
This is one of the areas where GMA has notably failed in allowing non-viable neighborhoods to incorporate with no real ability to provide full fledged services.
Florida and Morrill are right though in recognizing that large numbers of people want to live in the areas we call suburbs, however Arties and sjenner wish to define them. This should be ultimately beneficial to the MSA (which is what I read to be the purpose of Knute's piece) so long as the GMA does what it is supposed to do in protecting rural areas from further development. Reading Doug MacDonald's pieces on Crosscut leads me to believe that isn't happening. When unincorporated Pierce County grows almost 20% in 8 years compared to Tacoma's 4.7% there is a real problem brewing.
Posted Wed, May 27, 12:23 p.m. Inappropriate
No duh... I would suggest Bellevue's Crossroads neighborhood, where I grew up, is as walkable, and much more diverse, than any of the Neighborhoods White People like in Seattle...
Posted Wed, May 27, 12:46 p.m. Inappropriate
PS, here's Wendell Cox's basic mission statement from his demographia website: "Demographia is 'pro-choice' with respect to urban development.
People should have the freedom to live and work where and how they like." The website itself is an encyclopedic diatribe against smart growth, density, trains, etc.
Those serious about urban issues take everything Wendell says as "Wendell being Wendell." His opinions can stir up discussion, but his facts are not considered a reputable source any more than "facts" from any partisan advocacy group on either side of any issue. Basically he's the fox news of urban issues.
PS, on the issues themselves, I agree that there's much to like in the suburbs, including the denser centers in places like Renton and Redmond (as well as Bellevue), the great biking networks in many places, and the diversity of much of Bellevue. The parts I disagree with are the lower-density residential/commercial sprawl, the general lack of walkability in many areas, the separation of uses in many areas, the lack of through streets in many areas...
Posted Wed, May 27, 12:58 p.m. Inappropriate
Wow. I'm not trying to pile on here, but Wendell Cox is incredibly suspect.
Thanks for the great links - I went to his article and then clicked through to the data about Japan that he refers to, it was put together by his consultancy. I was really struck by the assertion that 90% of urban growth in Japan since 1965 has occurred in the suburbs of cities that ended up with more than one million people.
Looking at the numbers, you can also say that 75% of urban growth in Japan has happened in the "Tokyo-Yokohama" area. So, you can imagine that to get any useful data, we need to look at trends in "Tokyo-Yokohama" and the rest of the cities separately.
Cox also provides a definition for "suburbs" in his Japan data. It's good that he provides *his* definition, because I can think of many very valid geographic boundaries to define "Tokyo" as an area. Cox decides that all 23 cities in Tokyo which are directly managed by the national government should be called the "core city" of "Tokyo-Yokohama". He then decides that everything else is a "suburb". Could you ever call Yokohama a suburb of Tokyo?
Oddly, although the "core city" is defined, it's not clear what he means by "Tokyo-Yokohama"... does it include just the "urbanized" parts of Tokyo and Kanagawa prefectures? Does it also include the urban sprawl that spreads into Saitama, Chiba, and maybe Ibaraki, Gunma and Tochigi (=Kanto region).
So who cares about Japan's geography, right? It's important to know when and where we're talking about. Tokyo in 1960 or so seems pretty great. Lots of tight-knit communities with dirt roads still, you can get around the "core city" by water taxi, there's plenty of work on the new expressways and transit extensions. By 1980, Tokyo was pretty pitiful, though, and by 1990 a very unlivable "city" had been created. We need to look hard at Tokyo for reasons that GMA is needed. Until cities were finally given power to control growth, urbanization proceeded at a ghastly pace. Areas of the "core city" of Tokyo that used to be farms are today amazing stretches of wall-to-wall concrete, with small lots periodically carved out for a sand pit and play toy. The rare park that allows dogs is overwhelmed with pet owners from all over the area, because there isn't even a bit of grass or dirt along the street to pee on.
That said, my problem is with *unimpeded sprawl* within the small cities of the Tokyo region, not suburb vs. city. Focused growth at transit stations in the "suburbs" as well as the "core city" will leave space for water and dirt and grass. The same model could be applied to freeways and highways in pugetopolis - focus growth at the exits and junctions, as well as existing downtowns.
Posted Wed, May 27, 3:22 p.m. Inappropriate
Terrific essay and discussion. Thanks to Crosscut and its readers for bearing down on what researcher/commentator Alan Pisarski terms the “Neighborhood View" versus the "Globally Integrated View."
This is a good opportunity to point out Pisarski's new data-rich but highly readable paper "The Tipping Point" at http://www.heritage.org/Research/SmartGrowth/wp052209a.cfm . If it matters, Heritage is a conservative think tank, but Pisarski's work is funded by many organizations from across the spectrum, and he cites a Brookings study in this observation from his paper:
QUOTE
Since the suburban boom of the fifties and sixties jobs have been following workers to the suburbs; first retail jobs and household-related services, then the fundamental job base. A recent study indicates:
• 17 of 18 industries decentralized further from 1998 to 2006
• Only 21% of jobs were within 3 miles of center in 98 metros; 45% of jobs more than 10 miles
• Outer parts grew 17% in employment: center by 1%
Instead of putting a pejorative cast on these trends we should recognize the strong potential balancing effect they engender.
UNQUOTE
With regard to "balance," Pisarski also provides data that show,
QUOTE
households travel more as income rises and particularly work trip length grows with income. This indicates that as people are more free to choose economically their choices are not to reduce their work trip but to optimize other aspects of their life — schools, safety, attractiveness, housing size, access to amenities, etc. Of course, people have the option to live closer to work, but few appear to wish to make that particular trade-off.
UNQUOTE
Much more of controversial interest to Pugetopolis in Pisarski's paper, supplementing the many articles on the sprawl-transportation topic in Crosscut.
Posted Wed, May 27, 4:47 p.m. Inappropriate
Economic growth leads to population growth. Smart growth may or may not.
Posted Wed, May 27, 7:13 p.m. Inappropriate
So, we are height/weight proportinate no matter how much we diet on density zones?
A little planning is good, and minding our own damn business in Seattle might be best for all involved?
Oh ya', that's madness.
Posted Wed, May 27, 7:36 p.m. Inappropriate
Yawn ...
Posted Wed, May 27, 7:51 p.m. Inappropriate
There's something so poetic about the phrase "unexpected truth" in reference to Wendell Cox and his views on transit.
Posted Thu, May 28, 8:36 a.m. Inappropriate
Centralized density alone doesn't stop sprawl. There will always be someone who wants to pave paradise. To slow sprawl, you have to...directly zone against sprawl. We've done that through growth management. Actually we've done it half-assed, with King County drawing its lines much more tightly than other counties, meaning the other counties are drawing "our" sprawl. Much like gun control and taxation, the effects are diluted if the rules are a patchwork.
Density is simply the (only) way we can accommodate growth without sprawling. Also, in my opinion, it's how we can improve this city...speaking as a fan of the urban village concept.
Meanwhile, many of our suburbs are improving greatly as they develop denser centers, more general density, more transit (though I'd spend more Metro money in Seattle where usage is higher), and more diversity. Many suburbs are doing a good job with sidewalks and bike lanes, though they tend to cling to their auto-dominated natures regarding things like pedestrian signals...
Posted Thu, May 28, 8:39 a.m. Inappropriate
In other words, I'm agreeing that much of our suburbia is becoming part of the "real city".
Posted Thu, May 28, 9:42 a.m. Inappropriate
One issue causing some of this problem is taxation. Localities compete for tax revenues - and so you get businesses (employers) locating where they get the best "deal," which usually ends up the worst deal for taxpayers. Regional revenue sharing would start to address sprawl issues created this way.
Posted Thu, May 28, 11:59 a.m. Inappropriate
As long as we are swinging at the poetic, unexpected truth in Wendell Cox's work, swing at this one, just out: "Portland: A Model for National Policy?"
http://www.newgeography.com/content/00818-portland-a-model-national-policy .
Quoting Cox: "Yes, Portland did increase its transit use, but failed to increase the share of travel on transit and the proportion of people riding transit to work declined."
Does anybody think the GMA-PSRC-Sound Transit-Pugetopolis model of "zoning against sprawl" (per Mhays) and spending billions on light rail trains as key density-supportive "modern" infrastructure will work better in Seattle than it does in Portland?
Or will we all be happy enough if Pugetopolis simply becomes just as "successful" as Portland-Vancouver USA?
Posted Thu, May 28, 1:19 p.m. Inappropriate
@jniles, thanks for the link to Pisarski's report. It's thought provoking.
Like we've been doing, Pisarski also speaks out against the suburb vs. city contrast, but then all of his statistics continue the false argument. Do we have a data problem here? Are demographics solely based on political unit, and not true geographic location? We seem stuck with the same definition of "metropolitan district" that the New York Times put forward in 1912: a city plus the areas (surburbs) outside of its boundaries which are economically dependent upon it. And so our debate sounds like we’re using an almanac and abacus to create supporting data. We have the computational power to do much more than this.
Forget political boundaries and let's find the dispersed "centers" with dense jobs or housing. Then we can look at the demographics for these places and the dependent surrounding areas, look at the intricate web of trips between them, compare them within our region and to other regions and countries, and answer the questions that Pisarski implies... does auto-dependency provide the highest possible disposable income, happiness, and social utility? Are our current regulations and policies (they're not "open" as he claims) sufficient and we can just "let it happen"? Would investment in cheaper walking and biking infrastructure for the non-work 80% of trips in and around each "center" make any impact on transportation costs? Would investment in hard links between centers with new rail, brt, or highways improve mobility, connecting employees with employers?
I have to say that I'm wholly unconvinced by Pisarski's argument that cars are necessary or even the best way to achieve his utopia of people travelling long distances (in unreliable vehicles) between low paying jobs and cheap housing. By the late 80s, Tokyo was infamous for the increasingly common 2-hour commutes. You might not realize that transit is charged by distance in Japan, so a monthly pass for that long dawn to dusk ride costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Why put up with it, then? It allowed middle class people to buy a small house with minimal yard, upper-middle class to buy a resort home across the mountains, and lower income folks to rent a modest apartment - the best housing they could get by paying for transportation. Tokyo managed to achieve this model without dependency on cars or even widespread ownership.
Adding more transit to the mix won’t preclude mobility or social equity. A study of better demographic data would help explain the costs of different transportation modes and which effectively get us closer to whatever our vision of the ideal city is.
As far as Cox's Portland data is concerned, I just can't believe his number crunching after that silliness I saw with Tokyo. He loves to play with numbers, like his statement "This pales in comparison to the 83 percent national reduction over a 45 year period that would be required by the Waxman-Markey bill being considered by Congress." It's 83% *BY* 2050. The reduction will be increased gradually, starting in 2010. So it's 40 years, and it's not 83% savings each year. His point seems to still be valid in the case of the green house gas, but how can I trust someone so sloppy with numbers? For the transit share in Portland, did he explore any explanations other than that transit is useless? I mean, we already know he thinks transit it useless, so it should be no surprise that all of the data he sees seems to support it. Portland unemployment is way high right now. Wouldn't work trips drop if people stop working? What's the year to year variability of ridership share - is the 10% drop from 2000 to 2007 even statistically significant? What was the forecast of the agency - did they think it would make an immediate increase, or do people need to slowly change habits or new construction was expected to draw new riders? Did we simply learn that the roads system for Portland wasn't stressed enough to encourage a complimentary transit system, and we should "let it happen" with cars for awhile longer yet?
BTW, here’s a link to that NY Times article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C00E4DD123CE633A25757C1A9619C946396D6CF
Posted Thu, May 28, 5:26 p.m. Inappropriate
Rob K, slamming Portland has been a special passion of Wendell for many years.
I'm still flabbergasted that this whole article and thread has happened. Next, maybe Mossback will run Rush Limbaugh's opinion that Democrats don't love America.
Posted Thu, May 28, 7:37 p.m. Inappropriate
Rob K, useful postings. Thank you. Wendell Cox does approach public policy with strong opinions, so it's useful to read other opinions.
I think it's hard to approach the "sprawl" topic of this thread from a purely dispassionate point of view.
When I was younger and working in DC in the 1970s, I would have thought that anybody who opposed the construction of Washington DC's Metro Rail was a nut job. Great cities have subways, etc, etc, etc. I held this opinion even though I was working back then in a government office that was officially forecasting future financial problems in the coming decades from the ongoing need to operate, maintain, and occasionally refurbish Metro.
Today, it's coming true. The transit system back there in the Other Washington has severe financial problems, accentuated by fragmentation as suburbs break off and do transit independently of the central regional transit agency. Reliability and speed of the DC Metro subway is deteriorating, according to residents of that area I know, and news accounts. And the National Capitol Area is sprawling, with terrible traffic congestion.
Now I'm seeing today's version of 1970s me passionately leading Pugetopolis to a subway nirvana, only this time, the trains will be limited to four cars with speed restrictions for traffic lights, 90 degree track bends and floating bridge joints.
For those who want to live dense and car-free, simply find a home and a job near a Sound Transit train station. However, the state-designated transportation planners at Puget Sound Regional Council realize that transit has limits. With Sound Transit's rail network fully built out to 125 miles, PSRC calculates that the average household in the region would have a 30 minute or less transit trip to only one percent of employment locations in the region. (30 minutes is a forecast of the average car commute.) This tiny percentage reflects that the tracks of Sound Transit's "transformative" light rail won't go to all the places that people need to go, even with various measures to contain sprawl.
Fortunately, PSRC is now laying out the option of a 2040 future of region-wide road user fees with off-peak discounts that could transform and revitalize our ubiquitous road network for cars, trucks, and buses. Starting Friday May 29th, the draft Environmental Impact Statement of Destination 2040's five alternative options will be on the street (www.psrc.org), with computer modeling of the performance of each, including ones with more trains. All the scenarios show that the road network will provide the vast majority of 2040 mobility.
Make your comments above count by turning them into comments on the official anti-sprawl regional planning by July 13!
Posted Fri, May 29, 9:57 a.m. Inappropriate
@jniles: Okay, I guess it's time for me to crack up the 2040 documents. it sounds like they are trying to address some of the ideas I threw out. I've been focused recently on our original metropolitan planning document, Bogue's 1911 Plan of Seattle. Thanks for pushing me into the 21st century ;)
Posted Tue, Sep 1, 10:50 p.m. Inappropriate
What you call "Smart Growth" is a little like a Smart Car -- half the car for twice the money.
Gimme my 2007 Kia I bought for $8500...a nice little "Dumb Car" and I'll leave the Smarts to soon to be penurious Seattlites.
Smart means finding the sweet spot. I think Kent is smart. It has a center area around the Sounder. But it also has wide open spaces and bike trails.
It has apartments that are open and with green spaces. It has big houses and houses with land. It's businesses have low rents and free parking.
There are many other exurbs around the Puget Sound that are modern, have good jobs and are congruent with the modern lifestyle.
Seattle proper, unfortunately, is not one of them. Should you wish a Bolivian head mitt...yes, there are 4 stores to serve you. If you want to buy a hammer...well, you've got some driving to do.
The thing is, suburbs are green...the have lots of grass in between the houses and cars. Goods and services move much more efficiently in and out of suburbs and exurbs like Kent that have speedy transportation systems integrated with commercial and residential areas.
I guess what I'm saying is..."all your premise are wrong".
Posted Wed, Sep 2, 4:44 p.m. Inappropriate
Jabailo,
My understanding was that the freight operators in Kent have become increasingly frustrated with congestion due single-occupant vehicles. Is that not the case anymore?
I don't really have time to go check, I need to ride down the bike trail and buy a hammer at my Seattle neighborhood hardware store.
Posted Wed, Dec 30, 8:45 a.m. Inappropriate
Commenting here after the re-posting of this piece as one of the Best of 2009. Regardless of his politics, Cox may well be correct that suburbs have grown from people moving to them from elsewhere, not from people moving out of a city to that same city's suburbs. But that still leaves as an open question how to (or whether to) smartly densify cities. Even Cox allows that city populations have shrunk, so presumably there is available capacity. Let's say we do want to increase population density in Seattle. I see two problems. One, some of the largest drivers of growth--Microsoft being the prime example--are not located in Seattle. Rational people moving into the area to work for Microsoft, et al., will choose to live near their work, that is to say, outside the city. Two, Seattle real estate is friggin expensive. I moved here two years ago (from an East Coast city, to take a job in downtown Seattle) determined to live IN Seattle itself. I count myself as fortunate that I was able to afford a house in North Seattle toward the bottom of the market (over $300K but under $400K), but I have the advantage of just one child and a strong preference for a very small dwelling (ours is around 900 sq. ft.). If I'd moved here with another child and even a slightly smaller income, I don't know how I could have afforded to live in the city. If I'd come here with three children and an still smaller income, forget about it.
Posted Wed, Dec 30, 8:45 a.m. Inappropriate
Commenting here after the re-posting of this piece as one of the Best of 2009. Regardless of his politics, Cox may well be correct that suburbs have grown from people moving to them from elsewhere, not from people moving out of a city to that same city's suburbs. But that still leaves as an open question how to (or whether to) smartly densify cities. Even Cox allows that city populations have shrunk, so presumably there is available capacity. Let's say we do want to increase population density in Seattle. I see two problems. One, some of the largest drivers of growth--Microsoft being the prime example--are not located in Seattle. Rational people moving into the area to work for Microsoft, et al., will choose to live near their work, that is to say, outside the city. Two, Seattle real estate is friggin expensive. I moved here two years ago (from an East Coast city, to take a job in downtown Seattle) determined to live IN Seattle itself. I count myself as fortunate that I was able to afford a house in North Seattle toward the bottom of the market (over $300K but under $400K), but I have the advantage of just one child and a strong preference for a very small dwelling (ours is around 900 sq. ft.). If I'd moved here with another child and even a slightly smaller income, I don't know how I could have afforded to live in the city. If I'd come here with three children and an still smaller income, forget about it.
Posted Wed, Dec 30, 10:38 a.m. Inappropriate
The problem with this piece and the whole pro- or anti-density discussion of which it is part:
Urging density is putting the cart before the horse. The task is to create interesting places. Then people will compete to be there. You don't start by creating density. You create interesting urban places and then people will want to be there and developers will build.
Density is a byproduct of creating interesting places.
Density is a by-product of high-amenity environments.
Consider any waterfront location. Or a neighborhood like Madison Park. Do you really think that you have to encourage density in either place? Hardly. People want to be there, they compete to be there, and you have to beat them off with a stick.
Posted Sat, Jan 2, 3:34 p.m. Inappropriate
"Density is a byproduct of creating interesting places.
Density is a by-product of high-amenity environments."
Other than this, what benefit is Mike McGinn's West Side Seattle light rail?
Is it just more upscale than RapidRide C & D lines?
http://www.kingcounty.gov/transportation/kcdot/MetroTransit/TransitNow/RapidRide.aspx
My bigger question is, are we taxing ourselves out of our own city for esthetic improvements in the name of "density", where the only obvious beneficiary are developers?
You can sell (or auction) a condo for more money on a cool light rail line than you can on a bus line.
Posted Wed, Jan 6, 7:26 p.m. Inappropriate
Knute's article is somewhat "beside the point." The issue isn't whether suburbs are growing, it's what pattern of land use, density and access to transportation do the new suburbs have. If the new suburbs are planned as conventional suburban development with cul-de-sacs, lack of sidewalks, large lots, disconnected streets, etc., then they are just extending the unsustainable mistakes of the past. If the new suburbs are more densely planned, with interconnected streets, smaller lots, smaller front yards, etc., then they may prove sustainable. Peter Calthorpe wrote about this in The Next American Metropolis in 1993 and many of these ideas are in the emerging LEED standards for neighborhood development.
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