Posted Mon, Dec 27, 2:12 a.m.

Mr Baker: Wendell Cox is hated by the urban density, TOD, redevelopment groups because he consistently points out that people, especially the middle class and families, vote with their money by buying sf homes in suburban areas in preference to buying condos/townhouses in cities. According to most of what I ...

Posted Wed, Dec 1, 4:45 p.m.

Selling an ecological civilization, summit on sustainability, "Better City, Better Life", Shanghai Declaration, zero carbon utopia, green shantytowns, "Cities of Harmony"-all of it sounds like, ultimately, it will lead to each person living in a 400 square foot high rise city pod with perfect connectivity and a life style based ...

Posted Tue, Aug 3, 5:58 p.m.

Dear Mr. Chasan, Thanks for taking the courage to write about this problem. A friend and I discussed this exact scenario about six months ago. Both of us had had fathers in nursing homes with strokes, and we both had the identical experiences that you did. I got angry enough ...

Posted Wed, Jul 28, 7:34 p.m.

mhays, I believe what Erin was referring to was having some street trees or other greenery close to the buildings rather than necessarily between the building and sidewalk. Of course one of the design problems in Seattle is narrow sidewalks quite unlike many in cities you claim to like such ...

Posted Mon, Mar 8, 8:32 p.m.

This was very apropos, and the hypocrisy reigns everywhere. The devil is always in the definitions and the details, most of which remain very fuzzy. Even some architects and planners are beginning to question the "smartness" of the various "smart" coinages running rampant now. Madrona

Posted Tue, Sep 1, 1:55 p.m.

Read Garret Keizer's article "Crapshoot" in Harper's.

Posted Mon, Aug 31, 1:02 a.m.

Southender, I have nothing against DADUs; I have 4 within 1 block of me, but if we are going to have them all over the city, I do want to see stronger controls on their size and locations; not to mention the lot size they can be located on. Your ...

Posted Sun, Aug 30, 12:50 a.m.

Correction of Walker posting- "As a land use attorney, I am certain he is familiar...."

Posted Sun, Aug 30, 12:37 a.m.

As an attorny, Mr. Wolfe might have noticed That Mr. Kammerer's article was not in opposition to DADUs. It made a point that two buildings as large as Seattle proposes on one site is de-facto duplex zoning going under the appealing name of "Cottages". Mr Wolfe would no doubt confirm ...

Posted Wed, Aug 12, 3:24 p.m.

hacknflack: Your experiences match mine as do your observations. My family has been here since 1907. We bought our home in 1975 when Seattle was emptying; friends all fled Seattle for outlying areas and thought we were nuts for staying. Over the years, I have come to agree with them ...

Posted Wed, Aug 12, 2:57 a.m.

Rob K, the information on who lives in TODs is available on line-I believe that the most complete study was out of Minneapolis. TOD doesn't attract transients ( bums); but it does attract renters rather than buyers. Renters can have very different effects on a city than homeowners, and many ...

Posted Tue, Aug 11, 2:53 p.m.

This article seemed to me both well thought out and well researched. And I agree with Kent's conclusion that Seattle may not attract the additional population it seems to want because the city is becoming less appealing to the vast majority of potential new residents and even some old ones-for ...

Posted Fri, Aug 7, 11:37 p.m.

Mhays -we're all used to your boilerplate and we all know your background. It'd be nice if you could broaden your thinking about city growth issues. If you'd bother to read Glaeser-among many others, you might get some surprises.

Posted Fri, Aug 7, 2:48 p.m.

I think John Fox does understand the economics of what has been happening in Seattle. Don't believe me?-read the research available from Edward Glaeser of Harvard who has made urban issues/economics the focus of his voluminous research. He has much to say about housing prices, transportation issues, gentrification, densification, consumer ...

Posted Sun, Aug 2, 3:31 p.m.

ADUs and DADUs exist in my SF neighborhood, and so far they have been fine. Nonetheless, I think Mr Kammerer's cautions and concerns are well worth paying attention to. Instead of a 50 unit per year maximum, Seattle should institute a maximum per neighborhood due to traffic, noise, and parking ...

Posted Sun, Apr 26, 9:47 p.m.

I think Kent is probably correct in that much of what has happened in Seattle over the last 20 years has less to do with maintaining the city than in putting a "world class gloss" on civic projects. See Danny Westneat's article in the Sunday Seattle Times for why and ...

Posted Thu, Apr 23, 5:27 p.m.

Amen to Mr Parkhurst's comment. That has been my exact experience in working with her. She get's some whim of an idea and runs with it sans all knowledge or logic. Ignoring anything truly relevant while hyping the lunatic seems to be her modus operendi. Mayor material? God forbid.She'd be ...

Posted Mon, Mar 23, 6:33 p.m.

Mayor Nickel's administration has been an ongoing disaster of continuous deviousness and spinning to neighborhoods, City Council, and anyone else with ears. He has so intimidated other elements of city government that they blat out any untruth that they think will keep them in his and his minions good graces-the ...

Posted Mon, Mar 23, 4:59 p.m.

It's all very boring, and utterly without merit. Can't people find better things to do with their time?

Posted Sat, Mar 21, 10:53 p.m.

TypeOne, I have to agree with Mr Wade on this one. I have used FOIA requests, and found the information valuable even if I never published what I found in a newspaper article. That information did get passed on to other interested people in the Seattle Community to use as ...

Posted Tue, Mar 3, 8:09 p.m.

The truth is that most human beings only have 3-6 true social intimates. Everyone else, including extended family members, is an acquaintance of varying degrees of closeness. I don't find evidence that Seattle is much different in that regard from other places I have been. I do think there is ...

Posted Tue, Mar 3, 5:57 p.m.

Well, all the institutions Maggie is involved in used to be free for anyone in the public to attend. Then various of the groups decided to get "upclassed" or City Govt decided they weren't worth supporting or were too expensive to support. Thus we wind up with cultural amenities that ...

Posted Sun, Feb 22, 8:07 p.m.

Freeman, I have been doing my civic duty, and the result has been exactly as you delineate. When the bureaucracy really wants to mess with you, they split the real citizen stakeholders into "discussion" groups, have them write commentary on big white paper sheets, and then file all the comments ...

Posted Mon, May 7, 10:50 p.m.

RE: Wish I'd thought of it: Hi Kimberly, Glad to give you a new take. It is something I worry about as well. There are rumors here in Seattle that Parks will eventually fence all the skateparks and figure out a method for charging fees. That is something else I ...

Posted Thu, May 3, 11:16 p.m.

Shreddin' numbers: Here in Seattle, skatepark promoters were claiming vast numbers of skateboarders based on data from SGMA as applied to Seattle population. Since those numbers would have meant that virtually every male under 19 in the Seattle School District skateboarded, I did some investigating and number crunching and made ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 3:18 p.m.

RE: Lighted FieldTurf Field Impacts - Possible Solutions: Hi Stuka, Oddly, you and I are actually on the same page with regard to a lot of what you suggest. Right now Parks Dept seems out of balance since it seems to want to concentrate the field playing at certain sites ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 1:54 p.m.

RE: Greening the Heart of the Emerald City: Dear Seattle Parks Foundation, I love this idea, and I hope it will be funded and implemented. Please make sure those green pathways are well treed since warm weather walkers really need protection from the sun, and trees have great benefits aside ...

Posted Thu, Apr 26, 6:26 p.m.

RE: The City Needs Parks, NIMBY's Need Them Too, They Just Don't Know It: Hi Stuka, Unfortunately, you seem to think that the majority of Park users are field sport members when, in fact, the huge majority of Park users are not members of a field sport group. They are ...

Posted Thu, Apr 26, 5:36 p.m.

RE: park politics: Dear Patricia, I thnk you are correct in your assessment of the present situation. With what I have read of Ron Sims suggestions for King County Parks ( a levy similar to the Seattle Pro-Parks Levy), I can imagine Seattle and Metro teaming up to basically privatize ...