Signs of livability in Seattle and that other place
I'm going through my notes from the Vancouver/Seattle debate and have found a number of interesting tidbits that weren't in my original story. Here's a notebook dump of some odds and ends.
Call it the Lady Godiva Rule
Seattle's Peter Steinbrueck criticized his home town for allowing high-rises to be built too close together, which ruins views, blocks light, and enrages tenants. He noted that Vancouver had done a better job of tower separation. Vancouver's Gordon Price weighed in saying his test was that towers should be spaced such that residents should be able to walk from the bathroom to the living room to the kitchen naked, with the blinds open, and not have to worry about being seen. Surely there will be keen competition to be the city's tower inspector using this criteria.
The slow train to White Rock
Asked about high-speed rail in the Seattle-Vancouver corridor, the debaters were asked where they thought the stations ought to be. Steinbrueck said the Seattle line should originate at the newly refurbished historic King Street Station, a major transit hub. Price said he thought the Vancouver station should not be in the city but suburban Surrey City Centre, where passengers could link up with SkyTrain for the ride downtown. He questioned, though, whether high speed rail would ever be built in the corridor and pleaded for better, more reliable Amtrak service.
Go to Seattle, young green!
One questioner wondered which city, Seattle or Vancouver, would be the best place to start an innovative, green company. Steinbrueck said Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland are all equally supportive for greenies. Price said he'd do it in Seattle because it's "where the money is." He noted that green start-ups in BC often get bought out and moved to Seattle anyway. Price also made the point that Seattle's impact on America generally has been huge. "You are part of the American identity," he said.
How dense are city builders?
Steinbrueck praised Vancouver's ability to plan new communities from top to bottom, from transportation to playground equipment. He said Seattle's efforts to build new neighborhoods are incomplete. He cited South Lake Union, for which there is no overall, integrated plan, and Belltown, a place "the city left behind." He said it is now the densest neighborhood in the state. Steinbrueck repeatedly called for stronger, more integrated and more consistent planning in the city, clearly not wanting to rely on "the market" to get it right. Price warned there was a downside to entrenched bureaucrats.
Pretty, but empty
Everyone loves Stanley Park in Vancouver, and it would be great if Seattle had something similar, but we traded an urban park for Skid Road. But while Price acknowledged that Stanley Park and its trees might be a spiritual place, it's not used much (that might be one reason it feels spiritual!). He noted that while the perimeter waterfront walkway and seawall are loved by many, it would never be built today: Who's going to approve paving all that shoreline? He said his experience is that very few people actually use the park's interior. An audience member referred to the park as wilderness, but Price corrected them saying that Stanley Park had been logged over more than once and that whatever it is, it's not wilderness.
NOTE: I just got the schedule from the Seattle Channel on the airing of the debate on TV (see below). It will be available on their website on the morning of July 3rd (Seattlechannel.org).
Vancouver/Seattle debate broadcast (Seattle Cable Channel 21):
Thursday, July 02, 2009 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 04, 2009 2:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 05, 2009 11:00 a.m.
Monday, July 06, 2009 3:00 a.m.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009 10:30 p.m.
Comments:
Posted Tue, Jun 30, 11:53 a.m. inappropriate
Belltown is nowhere near the densest in the state. Capitol Hill and the U District had easily the densest census tracts in 2000, and even the densest tracts in Belltown haven't caught up yet. (If you count commercial land use, then the CBD obviously becomes the densest.)
Steinbrueck was very shaky with his facts at the event. I admit I'm picking on him because I disagree with some of his ideas, but shaky facts are shaky facts. Price corrected him pretty hard on Vancouver's policies for encouraging kids in the Downtown Peninsula. Steinbrueck called Vancouver the most diverse city in North America, he thought Downtown Vancouver had more jobs than Downtown LA... Getting one of those things wrong would be understandable, but if I'm thinking of four big ones of the top of my head...good lord.
Posted Tue, Jun 30, 2:17 p.m. inappropriate
There being a "downside to entrenched bureaucrats" is a poignant understatement. No doubt many of us armchair-benevolent dictators are by name well-meaning, but overplanning can do more harm than good. Talk to your average planner in the City of Seattle and they'll tell you about how cars are a thing of the past and people shouldn't live in single-family homes and then they'll drive their Prius to their craftsman in Wallingford taking care to avoid having to pass by an unsightly townhome or condo complex. The hypocrisy aside, planners have a unique ability to avoid seeing how people actually behave and live and see only how they think people should behave and live. Dick Morrill notes this regularly in his columns here. Whether they learn this trait or it's a product of self-selection into the planning cabals is an open question.
I do so dislike Steinbrueck that I can't be truly unbiased, but I would say that Price won and indeed Seattle is the best City in the Pacific Northwest, if not in the entire continent.
Posted Tue, Jun 30, 5:33 p.m. inappropriate
I'm not a planner, but I have a different take on how they see their job.
It's more about "how can we accommodate growth while maintaining quality of life, the environment, and the municipal budget."
There's a big difference between growing our transportation system by focusing on under-served modes, vs. saying cars are a "thing of the past." There are no plans to reduce car capacity below current usage, except among the "surface 99" crowd, who even I, who do hate cars, disagree with for their naivite. You'll always be able to drive. All the City is doing is not putting much effort i9nto making driving easier.
As for single family homes, the City is fine with them. Few "full lot" houses get built because land is too expensive, which is because Seattle is too desirable to have cheap land. Also, and primarily, because most house lots already have houses in them. So we get townhouses, which are a good solution because they can handle families but don't take too much land.
But you're right that there are many environmental hypocrites out there. Driving to work, driving to the mountains every two weeks, living in a big house, thinking that recycling and donating $100 per year to some nonprofit means they're doing something, etc. If you want to do something, how about some big stuff, like using less land and driving less?