crosscut.com : Neighborhoods / Communities

'Zero net energy' homes: an experiment in Issaquah

Crosscut — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:00:01 PDT

A Seattle-area developer and local governments have teamed up to build townhouses that, in theory, will give back more energy than they use. Will that work? It will depend in part on who lives in them.

How light rail drives Seattle neighborhood planning

Crosscut — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:00:01 PDT

Chapter 6: After a year of discussion on updating neighborhood plans, the City of Seattle saw the light. That would be the approaching beam of light rail in the first three neighborhoods.

Belt-tightening time for the Mercer Mess?

Crosscut — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:44:01 PDT

Nothing concentrates one's mind, it has been said, like the imminence of hanging.

This is the case as policymakers and ordinary citizens consider options to shore up the financial system and avoid an economic depression. People are concentrating as well on state and local decisions knowing that, at the least, an economic downturn lies ahead and that tax revenues will be reduced. Belt tightening is in order. Projects involving big public money, such as plans to fix the perennial Mercer Mess from I-5 to Seattle Center, will be getting increased scrutiny. Or so I hope.

Who will help Seattle's biggest grumps?

Crosscut — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:07:01 PDT

The Seattle Neighborhood Coalition has been meeting the second Saturday of the month for 25 years without missing a beat. That record could be broken, however, if the group isn't able to find an adequate, affordable, new meeting place. Their old digs, a downtown diner, have been shut down.

A city of memory

Crosscut — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:00:01 PDT

Seattle has undergone stunning changes. But what is sometimes more remarkable is what hasn't changed.

Spokane: what Seattle used to be

Seattle — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:00:01 PDT

Mossback becomes enamored with a city he once regarded with disdain and considers what it would be like to move there. It reminds him of pre-1970s Seattle, before the yuppies ruined it.

Creating 'people places'

Crosscut — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:00:01 PDT

An architect and former City Council member argues for compact urban design, but not at the expense of livability. Density doesn't have to be a dirty word.

Chop, chop

Crosscut — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:00:01 PDT

As Mayor Greg Nickels moves to close a tree-cutting "loophole," it's time for a complete rethink of Seattle's rules and regulations regarding trees. And we better act fast.

There's sudden movement in updating Seattle neighborhood plans

Crosscut — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:41:01 PDT

I've been tracking the City of Seattle's proposal to update the neighborhood plans since March in the series There Go the Neighborhoods. You wouldn't think I'd be caught unawares before the only currently scheduled public hearing before City Council's Planning, Land Use, and Neighborhoods Committee's special meeting. Guess what? It's scheduled for Monday, Sept. 8, 5:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers at City Hall. The agenda lists only one item: public comment.

Whassup with Wasilla

Crosscut — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:47:01 PDT

The day after a former Miss Wasilla was picked by Sen. John McCain as his running mate, I realized I'd been there. In 2004, I went to Alaska to see the start of the Iditarod. That's the grueling 1,150-mile sled dog race that starts in south central Alaska and ends in Nome on the Bering Sea. Often referred to as "The Last Great Race on Earth," it takes anywhere from 10-17 days for the teams of 12-16 dogs and their mushers.

A Seattle gold rush house is endangered

Crosscut — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 05:00:01 PDT

There's little question that Seattle was put on the map by the Klondike Gold Rush. The man credited with setting off that rush, George W. Carmack, spent the last dozen years of his life living in a big Colonial Revival home in what is now Seattle's Central District. The National Park Service says the George Carmack House is fit for the National Register, but it may be too late. A for sale banner hangs on it today touting the property as a 4,800-foot lot ripe for redevelopment.

Turning foreclosures into affordable housing

Crosscut — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:00:01 PDT

Several American cities have been buying up foreclosed and abandoned homes, refurbishing them, and selling them quickly to developers and homeowners. Boston, San Diego, and Minneapolis are using the idea, which both helps prevent troubled neighborhoods from deteriorating further and addresses the shortage of affordable homes for the local workforce.

Nickels peeks under the Cascade Curtain and gets pissed off

Crosscut — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:06:01 PDT

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Joel Connelly, blogging from the Democratic National Convention in Denver, had a nugget from Seattle's strongman mayor, Greg Nickels.

The mayor's block party weekend

Crosscut — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:00:01 PDT

Greg Nickels is putting on a series of car-less Sundays in Seattle. The first one on Capitol Hill was rained out, and many cars were ticketed and towed. Infuriating? Yes, but you know what you can do ...

A suburban sucker's bet

Crosscut — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:46:01 PDT

An interesting follow-up to my story last week on the future of suburbia is a profile of Merced, Calif., in the Aug. 24 issue of The New York Times. Skeptical that some burbs might become the new ghost towns? Check out the picture of the Riverstone housing development that accompanies this story, of an unfinished project baking in the sun and dirty air of a boomtown gone bust.

Death by a thousand (paper) cuts

Crosscut — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:00:01 PDT

A magazine distributor is doing what the Bellingham police and a prosecutor tried to do and couldn't.

A cure for congestion that's simple and cheap (and doomed)

Crosscut — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:00:01 PDT

Most cures for congestion come in billion-dollar packages, since it's easier for politicians to evade hard choices by instead throwing lots of money at the problem. An example of a simple, cheap (but politically radioactive) cure for congestion is to start replacing curbside parking with lanes for buses, bikes, and pedestrians. A pithy case for doing just that, as New York is trying to do, is "No Parking, Ever'" by Hope Cohen, deputy director of Manahattan Institute's Center for Rethinking Development. It's full of common sense.

The future of 'nowhere'

Crosscut — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:00:01 PDT

Urban planners love to hate the suburbs, but what's going to become of them? Will Bellevue eventually become a post-carbon ghost town or a new urban hybrid? Some reflections on the urban/suburban debate.

The best-laid plans: How neighborhoods have fared

Crosscut — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:00:01 PDT

Chapter 5: Few citizens will read a 170-page auditor's report on how well decade-old neighborhood plans have been implemented. But it should be required reading for the mayor and City Council. Bottom line: The plans have had some good consequences, but City Hall has lost interest.

Is Big Nanny running your town?

Crosscut — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:43:01 PDT

The libertarian magazine Reason has published a list of the biggest nanny cities in the country. The results for the big cities on the Pacific Coast are interesting. Portland is caught in a kind of "nanny sandwich" between Seattle and San Francisco. Apparently, the most ecotopian town in the Pacific Northwest has escaped the worst excess of politically correct fussiness.