weeasssuburb

Greetings from Medfield, Massachusetts, population: 12,000, median household income: $98,000. I seem to recall that when I was in high school I spent a lot of time drinking Budweiser on deserted dirt roads in this town. When I was in college my friend’s brother died of a heroin overdose in a building about a block away from the church in the photo above.

Only about 20 miles southwest of Boston, the population density here is 1.3 people/acre; Boston is 19/acre; Seattle is 11/acre. From 2005 to 2008 Seattle’s housing unit stock grew by approximately six Medfields.

How will a town like Medfield fare in the 21st Century? Currently, Medfield is among the wealthiest communities in Massachusetts. It is also completely car-dependent. Medfield, like many similar small towns in the Boston suburbs, has changed very little over the past several decades. But can it withstand the shock of a transition to carbon-free energy?

What is the relationship between the importance of a building and the brightness and saturation of its colors? One building in this photo provides energy for cars. The other provides housing and food for people.

OK, whatever.

Perhaps try a grok at this instead: Gas stations have remarkably resplendent color schemes, yet we barely notice them.

Stupid machine.  That is all.

True Story: The City of Seattle has taken space away from cars and given it to cyclists. And not just any space, but the most sacred kind of space there is in car culture: parking. A new bike lane will soon open on the west side of 4th Ave between Yesler and Spring, as part of Seattle’s new bike master plan. And 38 parallel parking spaces will be sacrificed. This is a minor miracle.

As for whether or not the majority of Seattlites share my view of progress, this King5 news story is highly revealing. It begins with a set up, describing this dreadful thing that has happened: downtown parking is becoming more scarce, and when you’re late for an appointment you’re going to have to drive around and around the block looking for a space and you may not even find one! Then comes the punchline: “The culprit - a new bicycle lane on 4th Avenue.”

In the several reviews that followed the release of Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, it seemed as though a multitude of the reviewers concentrated solely on Diamond’s summary of the event’s that led to the end of human occupation of Easter Island. The tone was universal, as though this information was some sort of shocking revelation. More than ten years previous, while I was in grad school for archaeology, I was in a seminar about societal complexity and collapse. The opening statement was about Easter Island.

“The last person, who cut down the last tree on the island, knew exactly what they were doing.”

It was a simple testament, that humans in groups have the capability to overuse the resources they need to survive, even when individuals maybe fully cognizant of that reality.

Withing the last couple of months, I’ve noticed more than a few news items relating to shortages of a very important resource. I’m not talking about corn and rice. I’m talking about water. Have humans every really been all that good about water? Even Frontinus wrote about the growth of the Roman aqueducts as they reacted to population growth, not planning ahead for it, always fighting shortfalls in supply.

There was a chilling piece in WIRED recently. Many outlets have covered the fight that has been taking place between several southern states as of late. McNiel/Lehrer (I’ll still call it that, I’m old) had a great piece about California’s impending water problems. It seemed to paint the picture that Northern California was concerned with growing food while Southern California was concerned about keeping their golf courses green.

The one story that sent a real chill up my spine after a few minutes of consideration was recently on Frontline World. It was a short, ten minute story that covered the shrinking glaciers in the Himalayas and the simply huge numbers of people that will be affected. There are over a billion people north of the Himalayas that depend on the various rivers that flow out of the mountains in their direction. The over a billion people that live south of the mountains are in a similar situation. What happens when either India or China start diverting supplies away from the other? Humans have quite easily gone to war over various commodities that they don’t need to live such as olives, sugar and cocaine. What happens when people with nuclear weapons start running out of water?

Just because the various states don’t have nukes pointing at each other does not mean things can’t get at least a little nasty. That fight is for expensive lawyers where water rights can and easily do spend many years in litigation. Think about that the next time you water your lawn or go golfing. No human died and no culture collapsed for lack of either.

The downtown office core harbors a cornucopia of uncanny urban spaces. The other day I happened to pass by the one shown above and couldn’t resist busting out the Panasonic DMC-TZ3, thinking I’d probably want to write something about how these grand entry plazas are usually such a stupid waste of space. But after I came down the escalator, out came scurrying the youngest, friendliest looking security guard I have ever seen, who proceeded to tell me, while seemingly holding back a giggle, that he had to ask me not to take photos of the building. By that time I already had all I wanted, so even though I was totally put off by his request I said OK, not wanting to risk any escalation that might have led to a demand for my memory card.

But then I couldn’t help asking why. And again, all the time with that shit-eating grin, the kid paused, and then said he couldn’t tell me why. So I said, “you don’t even know why?” and then he seemed stumped, and finally mumbled something about how he used to be in the military and um, this is different he guessed, but no, he really didn’t know why. I wish I had asked him if he knew what year it was when 9/11 happened.

I am thoroughly nonplussed and disheartened that the hugeasscity readership did not have the wherewithal to correctly identify the reason for the three-story windowless concrete penthouse atop the Financial Center building. As is screamingly obvious in the photo above, the blank concrete band at the top of the building was a critical design feature, a gesture necessary to perfectly balance the two-story blank concrete band at the base of the building. Just go up in a helicopter sometime and take a look — you’ll see what I mean right away. This is the sort of design sensitivity that is tragically and all too often under-appreciated in brutalist architecture.

But then hey, what’s behind that 2-story blank wall at the base? Many large downtown buildings have parking decks in that location, but that can’t be the case here (can it?). Matt the Engineer, please help.

And if you ever find yourself in the Financial Center entry plaza, go up the stairs in back and treat yourself to the view shown in the photo below. Hmm, what do they keep in the windowless base of that thing…

There are aspects of the building shown above that are more consequential than the orange wall, though that bad boy is a piece of work, to be sure. Pb Elemental’s designers, not known for subtle gestures, continue to be the local masters of ignoring context — not that that is necessarily a bad thing, particularly when there is very little in the way of valuable context to ignore. (But if you look closely at the fresh graffiti on the building it reads “your orange wall sucks cause it’s way out of context with Parnell’s Mini-mart!”)

Behind that orange wall is soon to be Pb Elemental’s first completed stand-alone “work-loft” unit, located at 23rd Ave and Dearborn in the Central District. Also under construction on the same development site are a pair of 2-story loft homes.

This is an unconventional project. First, the location would seem to be an unlikely one, for residential as well as commercial. Second, the mix of uses on a single infill site is innovative. And third, the stand-alone, small footprint, 2-story loft layout is unusual for a commercial space. Oh yeah, and it’s bold and boxy and gray and has a big orange wall. And one more thing about that orange wall — it is likely to contribute to the success of the commercial space because it creates such a strong sense of identity.

Pb Elemental has four other work-unit projects listed on their website. And I think they’re onto something good. These small units should help encourage micro-retail and support small, independent businesses. And best of all, since the commercial spaces are so small, they don’t require on-site parking — Pb’s Union and Leary projects have none. We ought to have a sustainability award that goes to every developer who has the audacity to put up a new building with no on-site parking.

By the year 2012, according to a new report (pdf) from CIBC World Markets on the effects of the rising cost of oil. Among the predictions:

• oil at $200/barrel and gasoline at $7/gallon by 2010
• 10 million fewer vehicles on the road by 2012 (peak at 240 million)
• 15% reduction in vehicle miles traveled by 2012

If these predictions bear out, the cost of oil will do more to reduce our region’s greenhouse gas emissions than we could ever reasonably hope to achieve with government policy. And I hope someone brings a copy of the report to the next Viaduct Stakeholders meeting.

What is up with that ~30 feet of blank concrete wall at the top of the Financial Center Building at 4th and Seneca? That’s a good three stories of wasted building height way up there where the views are best. Ten feet above roof level to screen rooftop mechanical equipment would not be unusual. So then what about that other 20 feet? A secret CIA detention center perhaps?

Even though it’s almost exactly the same color, Seattle Tower, built in 1929, provides a good contrast. As you would expect, the top floor window head height is roughly one story below the top of the facade. But of course, the much more glaring contrast is in the richness of design (yup, I’m stating the obvious again). The complex art-deco facade is immediately impressive, but there is also an easily missed subtle detail: the shade of brick gradually lightens moving up the building to mimic the play of light on mountains. And the cavernous lobby reinforces the metaphor, suggesting an alpine cave. (Is the Four Seasons building at 1st and Union a modern example of a similar architectural nod to nature?)

Some probably feel that Seattle Tower’s art-deco style is overwrought and has not held up well over time. But if nothing else, the building’s design reflects a passionate belief in something, whereas buildings like the Financial Center speak of a culture driven solely by dry utilitarianism.

In the present era, our culture has no unifying sense of beauty or pattern or pride that manifests itself to any substantial degree in our buildings. But there is some hope: ecologically sensitive design has great potential to bring some deeper meaning back into architecture. The Seattle Justice Center and the Ballard Library are two good local examples of compelling built form that embodies cultural values rooted in sustainability.

[ Illustration by Jules Feiffer ]

From The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster:

“Many years ago, on this very spot, there was a beautiful city of fine houses and inviting spaces, and no one who lived here was ever in a hurry. The streets were full of wonderful things to see and the people would often stop to look at them.”

“Didn’t they have any place to go?” asked Milo.

“To be sure,” continued Alec; “but, as you know, the most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that. Then one day someone discovered that if you walked as fast as possible and looked at nothing but your shoes you would arrive at your destination much more quickly. Soon everyone was doing it. They all rushed down the avenues and hurried along the boulevards seeing nothing of the wonders and beauties of their city as they went.”

Milo remembered the many times he’d done the very same thing; and, as hard as he tried, there were even things on his own street that he couldn’t remember.

“No one paid any attention to how things looked, and as they moved faster and faster everything grew uglier and dirtier, and as everything grew uglier and dirtier they moved faster and faster, and at last a very strange thing began to happen. Because nobody cared, the city slowly began to disappear. Day by day the buildings grew fainter and fainter, and the streets faded away, until at last it was entirely invisible. There was nothing to see at all.”

“Hasn’t anyone told them?” asked Milo.

“It doesn’t do any good,” Alec replied, “for they can never see what they’re in too much of a hurry to look for.”

Now, to represent our reality, we’d need to take all those people in the above scenario and put them into cars — not a promising prospect for the built environment. I don’t know how a city can become more invisible than invisible, but much of what has been built in the age of the car might as well be.

I’m not one to bemoan the coming of more high-density housing to Seattle, but still, something seems a tad out of touch with reality in the scene shown above (and have you ever seen such a magnificent application of blue tarps?).

Seneca Towers, a 25-story, 285-unit condo tower, will soon to rise from this site at the corner of 8th and Seneca on the West slope of First Hill. And to make way, what would appear to have been a decent, usable, 5-story brick apartment building is coming down.

It’s all about timing. And location. Given the cooling housing market, and given the large quantity of condo units coming online just ahead Seneca Towers, and given that most of this competition is arguably in more desirable downtown locations, one might have expected the developer to hold off on pulling the trigger on the building demo.

The development slowdown is real, just ask the architects. But here in Seattle, is it being driven more by actual lack in demand, or by the banks overreacting to their prior lending carelessness and keeping an excessively tight hold on financing? Overall, Seattle still seems to have relatively strong fundamentals — for example the PI recently reported that Seattle was the nation’s leader in high-tech job growth for 2006. If, in fact, financing is the main culprit, then the slowdown is artificial and will lead to pent up demand, which in turn will perpetuate a painful and inefficient bust-boom cycle.

Dear Bankers: Please try to do a better job controlling your business.

______________________________________________________________________________________

I can hear the Seattle Magazine readership already: “Honey, I think I’m gonna get me one of them hugeass Rolexes like in that ad on the back cover.”

But really, I have to thank Seattle Mag for the kind words. Too kind probably, considering the dour tone of many of my recent posts (note to self: less diatribe, more smartass).

Coincidentally, hugeasscity just crossed the 1000 comment mark today. This will be the 213th post. Google Analytics stats for June: 8,550 unique visits, 242,362 page views.

Never thought it would come this far, and not sure what to do with it now…

Here are a couple thought-stimulating quotes from a New York Times article from July 2, 2008, “Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Far Suburbs”

 ”More than three-fourths of prospective home buyers are now more inclined to live in an urban area because of fuel prices, according to a recent survey of 903 real estate agents with Coldwell Banker, the national brokerage firm.”

“In March, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles on public roads than in the same month the previous year, a 4.3 percent decrease — the sharpest one-month drop since the Federal Highway Administration began keeping records in 1942.”

“In 2003, the average suburban household spent $1,422 a year on gasoline, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By April of this year — when gas prices were about $3.60 a gallon— the same household was spending $3,196 a year, more than doubling consumption in dollar terms in less than five years.”

and my favorite from a person owning a McMansion in suburban Denver:

“I was so glad to get out of the city, the pollution the traffic, the crime,” she said. Now, the suburbs seem mean. “I wouldn’t do this again.”

Sunshine screaming louder – 
Sunshine look away – 
Ecstasy awakenings – 
The bringing forth of day. 

Pleasure splits the silence.
The countdown’s torn in two. 
Each part clenched between
The shudderings in you. 

Passion fruits in the maze within,
Seething like a time bomb. 
But the ancient condemnation’s just,
And crushed the spiral cord. 

The moment occurs again,
And shines without its gold. 
And chances left untook,
Have turned abrupt and closed. 

Evade its knots you can’t undo,
For your fortune will not fold. 
She has come again to greet you
And fawns like smoke and leaves. 
The undertable’s carven ruts
Hold hid desire’s key. 

That Tulalip Casino billboard sure adds a nice touch of class to the Pearl Apartments. Why the hell do we put up with these fuggin eyesores? And the thing is, they are more than just eyesores: In the words of Adbusters founder Kalle Lasn, billboards are mental pollution:

“Our mental environment is a common-property resource like the air or the water. We need to protect ourselves from unwanted incursions into it, much the same way we lobbied for non-smoking areas ten years ago.”

You’d think that a city of bookish liberal nerds like Seattle would have banned billboards by now. But for one thing, there are a lot more of them out there than most people probably realize — 507 are registered with the Department of Planning and Development. So it’s not just about getting rid of a handful.

But likely the biggest obstacle to any new billboard regulation would be corporate media giant Clear Channel, which seems to own just about every large billboard in Seattle. In Houston Clear Channel fought a billboard ordinance for 25 years before finally losing the battle in 2007. And they are currently suing the City of Tacoma over 10-year-old ordinance that requires them to remove some billboards.

On the other hand, Clear Channel isn’t about to win any popularity contests in a city like Seattle, so one might reasonably assume that it would be a good political move to take them on.

Like much signage, billboards visually assault our mental environment. But because billboards are designed to be seen from such great distances, the assault spreads all too far into the common realm — it is almost impossible to ignore them when moving around in the city. As with environmental pollution, we have every right to put a stop to the widespread spewing of mental pollution.

This is Collingwood Village, a 27-acre transit-oriented development (TOD) in Vancouver, B.C. Quoting from this pdf:

“Collingwood Village is a prime example of how the opportunity created by a new rapid transit system can be the impetus for co-ordinating land use planning with a large scale development. This co-ordination of land use and transportation planning initiatives has seen the transformation of an outdated industrial pocket surrounded by single family housing into a new high density neighbourhood. With the Joyce SkyTrain Station as its focus, Collingwood Village, at build out, will be home to about 4,500 new residents and is a major contributor to transit-oriented densification within the city.”

That’s what TOD is all about. And a great example of what we should be aiming for in Seattle, particularly in the SE Seattle light rail station areas. Not that it would have to be on such a grand scale — it’s the urban design that matters.

Collingwood balances density with amenities: it has seven acres of park, an elementary school, a “neighborhood house”, a community gymnasium, and a daycare. It offers a variety of housing types at both affordable and market rates, with 20% of the units designed for families with children. There are towers ranging from 17 to 20 stories mixed in among 4- and 6-story mid-rise. Lower buildings and a park face the single family zone to the south.

Much of the success Collingwood can be attributed to Vancouver’s strong government planning culture. But back here in the U.S., the balance of power tends to be more weighted toward individual property rights. It wouldn’t be hard to design and build a TOD as good as Collingwood here in Seattle. The hard part would be getting past all the cultural and institutional barriers.

The Seattle Times has a new quarterly magazine called “Footprint,” and the cover of the June 28 edition touts “7 Cool Ideas to Change Our Wicked Ways.” Um, wicked?

Ha ha! Isn’t it cute how wicked we all are! Wink-wink, all those enviros are so uptight, such a drag with all their preaching about imminent ecosystem collapse and whatnot, so let’s have a little fun, get all ironic like the cool kids over at the Stranger and come right out and call ourselves “wicked” even though we know that most people will see that as overwrought, and so then will not be inclined take anything we’re saying too seriously, but hey, that’s OK, cause this is a “happy green” publication and we wouldn’t want to get anyone too upset or concerned.

It’s as if they were writing a headline about the decadence of eating too much chocolate.

Doubly annoying is that the book they’re referring to was published by Sightline, who produce some of the most thoughtful and important work on sustainability in the Pacific Northwest, and who I have no doubt are cringing heavily at the choice of words in the Footprints headline.

Also in the same paper is a story about George Carlin, and of course the Seattle Times would never print Carlin’s famous seven words you can never say on TV, even though the focus of the piece was on Carlin’s talent for deconstructing words.

The thread connecting the two above topics is thin, but there is more to it than the number seven. I’ll leave it at this: we need to get real.

…if we don’t get on a very different path.”

I suppose a veteran NASA scientist who first testified about global warming to the U.S. Senate 20 years ago has earned the right to get a little snarky. This week Jim Hansen was back in front of congress again, testifying that unless greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced, within a couple decades we can expect mass extinctions, ecosystem collapse, and dramatic sea level rises.

Not news to anyone who’s been paying attention, but for information that is so stunningly overwhelming, everyone, not least our elected representatives, needs to hear it over and over. Regular readers of this blog (assuming there are such masochists) know that I have been repeating similar dire warnings about climate change in order to justify the push for rapid and massive changes to the urban built environment. But the truth is, even though I have an intellectual understanding of the situation and can write the words, somewhere in the back of my mind I’m still in some level of denial, still wondering if I’ve been smoking crack and somehow inventing a scenario that couldn’t possibly represent actual reality, as in, the reality of the world that my two innocent small children will inherit.

If we are to successfully take on the challenge of climate change, the first step is to get beyond denial, so it helps to hear it all again from the mouth of the “godfather of global warming science.”  Once we fully accept the reality of our predicament, it then becomes more likely that we will be motivated to reassess everything, including deeply-rooted institutional and cultural roadblocks such as blind faith in the free market, or the doctrine that individual property rights can trump the common good. 

Because as Jim Hansen put it, “this is the last chance.”

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean–

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down–

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

Grok this 223-foot tower on the edge of Lake Washington in one of Seattle’s wealthiest predominantly single-family neighborhoods. This is Washington Park Tower: 23 stories tall, with 53 luxury condos, built in 1969. For perspective, that’s about the same height as the brand new Four Seasons Hotel/Condo in the heart of downtown Seattle.

Like Beacon Tower, this tower probably doesn’t feel a whole lotta love from the neighbors, but I think it’s another instructive example of how tall buildings do not necessarily deserve such a heinous reputation. Walking on the street in front of this building, I don’t feel oppressed by it. Part of that is because it is set back, and part is because it’s a fairly slender tower (roughly 100′ x 75′).

I’ve been going to Madison Park beach for years and oddly, was never fully conscious of the tower until I went over for a close look the other day. The building to the north (Park Shore) is impossible to miss from the beach, and it partially screens Washington Park Tower. But I’m still sort of bemused about how such a massive structure wouldn’t have been immediately seared into my consciousness. And that leads me to believe that overall, this tower is far less visually assaulting than most folks would assume given how much taller it is than everything else around it.

No doubt there are those who object to this tower simply because it is out of context with the neighborhood. It is different, this cannot be denied. But as with many realms of life, different doesn’t necessarily mean bad. New things are often out of context with old things. Context matters in urban design, but this doesn’t imply that every building has to adhere to the same set of geometric parameters. If Washington Park Tower was laid on its side so as not to be so tall, it would be far more oppressive to people on the ground in the immediate surroundings — and that’s where the most people feel the strongest impact from any building.

I am not trying to suggest that towers belong everywhere. But I do believe that our culture in general has an irrational bias against tall buildings, and because of this we may be rejecting some good urban design options. Buildings like Washington Park Tower are worthy of an open-minded second look.

Not an historic landmark, but still, most would probably admit it hurts a little to lose all that brick.

Developer Jim Mueller is bullish on the Central District. Including the recently purchased Deano’s site at 22nd and Madison, Mueller is also developing the Twilight Exit site across the street (the blue building in the photo), as well as 23rd and Union.

Putting aside whether or not is was a piece of architecture worth saving for any reason, noble or otherwise, the fact is that a designated city landmark was demolished.  What is the point of the designation if there is no viable mechanism for the protection of such properties?  What is the point when those who are charged with such a responsibility let it happen because “There was no viable way to save it?”  What happens when a well funded, well lawyered-up developer or even a government agency decides to tear something down that people in this city actually want to save?  Without revealing details that might cost me my job, it has nearly happened in the past, right under the nose of both the press and the public.  What then?

[ Graphic: Seattle Times; Source: City of Seattle DPD ]

Seattle has reached 50% of its 2024 housing growth target. That rocks my hugeasscity world. But as might be expected, this news has raised concerns that Seattle may be growing too fast. Pshaw!

The sooner we put more housing where it makes sense — in Seattle’s urban centers and villages — the better. It’s a win each and every time the demand for one housing unit is supplied in compact development rather than in sprawl. And the more housing there is available, the more likely this is to happen. (Not to mention that increased supply tends to decrease prices.)

Furthermore, the sooner higher housing densities are established, the sooner we’ll get serious about transit. As our history has shown, Seattle residents are not inclined to fund transit when driving is so much more convenient. As population density increases, it becomes easier to justify more frequent and comprehensive bus service. This makes riding the bus more convenient, which in turn promotes more ridership, which then justifies better service, and so on (e.g. bring on the dedicated bus lanes).

Concerns about public services and amenities keeping pace with housing growth are legitimate. But as noted by Erica Barnett over at SLOG, my sense is that in this case much of the concern is overblown. As quoted in the Seattle Times, Nick Licata offers no specifics about where he believes there are shortcomings caused by new housing. The only specific issue noted in the Times story is overcrowded bus service. But that is a relatively easy problem to fix, and as I pointed out in the previous paragraph, increased demand for transit instigates a virtuous circle for better transit.

The one component of our infrastructure that definitely will not keep pace with housing growth is roadway car capacity (see here and here). Nor should we expect it to. Nor should we in our right minds desire it to. It will be painful for many in the short term, but it will save far more pain for everyone in the long term.

When I read the letter below that landed in my inbox the other day, I couldn’t help thinking that the author and I must be from different planets. On my planet, human activity is pushing ecological systems to the breaking point, CO2 levels are reaching unprecedented levels, and scientists are telling us that if we continue business as usual that within 100 years we’ll lose most of the species on earth. On my planet, it has been established that compact development patterns reduce resource use and greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the viability of alternatives to cars, particularly transit. On my planet, there are countless examples of cities with compact development in which communities are thriving and people — including families with children — have a great quality of life. In my city on my planet, people are responding to the global crisis by working to change development patterns and logically want to see these efforts focused on the new light rail station areas.

If the author of the letter and those who are aligned with his views are not, in fact, from another planet, I am at a loss to explain their position. Can anyone help me out here? I believe these people actually do care about the fate of the planet, but if so, what is their alternative plan? I strongly suspect that the truth is they have no alternative, but I am trying to keep an open mind.

The text of the letter follows (the attachment referred to is here):

“Hello All,

Son of CRA is upon us. Please read the attachment on the forwarded e-mail thoroughly.

This year, 2008, the City intends to focus their efforts on SE Seattle and the station areas. There are many clues as to the City’s intentions in the document. The first is that the City wants to up-zone vast areas in order to “promote ridership goals for the regional line” (last sentence on page 3 of 5). This is the tail wagging the dog. Since it doesn’t appear that Sound Transit is going to reach their ridership numbers (and thus jeopardize further federal funding), the residents of SE Seattle are gong to be forced to accept a significant increase in density surrounding the platforms. The extent of the area that will be under the gun, so to speak, is hinted at on page 4 of 5. The third to the last bullet on the page sates that the radius of the development will be “within a 10 minute walk” of the platform. That’s 1/2 mile folks, not 1/4 mile. The encroachment on the single-family neighborhoods is going to be more than significant. And lastly, the City will again employ the tactic of divide and conquer. On the last page, sixth bullet from the last, the City wants “workshops and small group discussions”. The residents need to overwhelm the meetings and let their outrage be heard.

While this directly affects Mt. Baker/N. Rainier Valley, Columbia City, and Othello, we are all at risk. SE has the most seriously understaffed police precinct in the City, and we’re going to get lord knows how many new residents with this scheme. There’s also the issue of where to educate all the new children. But to me, the most serious problem is where are all these people gong to work and how does the train fit into that equation. The only employment centers that the train serves are downtown and the airport. It doesn’t serve Southcenter (#2 employment center in King County) and it won’t serve UW until some time in the middle of the next decade (#1 employer in Seattle). So, we’re going to get all these new residents with all their automobiles, and there will be no parking for them, since the City Council in their wisdom eliminated the parking requirement in the the station areas. The grand experiment will be held at our expense.

I know we are all busy this time of the year, but perhaps it’s time to reconstitute MCOM (or some entity like it) and start up a game plan to take on the City again. I’m game, are you?

Doug Cargill

P.S. The forces of ever increased density are already lobbying the Council and the Mayor.”

(disclaimer: If you have a rant filter, now would be a good time to activate it.)

In discussions of urban density, the point is almost invariably made that advocates have an obligation to prove to the masses that density can be livable, and that if they don’t do this then they can’t blame the public for resisting. Pardon my French, but I call bullshit. If you want to talk obligations, try this: Each one of us has the obligation to educate ourselves about how our lifestyle is killing the planet, and to learn how we can change the way we live in order to put a stop to the devastation.

Of course, many people are already doing just that, and the consensus is that reconfiguring our cities for higher density is one of the most effective strategies possible for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (as well as a host of other environmental, social, and economic liabilities). And if you accept that, then you must also accept that we simply do not have the option to say no to density. It is a self-destructive fantasy to believe that we can take or leave density depending on whether or not it meets our particular list of preconditions. Because life in imperfect density is far better than life in a world of collapsed ecosystems and no food to eat.

I don’t mean to pick on anyone, but take the example of this comment, in which the author said that he would rather have no towers at all if they were as unattractive as Beacon Tower. Choices like this, multiplied many times over across thousands of neighborhoods and cities, will have significant consequences. And so the choice that is actually being made might well be between living with ugly towers or living with extinct coral reefs. In this context, the impact of towers on views from a mile or two away ranks pretty low on the priority list, especially since it is also subjective.

But alas, I too am guilty of this brand of shortsighted criticism. In this post I apparently felt the need to whine about how the architecture of several new multifamily buildings in Seattle wasn’t up to my standards of good design. And that was petty and dumb, because even though they may not have stunning facades, those buildings succeed beautifully in doing what’s most important: increasing density.

And so back to my original point concerning obligation: Just because density advocates are communicating the reality of what should be done doesn’t mean they must bear the burden of making everyone feel all warm and fuzzy about it. The key is to help everyone fully understand, first, the awesome threat of global warming, and second, the importance of density in mitigating that threat. Once it is widely acknowledged that increasing density is what we must do, and that we must do it as quickly as possible, it becomes everyone’s responsibility to make sure we do it well.

All that said, to make progress in the real world it is no doubt important to help people get past their negative biases about urban density and to provide attractive examples. And of course, many density advocates are already doing just that. But we would also do well to end the propagation of this idea that density is just a fashion choice that needs to be marketed like a luxury appliance.  If we hope to successfully deal with the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced, then we’ll have to expect a lot more from people than is implied when we assume we have to sugar coat neccessary solutions to make them palatable.   

As discussed here and here, because transit-oriented development (TOD) is such a key strategy for reducing car-dependence and greenhouse gas emissions, and because there has been such a massive public investment in Sound Transit light rail, it would be doubly irresponsible to allow zoning to impede high-density redevelopment in the station areas. And of all the light rail stations, the Beacon Hill station area probably has the highest concentration of single-family-zoned land, and thus any proposed upzones there are likely to be that much more controversial.

Strangely enough, if people want to get a taste of what high-rise on Beacon Hill might be like, they need not even leave their neighborhood. The pale-yellow high-rise in the aerial image above is Beacon Tower, a 15-story, 165-foot tall low-income housing project located at the corner of 13th Ave S. and S. Massachusetts St. The tower is so much taller than anything else in the neighborhood it is startling. Many of nearby buildings are single family homes, including two directly across the street to the north (behind the tower in this image).

I suspect there is no shortage of Beacon Hill residents who loathe this tower. Not only does it stick out like a sore thumb in terms of scale, but it’s also stark and institutional architecturally. I’ve always had a “what hell?” kind of attitude about it when seeing it from a distance, but today I checked it out up close. And I have to say that from the perspective of the surrounding streets, I think it works surprisingly well. It doesn’t feel nearly as oppressive as you would expect for such a tall building. The simple explanation is that it is a relatively slender tower, measuring roughly 100′ x 60′. A 6000 sf floor plate falls within the typically defined range for a “point tower,” a form which has been popular — most notably in Vancouver, BC — because it minimizes view blockage.

It also occurred to me that because Beacon Tower is located at the peak of a narrow ridge, its view impact is reduced. Buildings on the slopes west of the tower typically only get good views to the west, so the tower isn’t a factor. And likewise for buildings to the east.

As immediately unlikable as Beacon Tower is to many, I believe it offers useful insight into how high-rise residential towers could be successfully integrated into a low-density urban fabric such as that which makes up the Beacon Hill light rail station area. Imagine a row of light and airy point towers along the north and south spokes of the station area, surrounded by a diversity of building types with the overall trend of decreasing height as you move down either side of the ridge.

Yes, towers can play nice with low-rise buildings, and I hope to show some Vancouver, BC examples in a future post.

As an aside, I’m dying to know how it was that Beacon Tower got approved for construction by the City of Seattle back in the early seventies. There are several similarly out-of-context high-rise projects scattered around Seattle. How were the neighborhood concerns that were undoubtedly being raised so summarily ignored? Were these projects a few of the last gasps of federal government-driven, top-down urban renewal? And might they be part of the reason the Seattle process pendulum has swung so far in the other direction? Pertinent questions, because it’s not hard to imagine a future scenario in which eminent domain for TOD becomes justifiable. Too radical?

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[ South Park Marina on the Duwamish ]

…look in the mirror. All those scorn-reaping townhouses are simply a reflection of the state of our culture. There is no alien invasion involved here. Townhouses are financed, regulated, designed, built, bought, and lived in by members of our community. The trouble is, the community is broken. And no amount of building code updates or panel discussions can fix that.

In a broken community you are likely to find both builders and buyers without strong connections to place. And so builders become more inclined to produce shoddy, overbearing townhouses because they know they won’t be around to face the neighbors. And buyers tend to not so much mind living in a home that sequesters them from community life on the street — exhibit A: the six-foot cedar fence along the front property line. Should we be at all surprised when the the most individualistic culture in human history produces housing that has little respect for the common good?

Weak community bonds also enable the domination of a purely economic perspective, encouraging builders to see townhouses solely as a means to make money, while encouraging buyers to see them as an investment rather than a home. We Americans are always on our way to somewhere else, to something better, so the townhouse becomes nothing more than a vehicle to keep up with housing prices until we can get that dream house and really start living.

As for the sorry state of townhouse architectural design, the cause couldn’t be any more obvious: Our culture just doesn’t care very much about architecture. Today, utilitarianism and bottom line economics are what drive “design,” if you can call it that. The buildings still tell the story of our culture, but the story reads like a technical manual — it has no poetry, no soul. If more people valued design, if they sought something more culturally meaningful than a utilitarian box with openings for a home, then that’s what the market would deliver.

In terms of urban design, the typical townhouses currently going up in Seattle’s neighborhoods are a choice example of how we can’t have it both ways. We want dense, affordable, livable urban housing, yet we also want maximally convenient access to our cars. And so we try to make the townhouse do both, and we end up with the all too familiar compromised schlock. We simply don’t have the money and we don’t have the urban land to accommodate a car in every housing unit.

The townhouse, or more generally, the rowhouse, is one of the oldest and most successful urban building types in history. Our culture has the dubious distinction of being the first to so effectively wreck it.

[ Historic London townhouses ]

Alright then: But all this is not to say that better building code would be useless for mitigating townhouse blight. And the single most effective code update that the City of Seattle could implement to help improve townhouse design would be to do away with parking requirements in all lowrise zones. Alas, of this, the City of Seattle shall not speak.

Townhouse garages take up space that could be lived in, increase unit cost, raise the building height, and relegate main living spaces to the 2nd floor, disconnecting residents from the street. Townhouse driveways take away green space, increase stormwater runoff, reduce the site area available for the buildings, and drastically limit the site design possibilities. In the typical configuration with the driveway running between buildings, the buildings tend to get squeezed outward as close the property lines as possible. Mandating even wider driveways, as is proposed in Seattle’s multifamily code update, will only result in more cases of townhouses beating up on neighboring buildings.

When so much of the site is given over to driveways, there is little space left over for yards. And this is a major reason why so many townhouses have tall front yard fences. If the only place that isn’t paved is the front yard, then it will need a fence if people want a private bit of outside space. If the community was more closely knit, perhaps people wouldn’t feel they needed a fence to keep their BBQ from being stolen. Instead, the fence reinforces community breakdown and the vicious cycle continues.

Removing parking requirements might also encourage developers to try other building types such as small apartments, that would help break the near monopoly of new townhouses in lowrise zones. I suspect that those who are disgusted with townhouses would find the apartment discussed here much less objectionable — but there is no parking in it.

The thing is, even if the City removed parking requirements, change would be slow because in the short term, most builders would put parking in their projects anyway. But we should at least give them the option — now. It is inevitable that eventually, parking requirements will be revoked across the entire City of Seattle. Global warming and peak oil guarantee it. And the sooner it is done, the more pain we’ll avoid in the long term.

And all apologies, but I’m going to continue to repeat myself and leave you with this 1961 Lewis Mumford quote:

“The right to access every building in the city by private motorcar, in an age when everyone owns such a vehicle, is actually the right to destroy the city.”