http://hugeasscity.com/2009/02/12/the-density-zealots-gung-ho-enviros-and-social-engineers-are-going-to-force-all-of-you-to-live-in-buildings-like-this-forever/

http://hugeasscity.com/2008/04/16/the-eco-fascist-liberals-are-coming-to-take-your-cars-away/

And they can only be stopped by people like you!

http://seattletransitblog.com/2009/03/20/520-overpass-and-transportation-subsidies/

And:
http://seattletransitblog.com/2009/03/23/welcome-to-the-fast-lane/

Imagine the Microsoft campus as a series of low-rise but walkable buildings in an urban-style streetscape, maybe with some apartments mixed in (i.e. more like Eastlake or Fremont than the ultra-landscaped office park that it is). It seems to me that the sustainability potential would be much higher — workers might walk on the street to buy lunch, the urban-style streets might be less hostile to bikes than suburban-style roads are, transit commuters might walk from the transit center down a real street rather than across parking lots and between landscaped bushes, etc.

The landscaping and setbacks give the campus the single-purpose nature that it has, and the single-purpose nature is what makes people drive. It’s not wrong to think that Seattle is more sustainable — Seattle generally doesn’t have codes supporting landscaped office parks (that weird campus near Delridge notwithstanding) — but it’s not a matter of location as much as a matter of code.

In your sense I would guess that somewhere like Redmond is actually fairly dense and therefore undesirable–for kicks I put “one microsoft way, redmond, wa” in at walkscore.com: a pathetic 34. I loved living in a small town for the first couple years out of college (walkscore 72!). The problem was the $22k/year my job paid, and this was only about a decade ago. Decentralization of jobs is a tough nut to crack. A job brought my parents to Portland from a small town many many years ago, and that trend continues.

I think we could see some common ground in supporting the “Urban Center” or “Town Square” concepts of moderately dense housing and jobs located near transit (and outside of the central downtown area). This spreads job density throughout a metropolitan area, reducing congestion. At the same time it adds housing options, so middle class workers don’t feel pushed to outer subdivisions, and hopefully allowing more workers the healthier and cleaner options of walking or biking to work.

What we need is more options, but continuing suburban development (via housing tax incentives and highways) is just more of the same. We need to plan for 20, 30, 50 years out and it’s clear that livable cities need to be part of that.