So pertaining to doing density well enough to convince people, who are advocates of density in the abstract, but have reservations when it comes to the realities; whether or not they are environmentalists or NIMBYs or otherwise, I think there is a real failure of understanding what density is, what it entails to be done successfully and the appropriate time frame for the evaluation of “success”.

I know a while back DanB posted some great visuals to explain the differences in density metrics as well as built examples. But those figures are lost on people when they are not familiar with a project. And they are also usually project specific, as opposed to reevaluating the affect on neighborhood density. What I am getting at here is when people advocate for 50DU/acre in a TOD that currently consists largely of SFDs, what does it take to get there? What is the magnitude of the change? I ask this rhetorically here, but its something that needs to be communicated to the larger community.

Also, the discussion of density cannot be just about buildings… it has to be about the whole environment. Let me guess, not news to you? Nor to me. But it is to many of the people I encounter at community meetings, even colleagues who should know given their interests and profession. Its especially important when operating in such a car-dominated environment, when many “givens” are really just assumptions. Knute Berger’s bit on woonerfs in his article on the Future Shack competition just underscores this for me. A street where pedestrians and cars co-exist?!

And the last thing I’d like to get people’s take on is the time frame of evaluation. Attending the neighborhood plan update meeting, I was appalled by some of my neighborhood’s reps lack of understanding of not only the process but the time frame for implementing neighborhood plans. People do not understand the dynamics that shape our city or the time line required to achieve the results. When higher density projects are built before the supporting infrastructure is in place that makes the higher densities livable and sustainable, aren’t we begging to make more enemies than converts?

I think the departure for dan b’s post was the failure to do increased density well enough to persuade people that it’s a good idea.

A Seattle with more households, even if they are small households, equals more density and lessens the pressure to build elsewhere. Thoughtfully planned and designed, a dense environment can provide the same qualities and benefits of a poorly planned, inefficient landscape. Attempting to preserve a inefficient SFD model here in Seattle is ludicrous, which is the point of departure for this post.

Josh@7: Good point re the comparison.

Yes, I know those trees are in parks. That’s part of the joke.

(The trees in both of this post’s photos are in parks, by the way.)