hugeasscity

Skeptical? This list of debunked myths might help. The debate is endless, and no, Proposition 1 is not perfect, but no mass transit package ever will be.

The City of Seattle always ranks near the top of U.S. cities for educational attainment. But all those big brains can be a curse, because most smarty pantses can’t control their inclination to analyze everything to death, and then to show off their smarty pantsness by endlessly ruminating over all the uncertainty that inevitably arises from thoughtful analysis of any complex issue. And so big plans usually die for lack of firm support.

The importance of passing Proposition 1 calls for a mind shift as radical as could be imagined for the majority of the Seattle area population: We must think more like President George W. Bush. That is, we must be Deciders. As in, 100% commitment, zero doubt. The antithesis of this.

Confidence is contagious. Tell your friends and coworkers. Call your grandmother. Hand out stickers. Write a self-indulgent blog post. Here’s the crux of mine:

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the passage of Proposition 1 would be an immensely beneficial step toward realizing a sustainable future for the Puget Sound Region. Vote YES on Proposition 1.

For Seattlites seeking inspiration on how to plan for transit-oriented development (TOD), the edge-city just across the lake may seem like an unlikely place to find it. But in 2007 the City of Bellevue completed a planning effort for the area east of downtown known as the Bel-Red Corridor that is well worthy of emulation. Currently best known for its luxury car dealerships, the Bel-Red Corridor is on the path for the future Sound Transit East Link light rail alignment connecting downtown Bellevue and Redmond.

The graphic above illustrates proposed building heights limits surrounding a future transit station node. The max of 150 feet is far higher than the typical buildings in that area, but it is appropriate for the densities that make TOD successful. How did Bellevue pull it off in the face the commonly held aversion to tall buildings?

The map above identifies proposed open space and riparian corridor improvements that are part of the deal. This kind of amenity upgrade helps placate residents who tend to see tall buildings as a sacrifice. And renderings such as the one below help people visualize how high-intensity development can provide attractive and livable environments.

This Fall, the City of Seattle will embark on station-area plan updates for the Beacon Hill, McClellan, and Othello light rail stations. To leverage our massive investment in light rail, and to move toward a more sustainable city overall, heights in the 150-foot range should be allowed in some of these areas. As in the case of Bel-Red Corridor, Seattle’s challenge will be to balance the more intense development with improvements to public amenities, such that in the end urban livability is enhanced for all.

At the risk of giving the impression that I might possibly take any of this design and development wonkishness seriously, below is a piece I wrote for the August 2008 issue of Urban Land magazine.  Apologies for the small print, but since the piece is only available online to paying ULI members, I only have permission to post a scan.

[ Conceptual rendering of Footprint at the Bridge project — Johnston Architects ]

The Bridge Motel enjoyed a well-publicized, dramatic demise, and potentially, what’s to replace it will also warrant some notoriety. Not for the design–though since it is being designed by Johnston Architects it will likely be well done–but for the project’s goal of achieving a 50% reduction in energy use compared to a similar building that meets Washington State energy code.

Cutting building energy use in half may be an ambitious goal, but we should be pushing for goals like this in every new building that goes up. And the AIA’s 2030 Challenge does just that, calling on architects and engineers to design all new buildings for 50% energy use reduction starting now, and then to ratchet energy use down to net-zero consumption by 2030.

The Footprint at the Bridge project website provides a long list of energy saving strategies that will be applied. Nothing on the list is particularly radical, but what will be unusual is the inclusion of all of them in one building. Seattle firm Ecotope is providing energy consulting for the project.

[ Conceptual rendering of Footprint on Main project — Johnston Architects ]

The rendering above shows a second project in the works by Footprint Developments, located at the corner of 23rd and Main in the Central District. The goal for this 4-story residential building is a 60% reduction in energy use, which is the 2030 Challenge target for the year 2010. The web site shows a list of energy saving strategies that is almost identical to the list for the Footprint at the Bridge project.

It will be enlightening to see if these two projects can be integrated with all the proposed design features and achieve their energy goals without incurring prohibitive marginal construction costs. For comparison, a few other projects with significant energy savings targets that have been noted on this blog:

• Issaquah Net-Zero Energy Homes
• LEED townhouses: 30 to 50% reduction
• Weber Thompson HQ: 30% reduction

If any readers know of other projects in the Seattle area that are pushing the envelope on energy efficiency, please leave a comment. In particular, real-world projects such multifamily buildings would be more relevant to this discussion than trophy projects such as the Seattle Public Library.

“What the Greatest Generation handed down to us — the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved — the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.”

Pat Buchanan, who penned the riff from which the above quote was taken, is an enigmatic man: one moment a ranting xenophobic psycho, and the next an insightful social critic.

When is the last time you heard a politician criticize the baby boomers? The boomers are off limits because they are a hugely powerful voting block. But there is, I believe, much truth in Buchanan’s statement above. The boomers have had their time in the sun, and we are now beginning to reap what they sowed. Who else is there to blame?

But true to the Buchanian style, there are some choice inconsistencies in the piece as well:

“What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko (‘Greed Is Good!’) capitalism.”

A pleasure it is to hear that from the likes of Buchanan, but of course he doesn’t dare take it any deeper and question whether or not “greed is good” capitalism is the inevitable destination of an economic system grounded in the invisible hand of the free market. Never mind all those angry lefties who for decades have been pointing out that the operative economic ideology will shape moral character.

“‘Government must save us!’ cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government — the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?”

Cliche anti-left straw man aside, Buchanan’s examples of how government got us into this mess are embarrassingly self-contradicting. What his examples actually attest to is that the “government is the problem” ideology has gotten us into this mess, because Republican policy from Reagan onward has led to a weakened and incompetent government incapable of functioning as a effective check on corporate excess.

And my, how conveniently Buchanan seems to forget that the uber-nation his revered “Greatest Generation” handed off to the boomers in the latter part of the 20th Century owed much of its success to New Deal-era policy. That is, policy that reigned in laissez-faire capitalism by enabling government intervention and allowing strong labor unions. (Psst, Pat: Evidently the Greatest Generation had a penchant for socialism.)

But then here’s the sane Buchanan, back in fine form once again:

“An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.”

Sadly no, that “all electric vehicle” is not “zero pollution,” and the people who make them should stop asserting otherwise. Yes, an electric car generates no emissions at the “tailpipe,” but alas — and you heard it here first! — electricity does not self-reproduce. That is not to say electric vehicles have no merits — they do, but exaggerated claims are counterproductive.

Now given that Seattle City Light produces carbon-neutral electricity, one might be tempted to argue that in Seattle an electric car actually does have zero emissions. But this claim too, is not defensible. Because the grid is regional, every kWh we don’t use here in Seattle is a clean kWh that can be sent elsewhere to replace energy that might have been generated by fossil-fuels. And furthermore, because our region’s hydropower is already pretty much tapped out, rising demand for electricity will increasingly have to be met by sources other than hydro.

A meaningful estimate of CO2 emissions from electricity calls for the use of a regional average emissions factor, which the Seattle Climate Partnership specifies as 600 grams of CO2 emitted per kWh of electricity consumed. A typical electric vehicle may get around 3 miles per kWh, which yields an emissions rate of 200 gCO2/mile. For comparison that’s about half the emissions of the average car in the U.S. fleet (22 m.p.g; 400 gCO2/mile).

That’s a big reduction, but what it also reveals is that a gasoline-powered car that got 44 m.p.g. would emit CO2 at about the same intensity as a typical electric car. Currently, 34 m.p.g is the best you can do with a conventional car, but 44 m.p.g. is certainly within the realm of technical possibility, especially if it’s a car of similar size and weight to the one shown in the photo. The Prius hybrid gets 46 m.p.g. average.

And what about plug-in hybrids? Pulling numbers from this EPRI report, I calculate 250 gCO2/mile for the 20-mile (mid-range) plug-in hybrid. Again, good, but not all that amazing compared to the most efficient gas-powered cars.

The emissions generated both by all electrics and by plug-in hybrids will decrease as electrical power generation becomes cleaner over time, and we can expect that this will happen (we better hope it does). The EPRI report noted above includes analysis that demonstrates this effect and it is significant, suggesting that electric cars and plug-in hybrids are a good long-term strategy.

Another subtle factor with electric cars is that in most situations the battery charging can occur at night, when peak electrical demand is relatively low. This means adding electric cars to the fleet won’t necessarily require new the construction of new power plants. It is even possible that a distributed network of electric cars could become an beneficial component of the grid, storing up electricity at night, and then pushing it back on the grid during daytime peak demand periods, if the car isn’t being used.

In the end, the trouble with electric cars and plug-in hybrids is that they still consume energy. And in the future we may find ourselves in a situation where we need to use every drop of carbon-free energy for things more important than driving around — critical applications such as heating buildings and powering computers. For instance, I can imagine a future scenario in which every home would have a bank of batteries storing electrical energy at night, but during the day that energy would be needed for use in the home, and there would be nothing left over for a car.

All of this highlights the importance of reshaping our built environment to reduce reliance on cars. Car culture will not be immortalized by a magical invention. But the fortunate thing is, our culture also stands to make major humanistic gains if we manage to wean ourselves from so much car-dependence. We win and the planet wins. Funny how often it works that way.

[ Candela rendered elevations by Olsen Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects ]

The Candela Hotel and Residences (renderings above) at 2nd and Pike is in the design review process, but just a block and a half to the north, the 1 Hotel and Residences has only made it as far as a bare hole in the ground dug in 2007.

Intracorp is selling off its 24-story residential project at 1915 2nd Ave, while practically next door at 1931 and 2015 2nd Ave the Justin Company’s pair of proposed 400-foot residential towers is moving ahead. One block east on Virginia, Tarragon’s proposed 43-story apartment tower began the design review process back in 2005, but appears to be in purgatory. And two more blocks east on 5th Ave, the twin-tower, 43-story Heron Pagoda was put on hold this summer.

Up in the Denny Regrade area HAL Real Estate Investments recently proposed a 400-foot apartment tower at 2116 4th Ave, which happens to be right around the corner from The Martin, Vulcan’s proposed 24-story condo tower that has been languishing since 2006.

And last but not least, way out on the manic end of the spectrum: the recently proposed 35-story condo/hotel project at 1012 1st Ave has units offered for sale before permits have been applied for, and conceptual designs have been produced by two architecture firms (see below) even though neither concept could likely be built because it is too close to the Hotel 1000 building to the south.

[ 1012 1st Ave coneptual designs:  Ismael Leyva Architects on the left, Pb Elemental on the right. ]

[ Photo taken 9/13/08 ]

[ Rendering from Veer Lofts website ]

Check out reality versus intention for Veer Lofts, located at 9th and Harrison in South Lake Union, developed by Vulcan, designed by Johnson Architecture. Obviously, the first thing they need to do post-haste is paint the bottoms of the decks orange.

I like both versions of the building but would pick the rendering if I had to choose. It’s striking how much the feel changes with a little less saturation in the green paint tones on the lower floors.

It’s hard not to notice how all the verticals are perfectly parallel in the rendering. It would never look that way to the human eye, though it also wouldn’t be as distorted as the photograph, which was taken with a 28 mm lens (on the 35mm scale).

“No disrespect to you bikers! Much respect!”

That graffiti pretty well captures my sentiments for the people who made this place happen: Under the freeway between North Capitol Hill and Eastlake, I-5 Collonade Mountain Bike Park is an absolutely brilliant reclamation of previously useless urban land.

The park occupies 7.5 acres owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation that was identified as potential open space in the 1998 Eastlake Neighborhood Plan. The 2000 Seattle Parks Levy tossed in $1.8 million for construction, and the Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club stepped up with thousands of hours of volunteer work to build the mountain bike trails. More details on the history here.

The photo above shows the scene yesterday, at the grand opening celebration of the complete park (parts of the park have been open since 2005). It’s a startlingly vast area under there. The looming I-5 deck, the massive, towering concrete columns, the dusty dry ground, and the slashes of sunlight create a uniquely surreal atmosphere. And there must have been about a billion dollars worth of bicycle in the park yesterday (what recession? — a $2k dual-suspension dirt jumper in every pot!).

It’s inspiring: citizen volunteers, the neighborhoods, the City, and the State all playing nice together to produce something very outside the box that has become a smashing success. And not just for bikers: the new stairway through the park provides a new pedestrian connection across I-5, and it has been well used.

At yesterday’s event a petition was being circulated to request that WSDOT open a gated maintenance road that would allow a trail connection from the park to points south. With Colonnade Park as a precedent, it will be much harder for WSDOT to say no.

[ Nothing photoshopped here, that’s a real unicycle. Should we be surprised, in the land of extreme everything? ]

[ Rendering of the proposed 6-story mixed-use building at 23rd and Union, via CD News ]

Developer Jim Mueller has been granted a contract rezone raising the maximum building height from 40 to 65 feet for his site on the SW corner of 23rd and Union, see PI coverage here. It’s good news for that troubled corner, and it is encouraging to see the City is willing to make corrections where current zoning is inappropriate. Unfortunately however, it added an extra year to the entitlement process for that project.

A big challenge to progress on compact development and reduced car-dependence in Seattle is zoning code that has become incongruous with the realities of today’s world. And one of those realities is that the Puget Sound Region will grow by 1.7 million people by 2040. If we hope to accommodate these people while minimizing our business-as-usual scorched earth policy of unsustainable growth, it will require planning that is both visionary and rapidly responsive.

In the past, the City of Seattle has done an admirable job of involving the neighborhoods in planning, but that sort of public involvement adds years to the process of making updates to code. If we are serious about sustainability, we may have to reassess whether or not we still have the luxury of so much time. For example, any credible assessment of the opportunities for sustainable development in Seattle would dictate that at 23rd and Union the maximum building height should be raised to 65 feet on all four corners. But it will likely be something like five years or more before any code change can be made if we have to wait for another full-blown round of neighborhood planning. The neighborhood planning that led to the current zoning at 23rd and Union concluded in 1992.

In the coming months the trauma of the rezone will no doubt be making its presence known in the communities surrounding the light-rail station areas in southeast Seattle, as the City moves forward with planning efforts. More to come on this in a future post…

The weird thing is how it took so long for cab companies to take heed of a very simple equation: higher gas mileage = more profit. Is there some competitive advantage to larger cabs — perhaps simply because people prefer them? — that has made gas-guzzlers like the Ford Crown Victoria the urban taxi standards for so long? Or does Ford just give them away to the cabbies?

The cab shown above is owned by Green Cab Seattle, whose website claims that they offer the only all-hybrid fleet in the Puget Sound Region. This seems like a can’t-lose business concept given the environmental sensibilities of the region, not to mention rising fuel prices and the escalating imperative to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

I’ve also seen Stita and Orange Prius cabs zipping around the city lately. No doubt we’ll be seeing more in the future, as the City of Seattle recently passed legislation requiring new cabs to get 30 m.p.g. by 2013.

What makes hybrids such as the Prius especially well-suited for the city is regenerative braking, a system that captures energy released as the vehicle is slowed and uses it to charge batteries. Because this happens more in stop and go traffic, the amazing thing is the Prius gets higher mileage in the city than on the highway: 48 m.p.g. vs. 45 m.p.g.

Busses, with all the stops they make, are also prime targets for regenerative braking. King County Metro began deploying hybrid buses with regenerative braking in 2004, and currently has 236 in operation (out of a total fleet of about 1400). Fuel savings are estimated to be 30%.

Regenerative braking is yet another of the many technologies that for decades we could have been working on and perfecting and deploying, and that could really be helping to save our butts right about now. But we didn’t try that hard because our culture is just not very good at planning for anything further out than about next week. Maybe that’s just human nature, the way we’ve always been. Or perhaps, just maybe, the American experiment has begot an unprecedented human personality.

…in the face of the Republican political steam roller of death. Today’s MoveOn.org email — subject: “disgusting” (oh my, but such strong language!) — hopes to enrage us with the news that “John McCain and Sarah Palin are repeatedly deceiving, manipulating, and flat-out lying.” Yawn. Whining about the other side playing dirty doesn’t win elections.

Today’s response from Obama: “Enough is enough.” Oh really? Are you sure about that? Mr. Obama, I beg you: it’s time to unleash your angry inner Mark Morford:

“Aww, just look at you. You seem a little upset. A mite peeved, even. 

“Heck on a hot pancake, I’d even go so far as to say you were downright angry, given how I can see the ripples of general upsettedness and waves of appalledosity coursing through your hot liberal body like fresh biodiesel through a converted VW van. Really now, that can’t be good for your chakras, can it?

“What’s wrong, buttercup? Right-wing politics got you down? RNC ’08 making you gag? Toxic and inexcusable events of the past eight years make you deeply sick to your stomach, spleen, heart, mind, spirit and even your kneecaps? Or is it the wretched notion that the bizarro-world McCain-Palin agenda wants to continue more of the same?

“Or maybe it’s this: Maybe it’s all this terrifying new evidence that there still seems to be this huge pile of Americans who aren’t all that concerned with — or even aware of — just how violently the GOP continues to dump all over their very heads. Is that what’s making your blood boil? Aww, there, there, now.

“Really, I have to say, what nerve you libs have, daring to be angry at a time like this. This is a time of optimism and change! This is a time of true, red-blooded American mavericks, of hot Alaskan redneck babes and giant phallic guns and military fetishism and zero birth control, of teen pregnancy and God and freshly slaughtered moose on the dinner table!

“Can’t you sense the patriotism? Hell, McCain-Palin is so damn American it might as well be a McDonald’s McRib sandwich dipped in Crisco and cooked over a Chevy Tahoe’s exhaust pipe at a tailgate party in Kid Rock’s bowels. Feel the jingoism, hippie!

“You know what you should do, angry lefty? You should take a page from the Republican Convention. Just look how perky they all are, doing that incredible dance of the true blind American, completely blocking out the pain and misprision of their party’s leadership — the failed war, the fiscal disaster, the least popular president in a lifetime, the secrecy and scandal and historic ineptitude — much in the same way an insane cat lady blocks out the all the cold lumps of fur piling up in the freezer. Really, why can’t you be more like that?”

In case you weren’t paying attention over the summer, the list of options being considered by the Viaduct Stakeholder Advisory Committee no longer includes a retrofit/repair option. The mighty West Seattle Blog has posted piles of info. In short, the retrofit was taken off the table because it so blatantly fails to satisfy the safety and fiscal responsibility guidelines upon which the Stakeholder Committee must base their final recommendation. Not to mention that it also flunks two of the more qualitative guidelines: “enhance the waterfront as a place for people” and “foster environmentally sound approaches.”

But apparently the retrofitters still have a sliver of hope: the State has agreed to let Miyamoto International — the firm who’s 2006 report bolstered support for the retrofit — to have one more look, this time including analysis of the foundation and soil conditions beneath the viaduct. But the odds would appear to be long: “We don’t expect this will change the outcome at all,” according to WSDOT’s Ron Paananen.

I am so looking forward to the pandemonium that is sure to erupt in early 2009 when the Stakeholder Committee returns the only recommendation that it possibly can: a surface option. It will be a defining moment: Will the people step up and agree to do what is right, even in the face of risk and sacrifice? Or will selfishness and the short-term view rule the day?

You’ve heard about it already, but it’s so depressingly hilarious and sick at the same time I can’t stop myself from joining the echo chamber: In the biggest convention of one of the two most powerful political parties on planet earth, like a pack of drunken frat boys at a football game the crowd “spontaneously” and repeatedly erupts into chants of “drill baby drill.”

But yes, it cannot be denied: come November half–give or take–of the voting population of the United States will cast their vote for the Republican presidential candidate. Would not such a testosterone-pumped, reality-denying display be political suicide in any other civilized nation? And during Palin’s speech, does anyone care to venture a guess at what fraction of the male conventioneers–from the Tommy Hilfiger twenty-something man-dudes to the jowly, snarling good ol’ boy gas bags–were joking to one another about how they’d like to drill her, baby?

And wait, is this not the same country in which Inconvenient Truth won an Academy Award, where there are months-long waiting lists for Priuses? Unfortunately, another inconvenient truth is we’ll be lucky if even the Democrats get it right on climate change.

Yin-Yang balance and tension are healthy ingredients of any culture. Multiple personality disorder, not so much.

One hundred and three ~6-foot wide concrete steps dropping ~60 feet across a ~130 foot span. That’s the public benefit the citizens of Seattle will receive for allowing the development of a luxury condo/hotel in one of the most prime urban locations in the entire Pacific Northwest. As we’ve already discussed on this blog, the contribution the new Four Seasons building will make to the public realm on 1st Ave is marginally better than the parking garage that it replaced. (And yes, I appreciate that the overlook from the end of Union Street will be nicer than it was: but functionally there will be little difference.)

The stair will provide a useful pedestrian connection down from 1st Ave to Western Ave, and then across the street to that pathetic fire escape of a stairway that takes you down to the waterfront. It will be interesting to see how much use it gets: I suspect its imposing look will discourage many. And of course there already was a more conventional stairway from the north side of Union down to Post Alley, but it will be closed permanently.

I have not been able to determine (i.e. google) who will retain ownership of the stair: the Four Seasons or the City. But in any case, reportedly it will remain open to the public 24-7. The top of the stair is precariously high above Post Alley: I can’t help imagining how ugly it could get when clubs like the Showbox empty out at 2 am, and if the access policy will change in the event of an accident.

This alley off the southern edge of Harbor Steps between University and Seneca Streets is one of the nicest examples of pedestrian-oriented public realm into downtown Seattle. Except that like the rest of the Harbor Steps open space, it’s not actually public. The alley and the University St. right-of-way between 1st and Western were “vacated” (i.e. sold by the City) to the Harbor Steps developers. No doubt this had to happen because there is a massive parking structure underneath the steps and alley. But still, it’s unfortunate that an open space as important as Harbor Steps couldn’t be a truly public space.

Perhaps rather more polite and soft spoken than your typical bomb, but totally the bomb nonetheless. As in this recent Daily Score post about the irrelevance of GDP, with the opening line, “This just cheeses me off.” Or this little gem of a title: Less Driving Means Less Dying.

But the post I want to draw your attention to presently asks the question:

“Given that people with lots of disposable income are choosing to move closer to downtown, is there a good way — or, indeed, any way — to retain decent, affordable housing for middle- and lower-income folks close to downtown jobs?”

And continues:

“It could be that downtown development is a virtuous cycle with a vicious edge: as the city gets wealthier, its amenities get better and better, attracting even more wealth — and making it harder and harder for middle-income folks to find a decent, affordable place to live that doesn’t require a long and fuel-wasting commute.”

But then points out that:

“Then again, this is not the worst sort of problem for a city to have. Consider the alternative. For decades, wealthy folks avoided downtown, and many urban centers became concentrated enclaves of deep poverty. The results — economic segregation of the inner city — fostered far worse social ills than housing affordability presents today.”

In theory, increasing the housing supply should help reduce prices. But as is usually the case, the real world doesn’t behave like an Ayn Rand fable of ideal capitalism. In today’s world there is an effectively infinite pool of wealth available to drive housing demand in cities with perceived value. And this is why I have previously written that “the only effective means we have to ensure that enough affordable housing will be provided in Seattle is government subsidy.”

This is the Terry Thomas, Weber Thompson’s new 40,000 sf office building in South Lake Union. It has no air-conditioning. That is, it’s the first significant office building without air-conditioning to be constructed in Seattle for perhaps half a century. NBBJ wanted to do this at Alley 24 but the developer got conservative and decided against it at the eleventh hour.

Terry Thomas is a donut (courtyard in photo above), which enables optimized passive ventilation as well as copious daylighting. It has 248 operable windows, along with a variety of computer controlled louvered vents and shades. It is heated with a natural-gas fired hydronic system, a.k.a. hot water radiators. They expect to achieve at least a 30% reduction in energy use compared to a typical office building.

In Seattle’s climate, relatively few building uses couldn’t get by without air-conditioning in a properly designed building. And when you consider the dual challenges of climate change and peak oil, it seems almost criminal that status-quo buildings continue to go up. Someday buildings like Terry Thomas will be the norm, but the further away that someday turns out to be, the more pain we’re all going to feel in the long run. Maybe there oughta be a law?

Seattle’s average household size is 2.08, the smallest of any major U.S. city. Richard Morrill has an informative piece up over at Crosscut discussing this and other demographic trends based on the latest American Community Survey. In short, Seattle is apparrently overflowing with the young, single, wealthy, and overeducated (one downside of which, according to the author, is the rise of the nanny state).

Meanwhile noted sprawl apologist Joel Kotkin makes the case that families with children are the critical ingredient of prosperous cities, and that strategies to revitalize cities by attracting the “creative class” are destined to be a bust. Kotkin cites data showing that since 2000 job and population growth has been below average in the cities like Boston and San Francisco, while cities such as Houston and Raleigh Durham have become the growth leaders by attracting families in their mid-20s to mid-40s.

A lack of families with children will weaken a city’s economic prospects, according to Kotkin, and weaken a city’s community bonds, according to Morrill (and both seem particularly wary of the presence of sidewalk cafes.) But I’m not convinced it’s that simple. While job growth has been robust in the Seattle-area suburbs, downtown Seattle continues to be the region’s largest employment center. And to claim that sense of community relies on children-focussed activities like the PTA and soccer leagues belies a very limited (and nostalgic?) assessment of the possibilities for community involvement.

This is messy stuff, the stuff that punishes the smug, the stuff that makes cities so fascinating and unpredictable. But it also has everything to do with how we forge policy to manage growth in dynamic areas such as the South Lake Union neighborhood. Everyone seems to want a family-friendly South Lake Union, but perhaps that is idealistic. Who knows, maybe we should just give it to the “yupsies” and let the families have the single family neighborhoods. And perhaps that would create a young and transient labor force attractive to certain business sectors, such as software. And perhaps it’s just fine for Bellevue to be its own job center drawing its workforce from the family-friendly burbs.

All I know is that my single-family neighborhood in the Central District is downright infested with Very Small Humans.

This was the scene on Labor Day afternoon at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park on the west edge of the Mount Baker neighborhood. You can see why one commenter nominated this park for the least used park in Seattle.

Given the park’s relative isolation, the low surrounding population density, the lack of activation on the park’s edge, and the terraced design that is impractical for active uses, it’s not surprising that it sees few visitors.  But better days may lie ahead for this park when residential development comes to the McClellan light rail station area (you can just make out the station’s yellow construction crane in the photo).  Visualize 15-story towers sprouting from the Lowe’s parking lot…