< Thurgood Marshall Elementary in Seattle's Central Distric; photo: Dan Bertolet - click to enlarge >

In the last two decades, plenty of cities—including Seattle—did what was once considered impossible. They drew legions of well-educated, middle class residents back to the urban core with high-tech jobs, a thriving arts and culture scene, and dramatically lower crime rates. What they didn’t get: children.

Among major cities, Seattle has the second lowest proportion of households with children (next to San Francisco). Seattle may be an extreme case, but cities across the country tend to have fewer school age children than the suburbs.

So what does it matter if modern cities are havens for childless couples, empty-nesters, and single condo-dwellers?

If you care about density, plenty. Two-thirds of Seattle is zoned single-family residential—a proportion that isn’t changing anytime soon. Backyard cottages and transit-oriented development can increase density, but think of the difference keeping families with young children in the city would make (without, I should mention, prompting a NIMBY freak-out).

Seattle Public Schools has taken steps that make it easier for families to choose staying in the city over decamping for the suburbs. First, the district ditched its complicated, confusing assignment plan in favor of a system that guarantees students a space in their neighborhood school. Now, if you know your address, you can predict where your child will go to elementary, middle, and high school.

Second, the district is publishing detailed, annual reports about the performance of each school and providing tailored resources to those that are struggling. The reports show that many schools have a long way to go (especially those south of I-90), but an analysis by UW’s Center on Reinventing Public Education also shows that some schools are beating the odds. Take Concord Elementary in South Park. It has roughly the same proportion of low-income students as neighboring schools, but Concord students not only outperform their peers in absolute terms, they are improving faster, as well.

These changes mean that families who are priced out of north end neighborhoods like Wallingford and Ballard—traditionally known for their good schools—have reliable information about strong schools in more affordable parts of the city (February’s median home listing price in South Park: $175,000).

And when families with children choose to stay in Seattle, it reduces growth pressure in the suburbs and creates a denser, more livable city.

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Nathan James lives and works in Seattle.

< Seattle's Roosevelt neighborhood; photo: Dan Bertolet >

We all know that cities are the way to go. The better the city, the better off we, and the planet, are.

Founded three years ago, Leadership for Great Neighborhoods (LGN) is a coalition of community and neighborhood leaders, residents, business owners and other stakeholders that shares the Citytank philosophy that cities are the answer. But while Citytank’s vital role is to educate, inspire, to contradict orthodoxy and to shake things up, the mission of LGN is to engage at the neighborhood and city-wide level, with the goal of making Seattle more livable, more exciting, more fun.

The question is how will LGN do it?

To paraphrase Mary Elizabeth Lease, we are going to write fewer white papers and raise more hell.

What does this mean? We engage at the neighborhood level on planning, land use and zoning issues to make sure neighborhoods have the proper tools to shape their community. We also work with city leaders to make sure proper funding tools are available to pay for the things that make neighborhoods livable and attractive to people from all walks of life. We hold city leaders accountable in our quest to help Seattle achieve it’s full potential.

We look forward to Citytank and LGN working as a complementary pair: Citytank provides the insight, the ammunition, the information, and the creativity to help advocates bring about the changes we need to make Seattle work better for its people. LGN deploys the foot soldiers working in communities and at City Hall to make Seattle live up to its ideals.

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Jessie Clawson and Dan McGrady are conspiring to get the City of Seattle in gear through Leadership for Great Neighborhoods.

< Two Union Square, downtown Seattle; photo: Dan Bertolet >

Cities, like their creators, are a wonderful mess. And as with people, the mess of interdependent complexity that makes up a city can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on how it is directed and cultivated.

The city’s myriad, interrelated systems require balanced care, or the whole organism withers. For example, in most cities across the United States, the intimately connected systems of land use and transportation have, in a vicious cycle, become malignantly dysfunctional. This imbalance stresses other systems—social, economic, and ecological—eventually dragging down the entire city.

Restoring balance will never happen if we stubbornly resist change. But nor will it be accomplished by obsessing on singular, narrow ideas such as the eradication of cars or density as a cure-all. Achieving a healthy balance in a city takes a holistic approach that recognizes complexity. And that recognition starts with an understanding of the complete spectrum of viewpoints.

One of the goals of Citytank, and the C200 series in particular, is to give exposure to a wide spectrum of ideas for the city. This is not to say that all ideas are equally valid, or that we should avoid criticizing those ideas with which we disagree. But we need to get it all out on the table.

If you’ve got a viewpoint that has been neglected in the Citytank C200 discussion so far, please email your idea to tanked@citytank.org.

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Dan Bertolet is an urban designer and the founder of Citytank.

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Seattle cartoonist Ellen Forney is currently working on a graphic novel for Penguin/Gotham Books.

< University District, Seattle - click image to enlarge; photo: Ray Johnston >

The variations in the fabric of the street are among the things that make a city great. Looking down the street, block after block of possibly wonderful buildings, our eye is caught by the green splash of a pocket park or entry court. The punctuation of a dramatic entry or canopy also draws attention. Beyond physical form, the corner grocer elicits a different kind of street life than the rest of the block. So too does the athletic club, the barber and the café.

Looking up from our sidewalk bench, a different kind of diversity is possible. Perhaps a second floor terrace extends from a meeting room. Behind a ribbon of glass, a set of professional offices may exist, different from the apartments above marked by a rhythm of punched window openings and balconies.

The vast and uninhabited plaza in the center of the business district also represents a diverse city fabric (in a negative way) as does the night club: vacant by day and vibrant by night, the soup kitchen dispensing a little warmth and nutrition to street denizens, the civic building with one grand entry along a hundred yard stretch.

All of these examples, good and bad, represent diversity in the human scaled fabric of the city. In a 500 year old city both horizontal and vertical diversity abound. Humans have molded the built environment to fit their needs and potentials. Within a block in most older cities, one can rest in a pocket of greenery, play chess in a coffee shop window, buy groceries, be entertained, live, work and play. This condition is tied to diversity in the built world.

In our fast paced world, cities rise and fall at a fast pace. Vacant blocks become large developments housing hundreds of families. Others become office towers or shopping meccas. All of these conditions arise in the context of our automobile culture and the seven year proformas. City builders ask themselves: what market is strong now? How do we pull profit out fast? Decisions are made based on the most dependable and broadest based data. If apartment vacancies are low, then we build apartments. But, if retail is foundering or office space is abundant, that big block apartment development will avoid both – these kinds of diverse uses won’t even appear on the proforma unless required by codes. And then, they will be listed as a net zero in the profit line or even a loss. Yet, a variety of uses and the related diversity of built environment are key to the charm and success of older cities.

One difference, of course, is time. The old city has had a chance to learn, to adjust and to change. Economic fluctuation is reflected in those surprises that we find around the corner and the broad range of uses that we find. Generations within families and neighborhoods have evolved the uses they need within their local environment. Another difference is the car. We can drive to do our big box shopping, diminishing the base line need for local markets.

Perhaps these conditions are temporary. Fifty years ago there were no big box stores. Will they exist in another fifty years? We cannot know, but we can speculate that the age of the car is in a state of flux and may decline. Even if it doesn’t, perhaps the young culture of the United States can teach itself the benefits of diversity. Maybe we can develop zoning that promotes the pocket park or the corner grocer within the context of our development realities and the large projects that seem to dominate our built environments. Could it be that the “local” movement will manifest itself in the marketplace and that a building that accommodates work, exercise, entertainment, retail sales and of course housing can thrive? Signs are pointing in this direction. I hope that the next period of growth will explore the richness that diversity can bring and help us to create great cities in the 21st century.

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Ray Johnston is a founding partner at Johnston Architects pllc, a Board Member of Futurewise, and Chairman of the TwispWorks.

I wrote this piece during an academic conference where ‘resilience’ is the theme. It’s mostly theoretical and I want to be doing things. Specifically, arranging our built environments to be more efficient. For example, efficiently collecting sunlight (I live in a very sunny place).

Not only is much of our modern built environment poorly arranged for solar access, but many building envelopes are not ready for wide-scale solar deployment either. Our trees – so necessary for shade to keep inefficient buildings cool – are often directly in the path of the sun; yet removing trees for solar power exposes poorly-insulated walls and roofs.

Our design standards should be developed to ensure roofs are oriented toward the sun, and that trees do not block the ‘solar window’. Our building walls and roofs should be built or retrofit to insulate to higher standards. In colder areas, many older cities ‘tilted’ their street grid 23.5° to the northeast to receive winter sun and melt snow and ice. Our green infrastructure can help gray infrastructure, not hinder it, by shading pavement, raising quality of life, and collecting stormwater.

We have been doing these things for centuries. For a short time, we forgot how to do them. Look around. Find the patterns. Let’s make them again.

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Ex-Seattleite Dan Staley now lives on Colorado’s Front Range where he specializes in green infrastructure.

< The New York Center for Architecture >

Design decisions impact every aspect of our urban lives. Do we feel safe on the street? Good design. Can we live close to parks, shopping, childcare? Good design. Do our homes and offices offer clean air and sunlight? Can all of us access vital resources, regardless of income? Are our buses and trains, parking lots and libraries intuitive to understand and easy to access for people of all abilities? Are our parklands and waterways healthy, and is there adequate habitat for our wildlife?  Are we inspired and uplifted by what we see and feel and smell around us? Great cities depend on great design.

It’s in our best interest to live in a city where all of us feel empowered to realize the promise of great design. Though it is ubiquitous and powerful, however, design is largely invisible, reflecting decisions made behind closed doors long before their physical impacts are evident. How do we put the power of good design in the hands of everyone, educating and engaging all of us to be informed stewards of our designed environment?

Cities across the world are answering this need with design centers, built to educate and invite public participation.  From the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) to the New York Center for Architecture, from Copenhagen to Shanghai, design centers are thriving as intermediaries between design and the public, empowering citizens to take an active and knowledgeable role in everything from policy to development, parks to transportation.

Seattle needs a design center, too. A living laboratory that translates complex issues to help the public become more effective participants. In keeping with our Seattle character, a center could enable thoughtful decision-making through access to tools and information. Programs, exhibits, research, charrettes, town hall meetings and publications are the arsenal of a design center geared to promote civic engagement in shaping community. Seattle has a long history of citizen action on the built environment; a center would offer a common living room, a staging ground for empowerment. To learn more about design centers and efforts underway to create one in Seattle, visit http://aiaseattle.org/urbandesigncenter.

Design is a verb, and we need to do it together.

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Lisa Richmond is Executive Director of the American Institute of Architects Seattle, working to improve the quality of our environment and society through design.

< Seattle's International District and beyond, from Beacon Hill - click to enlarge; photo: Dan Bertolet >

Denser cities are the ultimate economic development investment. But don’t take my word for it; ask physicist Geoffrey West:

[W]henever a city doubles in size, every measure of economic activity, from construction spending to the amount of bank deposits, increases by approximately 15 percent per capita. It doesn’t matter how big the city is; the law remains the same. “This remarkable equation is why people move to the big city,” West says. “Because you can take the same person, and if you just move them to a city that’s twice as big, then all of a sudden they’ll do 15 percent more of everything that we can measure.” (emphasis added)

We already know that the largest 100 metropolitan areas in this country house two-thirds of our population and generate 75 percent of our GDP. But West’s insight is that it’s not just about large cities, but dense cities in particular:

In recent decades, though, many of the fastest-growing cities in America, like Phoenix and Riverside, Calif., have given us a very different urban model. These places have traded away public spaces for affordable single-family homes, attracting working-class families who want their own white picket fences. West and Bettencourt point out, however, that cheap suburban comforts are associated with poor performance on a variety of urban metrics. Phoenix, for instance, has been characterized by below-average levels of income and innovation (as measured by the production of patents) for the last 40 years.

Essentially, it’s fair to say the following statement: If you want a stronger economy, create a denser city.

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Eric Schinfeld is the Program Manager for Economic Development at the Puget Sound Regional Council. He is the lead writer for The Prosperity Blog, which focuses on Puget Sound economic development issues.

< Photo: Futurewise >

Your mother was right, eating vegetables is good for you. Eating locally grown vegetables is even better as they lose nutrients the farther and longer they have to travel. I used to think I was sacrificing when I ate my greens, but well-cooked vegetables taste great.

Cities are like that. They are good for us, but we imagine that living in a city is a sacrifice. Once we get to know them they we realize they can be great places to live and work.

The evidence is clear. Paving over farms and forests results in the loss of jobs, local food, and local fiber. It also increases storm water runoff, polluting rivers, streams, and Puget Sound. That is why Washington’s Growth Management Act, and similar legislation in other states, focuses growth into our existing cities.

And it is working. Peer reviewed studies show Washington is getting more growth in its urban growth areas. The National Resources Inventory shows that between 2002 and 2007, Washington State used half of the new land for each net new resident compared to the United States as a whole. Policies that focus growth into urban areas are also associated with increased physical activity for recreation and increased walking and biking to work.

Surveys show that long commutes make Americans unhappy. What makes us happiest is being able to have dinner with our friends. By living in dense cities, we reduce our commutes and have more time to meet our friends for dinner. So like vegetables, cities are good for us and make us happy. Cities also help ensure our food will be from Washington State too.

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Tim Trohimovich  is Co-Director of Planning & Law at Futurewise, a statewide non-profit organization that promotes smart growth and healthy cities while protecting working farms, working forests, and shorelines for this and future generations.

< Redmond Town Center; photo: Dan Bertolet >

Before the GMA became law 20 years ago, city planning was often like a game of Prisoner’s Dilemma. Especially on the edge of an ever expanding urban area, a city’s choices sometimes favored doing the wrong thing—such as approving a big box store development rather than holding out for city center investment. Deny the big box, and likely see that same car-oriented development spring up just outside the city on rural lands, generating all the same negative impacts to the city’s town center and local streets, yet escaping city controls that might limit impacts.

The GMA established the first state-wide planning system in Washington, and among the first in the nation. Requiring cities and counties to work together to plan for growth, mandating protection of farms, forests and rural lands, and limiting urban expansion was a tremendous aide to cities seeking to transform their centers. One of the developers of a new retail development in downtown Redmond (Town Center) said they wouldn’t have risked an outdoor, pedestrian design without the protection of GMA limits on urban expansion.

But the GMA does a better job at conserving what ought not be developed than it does at helping cities create wonderful urban places. The law should be stronger and more clearly in favor of redevelopment as an alternative to urban expansion. It should clearly commit the state’s infrastructure, granting and facility dollars more heavily to investment in city centers, transit, bikeways and pedestrian systems.

Transforming state policy to strongly support city and town centers would be an obvious and affirmative response to the growing market demand for convenient locations. Studies show that centers where work, shopping and residences are within roughly a 3 mile radius enable more alternative transportation choices, like short bike and walking trips. This is the best route to reducing vehicle trips, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy use, as well as bringing mental and physical health benefits. The state should strengthen and clarify its urban policies and align its spending and grants to advance great urban living.

One example:  Deliberately choosing to locate a new university in downtown Tacoma benefits both students and  city vitality, as compared to several other university and college locations accessible only by car. The Tacoma location is just one example of the impact state spending can make.

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Roberta Lewandowski is the Board President of Futurewise and former City of Redmond Planning Director.

< A casualty of the last real estate boom, scores of artists and organizations previously had a home in Capitol Hill’s Oddfellows building; photo: Michael Seiwerath >

The 1990’s brought a building boom to the arts in Seattle. Many of Seattle’s largest arts organizations built or renovated permanent homes and their real estate destiny is now clear.

Few of Seattle’s small and mid-sized groups are as fortunate. Most of them are subject to the whims of the marketplace, often with fickle landlords, sub-leases, or precarious month-to-month arrangements. Apart from those located at Seattle Center, who owns their property or has permanent control? Not Richard Hugo Hugo House, not Freehold, not Annex Theatre, not the scores of artists who may be displaced from the 619 Western building in Pioneer Square.

Seattle must do a better job of working on proactive solutions for affordable arts space. For years there has been a desire to create a focused cultural space program at the city, focused on long term solutions, funding and providing proactive solutions for those arts that cannot pay market rate rents.

Now there is an opportunity to do just this. Through a wonderful collaboration with 4Culture (the county arts agency) the city has a proposal before the National Endowment for the Arts to fund a dedicated cultural space program. Housed at the City Arts office, the program will act as a connector, bringing together space-hungry arts users and property owners with vacant space, activating surplus city property, and focusing funding on arts capital projects.

Our rich arts and culture community is the number two reason people move to Seattle. If this program is created, when the next real estate upswing comes, we’ll have a plan to retain the most fragile part of this ecosystem.

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Michael Seiwerath is the Executive Director of the Capitol Hill Housing Foundation and chair of the Seattle Arts Commission’s Facilities and Economic Development Committee.

< Brain Fruit at the Healthy Times Fun Club on Capitol Hill, May 2010; photo: Jennifer Haller >

With Metro policy briefs, ethics and elections commission campaign finance numbers, and ways and means committee bill summaries getting all the ink at PubliCola, readers couldn’t be blamed for thinking I don’t have any interest in arts and culture—that I’m just a policy wonk. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I love the arts and think the prevalence of rock clubs, galleries, readings, live performances, and indie movie houses is what sets cities apart from suburbs and makes them important. Brilliant arts and culture are what cities give to the world.

My own tastes run a little snobby. It’s mostly music I love—Sonic Youth’s Lower-East-Side-era EPs; Rod Modell’s dub electronics; and early 1950s “race records.” I like movies too—those little indie, character-driven movies that play at the Northwest Film Forum on 12th Ave.

There’s a connection between arts and politics (and I don’t mean in that block-headed protest music way—oy vey). I mean in that way when the line stretches around the corner at SIFF; when a hip-hop show at the Punctuation gallery on Pike St. is jam-packed; and when a friend tells me they saw a great play at the Annex last night. Those are political wins for Seattle.When you’re poring over urban policy briefs, at your core, you’re a booster for urban arts.

The basement rock clubs, galleries, and indie movie houses that are strung across America from city to city like a Mardi Gras necklace that also includes transit stops, apartment buildings, bike lanes, basement recording studios, app startups, and P-Patches is exactly why those policy briefs are written in the first place.

The budget policy staffer who’s crunching data on floor area ratios and the laptop DJ who wants to cue up the perfect dance floor mix on a Saturday night at Lo-Fi are both trying to answer the same questions: How do I make this a fantastic place to be? And how do I make it last?

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Josh Feit is the founder and editor of Seattle’s news site, PubliCola. In 1999, he wrote “I, Clone,” a chamber opera based on the Amazing Spider-Man issues #144-149.

I do careful, sometimes nightly, research into the question of why cities matter. Edward Glaeser’s recent work stokes our discussions about what makes cities tick, and Jane Jacobs remains the grand dame of urban advocacy. However, there are other crucial works to consult in our quest to understand the ecosystems of cities. Through our study of these texts (preferably with popcorn and M&M’s) we can better understand human advancement through denser living as our planet becomes more populated and more economically complex.

• West Side Story. Cities are where the Jets meet the Sharks. Genre defining choreography and music ensue.
• Annie Hall. Cities are where the rules of modern dating develop. Cities become magnets for socially awkward geeks. Urban clothing fashion co-stars.
• Do the Right Thing. Cities as places where our best and worst selves come out as we meet, rely on, and push away people of different races and beliefs.
• Philadelphia. Cities as the relatively safer place at the time to talk about AIDS, homophobia, and fear of nearness.
• Midnight Cowboy. Cities as the place people go to find financial success. A cry for diversity in city economies so living wage jobs are available beyond “gigolo.”
• Singles. Cities are where the rules of modern dating develop. Cities become greater magnets for self-involved music geeks. Urban clothing fashion co-stars.
• Vertigo. Cities as places of great apartments, busy sidewalks, museums and parks. Yes, there’s a murder, but that can happen anywhere.

The stories we tell about cities matter as much as any land use or transit policy when it comes to affecting our individual and collective living decisions. Few wish to live in the city of Blade Runner, but that’s not the way the story has to end.

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Sally J. Clark serves on the Seattle City Council. She chairs the Committee on the Built
Environment and likes to go to the movies.

The task of averting the worst impacts of climate change is unbelievably daunting. Global greenhouse gas emissions must peak this decade and decline rapidly—to less than 1 ton CO2e per capita—within just a few decades.

Cities are on the front lines of this challenge.  Nearly 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in cities by 2050.   The way cities are built – and rebuilt – has profound implications for their contribution to—and resilience against—climate change.

For example, dense, lively, pedestrian- and transit-oriented cities can help us move around with much lower greenhouse gas emissions: as low (or even below) 1 ton CO₂e per capita (see graph below), compared to a national U.S. average of 4 tons CO₂e per person for ground transportation (largely cars).

< GHG Emissions from Ground Transportation are Inversely Proportional to Density >

Yet the full annual emissions footprint of a U.S. resident averages about 29 tons CO₂e/capita, including significant emissions from sources well beyond the city border, such as air travel and emissions needed to make the food we eat and products we use.   Even a dense, vibrant—heck, even car-free city—couldn’t (on its own) avoid these other emissions.

Cities are complex, wonderful systems that, by their very nature, can help orient us to low-GHG lifestyles, particularly for daily transportation.  Once we get our cities on that path, next up: can our cities, with their convergence of people and capital, also transform the rest of the economy?

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Peter Erickson is a staff scientist in the Seattle office of the Stockholm Environment Institute.   

For over a decade now, cities across the nation have been competing for recognition as the greenest place to live and work. Healthy competition has increased momentum and political support for more sustainable approaches to building and land development practices.

Seattle’s Living Building Pilot Program is a prime example.

The first city in the nation to formally adopt the LEED standard for municipal buildings, Seattle has been pushing the boundaries ever since. In 2009, their Living Building Pilot program identifies regulatory obstacles within their land use code and provides flexibility for those trailblazing the path towards not just higher-performance, but restorative goals for the built environment.

But while the growing awareness around energy use and climate impacts has largely been the driving force, the emergent national crisis around water scarcity and water pollution will require a huge leap forward in the shaping of our cities of the future.

Places like Orlando, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, and San Francisco are amongst the cities that are most likely to see large imbalances of water supply and demand, according to recent studies. But even cities with an apparent abundance of fresh water like the Pacific Northwest will be impacted by changing climate patterns, increased pollution from stormwater runoff, and overflows of combined storm sewers discharging untreated sewage directly into local waterbodies.

With many communities now facing bankruptcy as they consider upgrading or expanding their existing water infrastructure, cities have an important and increasingly urgent role to play in how water is used and how it is regulated.

In 2007 Arizona tax credits encouraged residents to install greywater re-use systems on their properties as a means of conserving water. Tucson and other cities in the state have since mandated that all new homes be plumbed for beneficial use of greywater onsite. In 2009, Washington State removed a nearly century-old requirement for burdensome water rights permitting for collection of rooftop-harvested rainwater, opening the door for cities to actively promote the practice. In the last few months, Seattle/King County Public Health has taken the next stride forward in establishing standards for collection of rainwater as drinking water for residential use.

Cities around the globe, in deeper troubled waters than our own, have taken conservation and reuse even further.  Water-stressed South African cities are considering paying residents for collecting urine from their waterless toilets as an incentive for not using precious water for flushing.

But we have a long way to go before the adoption of composting toilets or water reuse systems become more widespread practice in our cities. In urban areas, current regulations and lack of support by water utilities present the greatest hurdles. Strong leadership is needed at both the city and state levels for addressing regulatory obstacles and cultural bias for on-site water systems, whether as a supply source or for treatment and reclamation of the valuable resources contained in our water and wastes.

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< The Oregon Health and Science University Center for Health and Healing in Portland, OR, treats 100% of its wastewater on-site. The reclaimed water is then combined with rainwater and re-used in toilets, cooling towers and for irrigation. Image Credit: Interface Engineering >

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Katie Spataro is a Research Director at the Cascadia Green Building Council.

< The Joseph Vance Building in downtown Seattle has reportedly reduced heating costs by 56 percent since undergoing energy retrofits; photo: Dan Bertolet >

When I was a child, my parents owned the book “How to Wrap 5 Eggs” by Hideyuki Oka (and the subsequent, aptly named, “How to Wrap 5 More Eggs”), which they displayed proudly on our wicker coffee table. I recall afternoons spent perusing those pages of designs that were stark, efficient, elegant, and simple. While celebrating a natural form of handcraft now largely lost, these designs conveyed a deep and resonant message: when you are presented limitations, you are provided the opportunity to create.

The lesson of wrapping 5 eggs is particularly appropriate to today’s nascent energy efficiency industry. The core challenge: how do you incentivize home and building owners to improve the efficiency of their buildings in the wake of a real estate crash?

The allure of energy efficiency is not hard to understand. Environmentalists see energy efficiency as a way to achieve reductions in greenhouse gases. Entrepreneurs and investors see these reductions as a source of revenue, if only captured in the right financing models. Labor unions see jobs for their deep benches of unemployed members, while social justice advocates see opportunities for career pathways out of poverty. All are excited for the opportunity that recent government investments provide to create an industry in which all of these values converge.

Standing up this industry is not without its challenges, but I believe Seattle is leading the national charge. Local groups such as Seattle 2030 District and Better Bricks are leveraging innovation and entrepreneurial spirit to create local momentum. Emerald Cities Seattle, a local affiliate of the national Emerald Cities movement, has brought labor, community, and business to the table to develop workforce and marketplace strategies. The program that I manage with the City of Seattle, Community Power Works, is developing and supporting financing models for six building sectors while creating living wage job opportunities for our community.

This is a time of innovation and excitement in the energy efficiency sector, as well as big hopes. That we are constrained by certain financial realities provides us the impetus to be even more creative. There are, after all, many ways to wrap 5 eggs.

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Joshua Curtis manages the Community Power Works program for the City of Seattle’s Office of Sustainability and Environment. He is former Executive Director, and current board member, of Great City, a green urbanist non-profit.

< Interstate 5 in Seattle - click image to enlarge; photo: Dan Bertolet >

When the American people, through their Congress, voted last year for a twenty-six billion dollar highway program, the most charitable thing to assume about this action is that they hadn’t the faintest notion of what they were doing. Within the next fifteen years they will doubtless find out; but by that time it will be too late to correct all the damage to our cities and our countryside, to say nothing of the efficient organization of industry and transportation, that this ill-conceived and absurdly unbalanced program will have wrought.

Yet if someone had foretold these consequences before this vast sum of money was pushed through Congress, under the specious guise of a national defense measure, it is doubtful whether our countrymen would have listened long enough to understand; or would even have been able to change their minds if they did understand. For the current American way of life is founded not just on motor transportation but on the religion of the motor car, and the sacrifices that people are prepared to make for the religion stand outside the realm of rational criticism. Perhaps the only thing that could bring Americans to their senses would be a clear demonstration of the fact that their highway program will, eventually, wipe out the very area of freedom that the private motorcar promised to retain for them.

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Lewis Mumford wrote the above in 1958 (The Urban Prospect).

< Pioneer Square, Seattle - click image to enlarge; photo: Dan Bertolet >

“The city should be considered a work of art….The clues for design are to be found within the activities and the meaning of the city itself.”–Victor Steinbrueck, Seattle Cityscape, 1962

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I love this city, but what is it? Cities in abstraction hold little interest for me, but I have a life-long fascination in trying to discover what makes us tick.

If Victor Steinbrueck is right, we have to know what Seattle is, and where it comes from, the elements of this place, in order to build a better city. I am suspicious of utopianism, but I also believe, flawed as it can be, it offers us a kind of last best hope. Seattle and our urban debates are infused with such longings and suspicions. We dream of a “great city,” but are on our guard against those who offer us a single path to get there.

Our past, especially the last half-century, offers us a lot to work with to understand how we got here, and who we are. The 1960s were filled with utopianism (the World’s Fair!), the desire for urban amenities (a new Opera House, a Civic Center), active open space (Tivoli Gardens at Seattle Center), new infrastructure (mass transit, new freeways), green incentives (reduced tolls on 520 for car pools, free downtown buses), and skepticism about overreach and the environmental consequences of unchecked growth (fight against R.H. Thomson Expressway, preserving farmland, and razing the Pike Place Market for a parking lot).

The Seattle Center Master Plan, the downtown tunnel, the Waterfront redesign, the 520 expansion, the “need” for a Central Park, traffic impacts on Pioneer Square, public votes on major projects: it’s all familiar terrain. Knowing our history is vital to getting a handle on who we are so we have the raw material to make Seattle an even better work of civic art.

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Knute Berger is Mossback columnist for Crosscut

< Robert Moses' plan for a 10-lane freeway through lower Manhattan >

Cities can offer sustainable, livable, vibrant environments and be powerful centers of innovation. But what environments we create and what innovations we pursue are framed by the questions we’re asking. Looking back at unsuccessful examples of city planning, it occurs to me that what I’m seeing may be the right answers to the wrong questions.

Personally, I see cities as a tool for fostering human capabilities to live and flourish (I owe my inspiration to Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen). My question is: how can cities provide the framework for people to live well and participate meaningfully in society?

This is ambitious, but purposefully so. A good question should help expose what we don’t know and offer a new lens to look at the tools we have at hand. Transportation, public space, social housing, urban density, economic growth—these are all tools that can deliver great cities. But too often they are treated as ends in themselves and the bigger question is forgotten.

We all know the best of intentions can still lead to bad results. Visionary highway planners have destroyed city fabrics around the world when asking how to move car traffic most efficiently instead of how to provide the highest quality environment. Affordable housing is built without considering broader measures like livability, transport, and access to basic services. The questions were wrong, not the answers.

The right questions consider broader goals and build in time for reflection, mechanisms for feedback, and capacity for change. Take a recent example in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland: an unused plot was temporarily covered in Astroturf and became a surprisingly vibrant public space used for everything from picnics to pick up football. Two years later it was torn up and replaced with a previously planned plaza, veteran’s memorial, seasonal ice rink and pavilion—a questionable improvement with a large cost.

Rarely will we get something right the first time. With the right question, the right timing, and a little modesty we can incorporate feedback, adaptation, and flexibility into our solutions. Great cities have these mechanisms built in; we just have to make sure we don’t design them out. Asking questions is how we’re going to do it, and cities are where we need to start.

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Tim Pittman is a masters candidate in the Cities Programme at the London School of Economics.

< New York City; photo: Kyle Gradinger/BCGP >

Imagine if city streets were designed not for cars, but for people.

Imagine that when a car struck a person, the driver was held accountable.

Imagine that bicycling was treated as a legitimate form of transportation, so common as to be not really worth remarking upon.

That’s the vision of a growing number of people in the United States today. And it is gaining ground.

In New York City, where I live and where I grew up, hundreds of miles of new bike lanes have been added to the city’s streets in the last few years. Bicycling for transportation is now not just for mad young things willing to tangle with taxis —and yes, I was one of those once, commuting by bike in the 1980s when people thought it was absolutely insane. It was.

More and more you see people of all ages and sizes out pedaling New York’s streets. There has been backlash—a lawsuit backed by powerful political interests is challenging one lane in particular. But there has also been a steadily growing base of support for the rights of people, not motor vehicles, to reclaim primacy on our streets.

It’s not just New York. Los Angeles has released a master plan that calls for the creation of 1,600 miles of bike lanes over several years. Chicago’s mayor-elect, Rahm Emanuel, wants to expand that city’s bicycling network. Communities around the country are passing complete streets ordinances, mandating street design that accommodates and protects the most vulnerable road users – people on foot, people on bikes, the elderly, children.

It’s getting easier every day to imagine a different kind of America—one built around people, instead of cars.

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Sarah Goodyear is cities editor at Grist. She has worked as a writer and editor at Streetsblog, Time Out New York, and lots of other places. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

“Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia.” – H.G. Wells, 1905

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Given their dense street networks and proximity of land uses, cities are ideal places for bicycling. Consider this: Bicycles are the most efficient vehicles yet invented by humankind. A bicycle needs only 35 calories per passenger mile, whereas a car expends 1,860 calories. Even walking is not as efficient (it requires three times as many calories as biking). Bikes can move more people per meter-width-equivalent right-of-way than cars, as well (1,500 per hour v. 170). These facts alone have large implications in terms of how we should be designing our cities and transportation networks in the face of rising oil prices, depleted municipal budgets, and the soaring healthcare costs associated with the expanding waistlines of the American public.

But then, when you start to layer in the more difficult to quantify benefits of bicycling (and walking), e.g., the endorphin rush that could substitute for that cup of coffee in the morning, greater social connectedness, less ambient noise and air pollution, you begin to understand why cities across the nation, and the world, are investing more in bicycle infrastructure. Yes, we have a long way to go to get more people biking, but as more and more people in more and more cities across the country are discovering, “nothing compares to the simple pleasure [and efficiency] of a bike ride.”*

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Michael Hintze, AICP, is a Senior Planner at Toole Design Group, one of the nation’s leading planning and design firms specializing in multi-modal transportation.

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*John F. Kennedy

< Seattle Streetcar; photo: Dan Bertolet >

I know that Metro Transit and Sounds Transit are different agencies, and frankly it doesn’t make a grain of sense for building a regional transit system.

Many people feel we should invest in streetcars because the streetcar is “nicer” than the bus. In fact, streetcars are a poor choice at a time when we are cutting bus service.

The SLUT is only “nicer” because it’s full of techies and bio-techies going to work. If you run the streetcar up Capitol Hill, or up Aurora (like the 358 bus) you will wind up with the same wonky mix of people as you do on the bus. All those extra capital investment dollars don’t buy you classier ridership. Sorry.

More importantly, people don’t make transportation choices primarily because of the savoriness of the person riding next to them. They make transportation choices because of efficiency. Streetcars add infrastructure cost, but they don’t move any faster than cars and buses.

Light rail, on the other hand, has a phenomenal upfront capital cost and carbon footprint. However, light rail has the potential to make time economics of riding public transit seriously competitive with SOV travel. And that is fundamentally transformative of how transit can work in our region.

So let’s get the light rail spine done. All the way to Bellevue. UNDER Bellevue.

Then, let’s find a reliable source of funding for our busses, and set streetcars aside until we can manage to run a truly regional bus system with comprehensive routes, short headways and dedicated lanes.

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A-P Hurd is a Developer at Touchstone and a Fellow of the Runstad Center for Real Estate at the University of Washington.

< Eletric trolley bus in Lyon, France >

Spokane is planning a “high performance transit service” that will connect major activity centers within the central city.  On Friday March 18, I met a delegation of Spokane government and business leaders who have narrowed the choice of vehicles to electric trolley busses (ETB), street cars or a rapid ride bus service. They were in Seattle to learn more about our version of the alternatives and to experience a ride on each.

Metro is assessing whether to order more ETB’s or to scrap the system. I am working to keep and expand our electric trolley bus system, eventually into the kind of in-city high performance network Spokane is looking at, with many of the ease of use, speed and reliability benefits of Sound Transit’s Link or Metro’s RapidRide.

One of the disadvantages of ETB’s is that the purchase price is more than diesel or diesel-hybrid buses. However, I believe that their power on hills and the environmental benefits outweigh the higher up-front cost. With the price of fossil fuels continuing to increase, electric vehicles fueled with carbon-free City Light electricity will be cheaper to operate over the long run.

By working with cities like Spokane who are also considering ETB purchases, we can get the price down and pursue more modern European style designs, as seen in the photo above, taken in Lyon, France. Just as Portland has done with streetcars, we may even be able to lure a manufacturer to build assemble new ETB’s right here in Seattle.

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Tom Rasmussen is a Seattle City Councilmember.

< Photo by the author - click to enlarge >

Cities are essential at this point in time. We all know that most of the world’s non-stop growing population lives in them out of necessity. But cities don’t thrive or survive when approached with an attitude framed by individual or corporate (the new “individual”) necessity.

Cities make visible the essential tenet of interconnection: in relationship to and with. Strengths and weaknesses of all the types of relationships (human, natural, industrial, domestic, and on and on into the full breadth of complexity) are on constant display as they are worked with and against. That constant shifting of the mix generates energy and sucks it away. Tidal. Cities are the great experiment in pulling balance out of what is constantly shifting.

Cities call for the best we have to offer while we find balance in a respectful way. They ask us to be aware. They ask us to nurture rather then exploit. They ask us to act as a community, on behalf of the community, to steward all the disparate parts. They ask us to be alive rather then go through the motions.

The challenge they ask of us in every moment is what kind of pivot point are we each in this inter-related cultural/social/physical/economic narrative?

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Carolyn Law has been working as a professional studio and public artist for over 25 years, and has been actively involved in civic affairs concerning the built environment and public spaces.

< The Alaskan Way Viaduct; photo: Dan Bertolet >

The tunnel debate which has raged for years is getting old. It should not distract us from three important objectives.

First, the viaduct needs to be replaced because it will not sustain another mega earthquake. Replacing the viaduct is the region’s #1 priority safety issue, and controlled demolition on the south part of the viaduct is already underway.

Second, after ten full years of discussion and debate, we are finally moving forward with the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall project. The State, not the city, has entered into contract with the tunneling contractor. Extra insurance and a performance bond cover the City from risk of loss. The biggest risk of loss at this point is delaying progress.

Third, moving the majority of cars and trucks off our Waterfront allows us to address multiple quality of life issues which are within our grasp: our maritime and local economy will be enhanced; a premier green promenade will stretch from our sports stadiums to the Olympic Sculpture Park and beyond; pedestrians and bicyclists will be separated from fast moving and noisy cars and trucks; our seawall will be rebuilt to keep Elliott Bay at bay, and it will be designed to provide shelter for salmonids heading out to sea. Opportunities for connecting all of us to the water abound. In other words, people, businesses, and our environment will all benefit.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement Project provides us with the opportunity to multiply the value of our expended transportation funds and do much for our City and region. We’re already moving, and I am excited—at last—to move beyond the tunnel debate and focus our positive energy on what we want our Waterfront to become.

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Sally Bagshaw is a Seattle City Councilmember.

Editor’s Note: Yesterday this unsolicited C200 post landed in my inbox from Cleveland, of all places. How awesome is that? All hail the Gods of the Interwebs that enable such connections. Of course, Ben Martens could be an axe-murderer for all I know.

< Cleveland - click image to enlarge; photo: John Baden >

Every urban planner was drawn to the field because cities evoked some level of inspiration and awe for them. Whether you are in your first semester of grad school, learning about Daniel Burnham and the City Beautiful movement, or a seasoned professional, culling census data for an update to the comprehensive plan, the magnetism of cities was something that, in some small or large way, called out to you and made you think, “I want to help make cities better.”

For me, there were two aspects of cities that made that call, that planted in me a desire to dedicate my efforts to improving the urban realm. The first started calling as long ago as I can remember. The simple sight of a city skyline – from a car, a roof, a boat, even on television – has always stirred a reaction in me roughly halfway between my gut and my soul. Seeing the heart of a city, the buildings hurtling skyward, different architectural styles mingling and blending into a pattern that made both no sense whatsoever and all the sense in the world at the same time, has inspired awed within me since childhood. One look at the Cleveland skyline – Terminal Tower, Key Tower, and the BP Building looming large – and any doubts I may have had about my vocation melt away and are replaced by an aspiration to be better in the way I see, think about, and write about the city. The skyline reminds me how important it is to create and give of myself.

The second inspiring aspect of the city for me is a little less concrete. I guess you could call it the city’s pulse, the feeling of energy that envelopes a person when they are in the midst of a bustling, well-designed public place. The city’s pulse has always made me feel connected, like I was part of something much bigger (much more important) than myself. It is that sweet sense of the “now,” the feeling that just being there is a serendipitous opportunity to witness, and, more, participate in something awe-inspiring. I’ve felt it in Cleveland’s Public Square, the Short North district in Columbus, Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, Grand Central Terminal in New York. In those moments, I can feel
the unbelievable potential we have as people – such enormous things we can accomplish! – and the unique ability the city has for inspiring us to pursue that potential. But I want to feel the energy more often, want it to run me over every time I turn a new corner in the city, and that is why I am an urban planner. We may never reach our full potential, but it is empowering to know that the city will never stop demanding that we try.

And what about you? What is it about the city that inspires you, excites you, motivates you? How does the city nourish the fire inside you?

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Ben Martens is an urban planner in Cleveland.

< Cleveland- click image to enlarge; photo: Christina Spicuzza >