Seattle as LA grown UP.

From HA and SJ

This panel discussion of Seatlle new high density housing epidemic, plague development is all too typical of how Novo Seattle is being planned.

"We" are building a new city, with well over a 100,000 people, but the planning
is being left largely to the developers. If there is a vision, no one I can find
can describe it. What scares me is that the planning for Seattle seems a lot like
the "planning" that gave us Los Angeles Bellevue. That sort
of thing is bad enough when you are bulding endless suburbs, it is horrible when done
in the compact space of a city.

For bad examples, I suggest you look at the "developments" .. the dense housing built in
the fifties for poor folks. Now we are tearing it all down. Similar bad planning can
be seen in the former Soviet space. Again it is now being torn down.

OK, this was all social planning .. is capitalism better? I do not think so. Many
org the suburbs of that era are now pretty dismal and some of the expensive housing I have seen
on Manhattan and even Vancouver looks an awful lor like tenements to be.

This contrasts with wonderful older developments like Boston's Back Bay or council housing
in Sweden and Germany. In all of these high density is carefuly combined with appropriate retail.
recreation areas, transportation, and .. often some sort of local magnets.

For example, the South End of Boston was once a slum but is now ell in its way back. The
buildings are of high quality but even better are the boulevards that go through the area, miniparks,
churches, retail areas, and the adjacent medical center with its jobs.

A former student of mine lived in council housing in Sweden. Though intended for moderate income,
the area was carefully fitted out with parks, schools, bike trails, shared recreation facilities, etc.

Is this gonna happen her? I am skeptical.

Lets take SLU as an example. This area has been touted as being anchored by biotech. I know, however,
that the UW is not represented on any planning council for SLU.
The only park planned for the area is the tiny triangle of Denny Park and the expanded shore wall called a park
along Lake Union.

I have met with one of the VULCAN planners(and with Healey). AFIK, the plans for street side development are amazingly anemic.
There is an idea that Westlake will become a shopping street BUT, no plans to force a widening of the street or an increase set back
despite the effective decrease in street width by the SLUT. Despite the claim to want biotech, there is no plan for an information'backbone.
bookstores, affordable housing for felllows, or other amentities that fascilitate biotech.

Same thing applies up here on Cap Hill. Zoning has been changed for Broadway to allow an increase in six story housing along
Broadway. There are, however, no provisions for increased parking (other than one space per housing unit) despite the planned opening
of light rail. A city planner told me that folks will walk to the LR station. That does make sense if you think this is a high rise area, but the
bulk of cap hill is still single family and there does not appear to be any plan to increase metro so that folks can get to these stations on their way
to Seatac, the UW or downtown.

Along with all this intent to build UP, there seems to be no talk of street level amenities like miniparks, destination buildings, etc. Frankly (and You and I often
disagree on this sort of issue) the result

The result, it seems to me, is likely to be a great increase in demand for parking on Bway that will choke the development of this area as
a retail magnet for Cap. Hill.

My impression is that the intent is to support the developers, with little interest in the surrounding neighborhood..