Turning the ‘urbs’ inside out?
The concept of “urbs” and “suburbs” is one that we’ve lived with in the United States since the end of World War II. It might be time to rethink these categories or get rid of them all together.
In an article that ran in Crosscut last week Knute Berger characterized as simplistic the distinction between suburb and city. I agreed with that characterization in a response at the Daily Score.
But I couldn’t abide with Berger’s claims that somehow smart growth or density (the dreaded ‘D’ word) somehow contributes to sprawl. This conclusion is fueled by the very simplicity Berger seems to deride.
What seems to be happening instead is that it is getting harder to develop large projects in Seattle because of a kind of strange single-family preservationist streak here. My point was that projects like Bel-Red on the Eastside are almost impossible to do here because of vehement opposition by neighborhood groups and labor. Neighborhoods oppose the density and labor hopes for more public benefits for their workers from the projects.
As time ticks off the clock projects like the redevelopment of the Campfire site in North Seattle and the Goodwill project in the Southeast part of the city languish and die. So while we resist growth in Seattle most of the 1.7 million people projected people coming to the region in the next two decades may end up living in Bellevue, which may, ironically, according to the old view, make Bellevue the city and Seattle a “suburb.”
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