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The “Great Urban Debate”

It was interesting to watch. On June 18 at the Central Library, civic leaders Gordon Price of Vancouver and Peter Steinbrueck of Seattle debated the merits of the two cities’ built environments, each arguing as mandated for the other’s city. CR Douglas, possibly the smartest person on Seattle TV, moderated. There was good audience Q&A at the end. You can follow what happened here, including a parallel event in Vancouver on June 16.

It’s not easy being Seattle! Rather than being compared with North American cities in general, where frankly the bar isn’t very high in our size range, we’re constantly getting compared with Vancouver, Portland, and San Francisco, each of which has plenty to be jealous of from an urbanist perspective, whether density (Vancouver and SF), narrow walkable streets (all), cultural diversity (SF and Vancouver), rail transit systems (all), or long history of smart planning decisions (all). Why can’t we go up against Houston?!

Price said lots of nice things about Seattle, noting that our topography helps give our neighborhoods identities, our waterfronts still have function rather than just looking pretty, and we have a strong cadre of rich donors to support civic causes. But as Steinbrueck correctly pointed out, few of those were about HOW we’ve built our city, particularly how we did it until recent years.

Steinbrueck has long used Vancouver as an example of how downtowns can attract families via measures such as inclusionary zoning, but he had a serious misconception and was corrected by Price. Steinbrueck claimed that Vancouver requires family-sized homes in new downtown highrises. Price corrected this, noting that only two megaprojects have this requirement, and the family-sized units are far too expensive for most families. (Edit: the negotiated zoning system does result in a lot of two-bedroom units.) Price noted that one reason for the large number of kids in downtown Vancouver is that many have moved from Hong Kong, where it is common for a family to live in a small apartment, and that these families tend to move out of Downtown when their incomes grow enough. In a different context, he also pointed out that the West End, which was mostly developed decades ago, is now a middle-low income area, which I suspect is related to the number of kids living there, along with the fact many of its streets are quiet and residential-only.

My opinion is that having more kids in Greater Downtown Seattle would be a good thing, but it’s not necessary for a fantastic downtown, and there’s no reason to mandate new family size units in new buildings, which has been discussed locally. We already mandate retail that the market doesn’t need, which is often vacant or rents at a loss. Rather than foisting these costs on the occupants of new buildings, why shouldn’t ALL of us pay to address civic problems? I suggest inclusionary zoning is based in part on cowardice by leaders who would rather ask a tiny number of people to pay, rather than ask the whole electorate.

Ah, retail. That didn’t come up. Vancouver has fantastic retail streets, including some in the West End. Why? Not just because their neighborhoods are denser, but because they concentrate retail on fewer streets. My own neighborhood of Belltown is the poster child of spreading retail to every avenue, meaning it’s far too diluted for a critical mass on any one avenue.

About Steinbrueck’s point that replicating Vancouver’s success will take Seattle a few decades, and that this gives us license to slow down … I don’t know what to think. On one hand he’s right that some development is poorly done. But adding process (at least temporarily) and construction costs (permanently, depending on the new requirements) has two side effects: the city becomes more expensive to live in, and development goes where it’s easier and cheaper, adding to sprawl. We can sacrifice the good in pursuit of the great. Still, I can’t argue for the worst examples of six-pack townhouses that wall themselves from the street and face interior driveway courtyards. Below-grade parking will add cost but perhaps it’s worth it.

There was a vote by applause at the end, which CR declared a win for Price’s defense of Seattle. (Steinbrueck won the Vancouver vote.) I wasn’t clear whether to vote for the city or the guy, or whether to vote for my city or the denser one, and clapped for both.

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This entry was posted by Matt Hays on Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Neighborhoods, Planning, Politics, transportation, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Brian

    Thank you for bringing up the benefit of retail being concentrated on a single street. I have been fortunate enough to live in the core of serveral great cities (Boston, San Francisco, Sydney and Seattle – specificially Belltown and Capitol Hill) and have seen first-hand that great retail-scapes and great cities are made up of great (highly concentrated) streets.

    If you look at a street like Newbury in Boston or Chestnut in San Francisco you see that the concentration not only makes the streetscape far better (as would be expected for that street) but gives the surrounding neighborhood a more friendly residential feeling.

    Belltown by contrast should have wall to wall (door to door?) retail on First ave, but instead gets spread so thin that every street feels like an akward mix of both and thus lacks both residential charm and urban vibrancy.

  • Tom

    It’s amazing to me how narcissistic Seattle is. It must be all that reflected light and water and insular nature created by the bowl of high mountain ranges. Maybe if Seattleites stopped gazing at their reflection, they might actually interact with each other in more meaningful ways – creating the dynamic city they so desperately want.

  • Joshua Daniel Franklin

    As a youngish urbanite with kids, I’m very interested in this issue of children in the city. I’d agree that “family sized” units is not the issue, especially since all over the world families live in fairly small apartments. However, income level mobility strikes me as a red herring considering the options available right now.

    In Seattle, I would actually like to see smaller apartments with better community living design such as semi-private shared facilities and greenspace, such as I’ve read about in Stockholm’s Hammarby Sjöstad. We do need to continually raise our bar for sustainable living by comparing ourselves to working solutions around the world.

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  • Daniel Goddard

    I agree in part about the dissipated energy or focus of Seattle’s retail, though I also question the overall urban form it takes. I am referring to the overly long, commercial strips that are more auto-friendly than pedestrian oriented and that, even with commercial “focused” on them have large holes, gaps or just plain horrendous urban design.

    Examples that spring to mind: Broadway (think overall length relative to concentration of commercial, one-sided development along some stretches and urban “voids” such as at SCCC); upper QA (again overall length vs density, lots of single-sided developments, and questionable urbanistic moves (i.e. Safeway); 45th thru Wallingford, auto-centric, length vs. density, et al.

    I have been a resident of SF and Boston too. What I’ve taken away is the incredible density in a much shorter length street; streets that are more appropriately scaled to pedestrian activity (whether width of ROW or just the proportions of sidewalk to street) and retail expansion that is more likely to start branching to side streets and eventually to parallel streets rather than extending the commercial strip.Why not focus on creating environments that are more accommodating to pedestrians, e.g. shorter walking distances, opportunities to rest at a public bench or just enjoy taking watching the urban spectacle? An environment that not only gets people out of their cars, but encourages people to leave the car behind is what we really need to seek.

  • JoshMahar

    I understand the beauty of having centralized retail areas. Pike Street between Broadway and 12th is a great example of a concentrated nightlife spot.

    But in Belltown the issue is that 1st through 4th are all major arterials. As is, none of these streets will be quiet residential streets so you might as well put some retail on them right? I hope the Bell St. Boulevard sets a good example of how to better utilize some of our expansive ROW areas. Perhaps then we can turn some of these ridiculously large streets into ACTUAL residential areas with gardens, trees, and safe places for children and adults to play.

    Also on retail: I think a lot of the random retail through the city helps really solidify neighborhoods here unlike anywhere else. Think about mini retail centers such as Ravenna Third Place, Summit Pub/Top Pot Strip, Targy’s on Queen Anne, Central Cinema/2020 Cycles, Mioposto in Mt. Baker, etc. All of these mini-urban centers give rallying points for sub-neighborhoods which is a very wonderful thing around here.

    I guess overall I think we should have main centralized retail areas, preferably around major transit hubs where large groups can concentrate. Then throughout the neighborhoods we should have very small retail centers for convenient, walkable access to groceries, coffee, beer, you know, the essentials ;)

    Matt, I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the future of Belltown transit. Would you like to see a rail line in the future? Or even just a concentrated transit street? A streetcar perhaps?

  • Matt Hays

    I agree we want a lot of retail (neighborhood retail and destination retail, and yes, with great transit!), but Belltown is kept from having a “major” retail street, like the Ave or Broadway, because unlike those areas we spread it around too much. Even Market St. in Ballard is being hurt because Ballard is also starting to spread too much retail around, without the corresponding density. The simple fact is a 200-unit building doesn’t bring enough customers to add a block of retail to the neighborhood.

    Back to Belltown, Second and Third have moderate car and pedestrian traffic in the northern part of the neighborhood. They’d be good candidates for narrowing and requiring less retail. Actually all streets have less pedestrian traffic in their northern parts for obvious reasons.

    I like the streetcar idea currently planned for First. But I’d either extend it to the top of Queen Anne (perhaps with a dual self-powered and hook-powered system?), or make it more like light rail (partially out of ROW) and take it to Ballard. Call it BADASS, or Ballard and Downtown Area Streetcar System. Or maybe do both. In any case, Belltown should be treated like a wing of Greater Downtown with excellent transit. Any future rail route north or northwest should include multiple stations.

  • Daniel Goddard

    Regarding Belltown specifically and neighborhood planning in general, I like the idea of focusing main retail growth around transit and in turn encouraging a more pedestrian oriented environment. Providing the possibility of retail spaces on 1st through 4th Aves in Belltown makes sense to me as well, but not because I don’t see these streets as being hostile to residential uses, but instead because of their proximity to downtown and the desirability of commercial space in the ultimate build out of the area.

    That said, two points that should be raised when thinking about directing development in this area. First, we are building out the city not only for the present, but the future as well. Think 50 years from now. Or perhaps 100 years from now. Things WILL change. The spaces we are building now will play a role in determining the future use of the spaces, not because its pre-determined, but because how we are building will present opportunities for uses that we do not currently anticipate.

    What does this means for us now? We need an attitudinal shift. Spaces can be specifically suited to a single program or spaces can be suited to accommodate several types of program. Think flexibility or capacity to change. Street level spaces do not have to be either commercial or residential–the space requirements for retail and residential are not mutually exclusive.

    Which brings me to my second point. We need to be thinking about where we want to eventually be in 50 years as well as where want to be in 5 or 10 years. Couldn’t we focus commercial development on a block by block basis to create desired densities of retail today? And couldn’t street level residential uses elsewhere eventually give way to office and retail uses in the future? Again, I am thinking about how other older cities have grown their commercial districts.

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