By SUSAN JONES, atelierjones

Eds. Note: Jones, the founding principal of atelierjones, lives with her husband and two children in a condo near Pike Place Market. She works a few blocks away.

More cool Seattle shots by Michael Nalley at DDB

Seattle’s livability is about the vibrancy of its people: Walk any ten blocks three times over in Seattle’s downtown – stop to say hello to an old friend, walk over to check on your construction site at 1st and Union, stop by a press conference heralding the opening of Seattle’s new Green Lab, run into a client there and set up a meeting for their renovation of their condominium further south on 1st Avenue later in the day, stop at the Creamery at the Pike Place Market to buy fresh milk for breakfast, drop it off at home, then up to the WAC for a swim, walk back to the office for a quick meeting about a new downtown green roof project, then off to meet your client at their home to go over the design of their carbon fiber dining table, stop back home to pick up your daughter for her piano lesson - and you’ve walked 2 miles, half of them straight up hills, swam a  half mile, supported your local market, developed three design projects, seen four friends, and helped this city grow more and more livable with every footstep.

More Seattleites muse about livability here.

I have accepted a research associate position with the Sightline Institute. This is a wonderful opportunity for me and was made possible, in part, by writing here on SeattleScape and for the DJC’s opinion page for the past year.

It has been an amazing year for anyone watching the economy, and interested in housing, development and future growth in Seattle. I have written a fair amount here about the way we define and measure key aspects of growth in Seattle.

Time for a new dream?

The fundamental battle lines on growth were drawn 20 years ago with the passage of the Growth Management Act and the City of Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan. The decision then was to avoid sprawl by putting growth in cities, and more specifically in urban villages. Some resisted this planning effort as social engineering aimed at foisting a social agenda on single family neighborhoods.

Others argued that in order to limit and prevent further environmental degradation, enhance mass transit options and support a more sustainable approach to infrastructure, concentrating growth in the cities would be essential.

Does this sound familiar? Today we are taking a piecemeal approach to growth, arguing lot by lot, parcel by parcel, and neighborhood by neighborhood. When will we finally get on with what we decided to do 20 years ago?

More than 60 percent of Seattle is still zoned single family. And any project that increases density, even when supported by underlying zoning, faces a gauntlet.

Strolling Seattle by serakatie

Increasingly, the debate has been cast as a class conflict pitting growth management against the sacredness of the single family home, which for decades has been the organizing economic principle in America and the Northwest.

This year’s election provides the city with a huge opportunity to consciously settle this question. Will candidates for city office embrace the practices we know will reduce climate change, improve the health of the Puget Sound and support less use of the automobile? Compact communities that are safe to walk in with public open space and easy access to transit are what we must have.

The most important question for the candidates is “how will you get us there?” The question for Seattlites is “are we willing to go?”

DPD is in the midst of a series of public meetings on neighborhood plan updates in the works for neighborhoods that will soon have link light rail stations.

A meeting will be held on North Rainier Valley ( the Mt. Baker station area) from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday at Franklin High School at 3013 S. Mount Baker Blvd.

Another will be held on North Beacon Hill  (the Beacon Hill station area) from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 28 at El Centro de la Raza at 2524-16th Avenue S.