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.”

Want to speak out on Seattle’s pedestrian environment, and the City’s upcoming plans? Your best chance is between now and June 15, the comment period for the recently-released Draft Seattle Pedestrian Master Plan. In addition to the summary, remember to see the list of specific implementation actions.

It’s heartening to see so much effort go into boosting walkability, especially since the leaders are frequent pedestrians and experts in pedestrian issues. There’s much to love in the plan (not focusing on that here). At the same time, Seattle has a long history of well-intentioned plans being subverted by other goals, directly or indirectly. The plan addresses all of these general topics, but not in detail, and where it really matters is in practice.

An example is enlarged tree wells. These are good for trees that outgrow their old wells. But they can also interrupt pedestrian flow, they’re often muddy, and sometimes they’re even dangerous. This photograph is a rogue tree well on First Avenue, with a four-inch drop that must surprise a few people, at least those who haven’t walked in it countless times as I have (rather than wait for others to pass). Some hard-packed gravel at sidewalk level would be nice. Or maybe a walkable hard-surface platform of some kind.

At first look, the draft plan itself has some items that need adjustment. The yellow, bumpy plastic “tactile warning strips” it calls for at curb ramps are useful for the blind, but they’re slippery, which is something you don’t want at a street corner! A potential solution would be to build the same thing in concrete, integrally colored or painted so it’s more visible, though even then you’ve created a trip hazard.

Another usually good idea is chirping walk signals for the blind. But some of these signals, such as the ones at 6th & Bell, are incredibly loud, easily audible a full block away. How many advocates would live 50 feet from that? We encourage people to live near work, while making some intersections inhospitable for living. Turn the volume down.

“All way walk” intersections (like First & Pike) are also discussed in the draft plan. These sound like a good idea, until it occurs that at a standard intersection, they mean you can’t walk 2/3 of the time. First & Pike works because there are only two phases, “traffic” and “pedestrians,” plus it’s easy to jaywalk N-S during traffic’s phase. But at a regular multiphase intersection, all way walk is like punishment.

Let’s not get into the parking meters and light poles in the centers of many sidewalks, which exist because City liability fears have required them to be three feet from curbs. This was thought up by bean counters more worried about fenders and dollars than pedestrian safety or walkability. Even the new “pay stations” are often located within narrow sidewalks due to expediency, and can be barriers if people are standing at them. They should be in parking strips.

Curb bulbs are a great idea, to shorten crossings and improve visibility. But please make sure there’s room for not only the car lanes, but bicycles along the right fringe as well.  Just a couple feet. The same stretch of Bell, a significant bike route, is a good example. Hit Fifth Avenue, and either the driver or the bicyclist better give way, because the curb bulb sticks out too much.

Readers, please read the plan and comment. City, good job on the plan, but please make some adustments, and please follow through on implementation!

Former Seattle City council member and architect Peter Steinbrueck just announced in a press release that he will spend a year in Cambridge as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design beginning in September.

Steinbrueck will research U.S. urban policy and global environmental challenges. The Loeb Fellowship, founded in 1970, provides a year of independent study at Harvard for outstanding mid-career professionals in fields related to the built and natural environment.

I guess that answers the question of if he’s running for mayor. . .

Earlier this year John Fox, leader of the Displacement Coalition, organized against House Bill 1490 titled “reducing greenhouse gas emissions through land use and transportation requirements.”

Fox took issue with many parts of the bill, including the claim that it would wipe out existing affordable housing and replace it with out-of-scale condo developments for the rich. Fox and supporters of the bill argued over whether the bill would really reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“There are hundreds if not thousands of low income and minority households all along the transit route whose homes would be turned into rubble,” he said. “What’s green about tossing that into a landfill and pouring tons of concrete for all the new high density development?”

The fight was over how to quantify whether the high density development proposed in the legislation would cut green house gas emissions or if the demolition and construction would actually increase emissions. Fox argued, without substantiation, that the bill would actually make things worse. Advocates were caught somewhat off guard. But a recent study sheds some light on the debate (although the bill is dead).

The authors of the study, published in The Journal of Urban Planning and Development, quantified the emissions from building materials and construction, home heating and power demands, and transportation energy, in both urban and suburban neighborhoods in the Toronto metro area.

They found that downtown residents use radically less energy, and consequently emit about two-thirds less climate-warming CO2 than their suburban counterparts.

While the study has its limits — it compares just two neighborhoods in a single city– it points, as other studies do, to the evidence that sprawl and car dependence are closely linked, and are responsible for a disproportionate share of GHG emissions.

This study or dozens like it probably won’t persuade John Fox. But it is an early indicator that indeed high-density development really does produce fewer green house gas emissions than low-density sprawl.

Read more about the study at the Sightline Daily Score Blog.

Eds Note: Having a hard time joining this conversation?? AIA’s Facebook page for this event can no longer be found by just  searching for it. See updated instructions below to join in.

Next week, from April 13 to 19, AIA will be holding its annual National Architecture Week conversation– but this year it will be on Facebook.

The Virtual National Architecture Week group Facebook page will be used to release information and resources throughout the week.  AIA wants local chapters and individuals to use the social networking site to post information about firms, awards, videos, or local advocacy and public outreach initiatives.

Facebook members: Log in to FB and search for “The American Institute of Architects” in the search bar on the right. Click on the AIA’s group and then look under “Events” on the AIA Group page. The Virtual National Architecture Week should be the first one listed. Click on it.  (If you’re not a member, go make friends with your firm’s intern architect and they’ll tell you what to do, but they might Twitter or even Flutter about how out of it you are). You can view the resources, add resources and comment.

AIA has this schedule for each day’s specific focus: April 13 - Community Revitalization, April 14 - School Construction,  April 15- Affordable Housing,  April 16 - Sustainability, April 17 - Inclusiveness, April 18 - Historic Preservation and April 19 - The Future of the Profession.

If you’re taking a stroll up lively Pike Street sometime, take a right at Seventh Avenue and proceed along that block’s western side.  If you haven’t been there already in the past year and a half, you’re in for a shock.

The Sheraton hotel’s two-tower complex uses Seventh Avenue as its alley, with a block-long blank facade, punctuated only by a metal man-door where you’re likely to find hotel catering staff hanging out on their smoke breaks.  The only good thing about walking on this side of Seventh Avenue between Pike and Union Streets is that you get a great view of the landmark former Eagles Temple.

An April 1983 Time magazine article mentioned the then-new first Sheraton hotel tower as an example of nation’s “worst offenders” among modern buildings that present blank facades to the streetscape and deaden city center street life.  Any of us urbanistas who care about Downtown’s streetscape waited 25 years for something to improve that situation: a remodel, an addition, an improvement scheme - anything.  Well, “anything” came in 2007 when the second Sheraton tower opened, but the the 25-year wait was in vain because things just got worse, as you’ll see on your stroll along Seventh Avenue.

The real question we’re left with is: how was this possible?  Don’t we have regulations against such things?  Isn’t there a Design Review process? Shouldn’t have 25 years of lessons-learned informed the decision-makers this time around? A longer editorial on what went wrong ran in today’s DJC (no subscription needed to check it out).

Right now, a drill rig is outside on First Avenue, testing soil conditions for the deep bore tunnel.  The plan is far from certain obviously, but progress of any kind is exciting! Meanwhile it’s working its way through the legislature. This is a good time to hit some key points and dispel some misconceptions.

The tunnel would have more capacity than the current tunnel, not less. The same two lanes each way, plus breakdown lanes that avoid backups. The missing third lane is replaced by people exiting before Downtown rather than in Downtown.

It might save money vs. the alternatives despite costing more. What’s the price of several years of massive disruption with the aerial or shallow-cut alternatives? How many stores would fail, offices would move away, residents wouldn’t move in, and tourists wouldn’t come? (not to mention the effect of being next to another eyesore for another lifetime)

It’s realistic about traffic. The surface-option supporters have great motives. But they’re mistaken. Better transit would reduce trips somewhat, and many drivers might simply move. But tens of thousands of cars per day would be added to surface streets. Political concessions to the driving public would turn Downtown streets into highways focused on throughput rather than those who work, live, or shop here. For example, the PI instantly suggested fewer pedestrian crossings when the original surface option was shortlisted.

A tunnel helps Downtown function. Downtown Seattle is the dominant economic engine of our region, and plays an important role for most locals, whether working here, attending events, or just getting through. It’s tough to concentrate so much activity in a narrow area, but we do pretty well because of tunnels, including the BN tunnel, the transit tunnel, the existing 99 tunnel, and even the covered part of I-5. Downtown is growing. Putting 99 underground gets the through traffic through (without encouraging more driving) while allowing Downtown to be what it can be.

It avoids another 50-year mistake. Cities that succeed in the coming decades will have quality of life (as well as functionality; see above). The central waterfront and our surface streets are essential parts of that.

I think it’ll pass. The plan mixes best-case attributes and lacks strong anti constituencies. The ”view while driving” crowd seems numerous but they ought to watch the road and will look foolish if the initiative goes anywhere. Through-drivers get their freeway (without more lanes to encourage more driving), Interbay gets a wider Alaskan Way and non-jammed streets, transit users end up with more transit (even if indirectly), Downtown people get our great waterfront and hold on to our walkability, and locals shoulder the difference in cost, which is a manageable figure.

PS, did everyone notice that Sound Transit just bid two two tunnel sections for massively less than projected?  They came in 23 percent and 34 percent under Sound Transit’s estimates, at a combined $329 million rather than $425 million. This is encouraging for the deep bore 99!

Eds Note: Cliff Portman, Principal Land Use Planner with DPD, sent me this poem in response to our ongoing discussion of livability.

Urban Optimum

For each in the city there is a hum and a beat
To which routines and transitions freely repeat.
The flow and the ebb, with less take and more give,
Is the meter of living for work and working to live.

A calm, easy cadence connects home with labors.
No sour note commute nor dead malls for neighbors.
Uses, mixed local and small, supply points of life.
To them walk, pedal or twitter - modal options are rife.

Among other urban livability measures
Are ample green features and amenity pleasures.
Add a multi-cultural chorus, the polyrthmic part,
With civility and inclusion to give place a heart.

More Seattleites muse about livability here and 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?”

During these tough economic times, Mayor Greg Nickels says more Seattle homeowners should have the option to build cottages in their backyards to supplement incomes or provide a loved one with housing.

Welcome to the dollhouse

Backyard cottages, smaller dwelling units unattached to single family houses but sharing their lots, are now allowed in southeast Seattle only. Seattle allows smaller attached units citywide.

Nickels said in a release Thursday he would soon be sending legislation to council to allow up to 50 more backyard cottages to be built per year across Seattle neighborhoods. The homeowner would have to live on site, lots would have to be at least 4,000-square-feet and the cottages could not exceed 800 square feet. Height and lot coverage limits would also apply.

“In these difficult times, now more than ever, people are asking for a range of good housing choices,” said Nickels in the release.

“Whether it’s for a family member, an option to downsize, or simply a financial decision that allows you to stay in your home, the backyard cottage can be a real-life solution.”

So far, 14 backyard cottages have been built in southeast Seattle. The cottages are also allowed in Portland,  Issaquah, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Shoreline, Newcastle, Redmond, Woodinville and Vancouver, B.C.