SeattleScape » livability

Ode to livability

Shawna Gamache — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:01:46 +0000

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.

What makes Seattle livable for me

Shawna Gamache — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:44:19 +0000

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.

At least there’s a lot to think about…

Shawna Gamache — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:02 +0000

Itching for more insight on how Seattle is faring and what the future holds? Several events are coming up next week that might strike your fancy.

On Tuesday, March 10, Mossback columnist and Crosscut contributor Knute Berger is giving a reading of his new book Pugetopolis at Kirkland’s Parkplace Books. The reading starts at 7 and it’s free.

On Thursday, March 12, The Seattle Great City Initiative and GGLO are hosting a free brown bag lunch to talk about ID Vision 2030, a plan to guide growth in the International District. Tom Im, a community organizer and planner for InterIm Community Development Association, will lead the discussion. The brown bag is from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at GGLO at 1301 First Ave in Suite 301. Enter through the door about a quarter of the way down Harbor Steps, on the north side.

On Friday, March 13, a CityClub lunchtime seminar will take up “Tough Times in the Livable City,” with a panel discussing what the downturn means for livability and sustainability, “and how we can best use the present moment to prepare for a positive future.” The program runs from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Rainier Square in the 3rd Floor Atrium at 1333 Fifth Avenue. Tickets are $20 for members and $30 for everybody else.

Since you’re already mulling, maybe you’d like to write a 50-word response to the question “What is Livability and what can Seattle do to acheive it?” This is the third in the series of 50-worders, after affordability and sustainability, running on the DJC editorial page and in the blog. It’s been a fun conversation so far, and I’d love to hear your thoughts in the final installment. Send submissions my way by March 19.