Sustainable Seattle

10 Apr, 2006
Posted at 23.16 PDT

There have been rumblings in the news lately about the Seattle city government’s desire to finalize a new growth plan for the city core, pushing ideas of mixed-use neighborhoods with higher population densities. I hadn’t paid it too much attention myself.

Well, tonight I had the good-fortune to be dragged to see Jaime Lerner, former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, speak on sustainable cities and their planning. I’d forgotten about the talk until late this afternoon, but despite feeling a bit rushed initially, ended up enjoying it immensely. M. Lerner is a big proponent of mixed-use planning, something with which I whole-heartedly agree. If this vision is what we here in Seattle can begin to orchestrate for ourselves, I will be very excited indeed to continue living here.

Curitiba has what appears to be a rather well-deserved reputation as a near paragon of urban planning. Just reading about it makes me want to learn Portuguese and move. (And I was pleasantly surprised to just now learn it is a sister city of my old hometown, Orlando, Fla., ironically a city with a near total lack of urban-planning and plague to all the subsequent ills such a failure of foresight causes).

It was, at any rate, extremely encouraging to see such a large turnout at Benaroya Hall for M Lerner’s talk. I only hope that it portends a new commitment by my beloved, adopted city to sustainable, high-density, mixed-use development. It seems the city is always comparing itself unfavorably with Portland or Vancouver, as if we’re under some obligation to mimic their planning process, or are on some sort of timetable. The truth of the matter is that though Seattle has made some bad choices, it has an awful lot going for it as well. It is relatively compact for such a large city, and with its vital core bound on both sides by water, I think we’ll find it easier to turn our focus back from the suburbs on the outlying areas inward to the city proper where it belongs. The suburbs can fend for themselves, as far as I’m concerned.

One thing I’ve developed since moving to Seattle is a profound distaste for suburbia. What I see when I end up traveling through the ‘burbs is a horrifying waste of what used to be prime real estate: farmland. There was a time—and it is fast approaching again—when cities were closely ringed by the farms that provided them food. Cheap oil will run out. This is not open to debate. Supplies are finite, the equation closed. And when it does, there will be a mad rush to reclaim that old land, for the cities will have to have it. But that’s the future. Ten years, twenty, it doesn’t matter right now. What does matter, what creeps me out to no end, is the sheer isolation that suburban life inflicts on people. I have many friends, and have known many people, that want nothing more than the classic two-car garage house in a subdivision.

Why?

How is such isolation even remotely desirable? And I ask that question as someone renowned among my friends for my own idiosyncratic near-hermit habits. I’m a classic introvert. Get me in a crowd of people and I feel as if I have to be “on”. For every hour I spend among people, I need an hour to decompress—by myself, thank-you-very-much. You’d think I was prime material for the American dream. But it is creepy as all hell to me to think of isolating myself in my car every day, fighting traffic out of the city, all to go to my own little isolation chamber in the ‘burbs. And to what end? To sit slack-jawed and drooling in front of the soothing blue glow of the idiot box each evening? No thank you. To me, that’s a scene straight out of Hieronymus Bosch. (Have you never even noticed just how inwardly focused the modern house is? Thank the television and auto for that. Houses used to be beautiful from the front, with large porches welcoming you into them. Now most that front is given over to the garage. Must house our mighty chariots!)

Well, once again I’ve derailed myself, going off on yet another tangential rant. If you have any interest in city planning—and you should, you’re spending your life in one, you know—I recommend looking into Jaime Lerner, even if only to familiarize yourself with some interesting ideas about the future of the city. Seattle seems to be moving towards this idea of a sustainable city, and I do hope we as a city can keep the momentum up. One thing M. Lerner made clear in his talk was that small changes can have much larger impacts on a city than you can imagine. The trick appears to be figuring out where to apply the leverage, something somewhat self-evident to be sure, but it is nice to see some concrete examples of this principle demonstrated in the city of Curitiba. Lerner’s career as an architect seems to have had a positive impact on his tenures in government. I’ve now a little more hope that Seattle will head the same direction.

On a side note, one related to my earlier comment that I find Seattle a bit more willing to raise its middle finger to trends in the rest of the country, it was surprising to learn tonight that Seattle lead the way raising its finger to the Federal government by deciding to begin implementing the Kyoto protocols on global warming despite the current Republican administration’s patently hostile stance towards doing anything at all about the problem. And more importantly still, over 130 other cities have joined us.

Seattle fuckin’ rocks.

Seattle | Permanent Link