Downtown Vancouver, B.C. is a nice place to visit - "visit" being the key word. Some Vancouver urban planners and Seattle City Council members also think it's a model community in which to live. 
And so, Council Member Peter Steinbrueck contracted with two Vancouver planners, who wrote a report and came here in August to illuminate Steinbrueck's colleagues and the Seattle media about how to plan our own downtown's future. The big idea was to make downtown Seattle more densely populated and - cough-cough - family-friendly by righting the supposed imbalance between business and residential. Too many jobs downtown, compared to residents, this line of thinking goes.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels had already indicated he wants to see more residential growth in downtown Seattle too, but with more of a nod to increased employment there, too. Raining all over Steinbrueck's consultants in today's Seattle Times, Vancouver Sun architecture critic and architecture and urban design teacher Trevor Boddy says that thanks to misguided zoning and tax policies, downtown Vancouver has become so overrun with condos that there is no room for large employers. Downtown Vancouver has become a "dormitory suburb" with "Potemkin Villages" of the destitute, says Boddy, and is nothing for Seattle to emulate. Here is Boddy's Sunday op-ed.
Downtown Vancouver appears to prosper, but in the complex world of city building, appearances can be deceiving. I am not for a moment questioning the prospering part - the whole world is scrambling to live and play on our downtown peninsula, with its paradisiacal combination of mountain and ocean vistas, parks and urbanity....Paradise, yes, but because of shortsighted urban planning, downtown Vancouver may be becoming a fool's paradise. This is because people are coming to live and play here, but not to work....Many of us wonder if a 10-to-1 ratio in favor of condos is in our city's best long-term interest....The office-development market in downtown Vancouver - for all intents and purposes - is dead, even while it is reviving strongly in Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa and, yes, Seattle....Vancouver businesses pay 6.2 times the municipal taxes per square foot that houses and condos do...The anti-business ethos of Vancouver's civic politicians is more reminiscent of Berkeley in 1972, or Santa Monica under Tom Hayden, than any urban political culture in Canada....it is our lefties, ironically, who are turning downtown into a retirement zone for the wealthy, decorated with a few "Potemkin Villages" of low-cost housing..
Greater residential density is already coming to Seattle's neighborhoods, as I noted here recently. Especially where it replaces undeveloped or run-down properties, it's a plus economically and socially - hair-trigger sputterings of rural and suburban conservatives aside. At present, downtown Seattle is a robust employment center, but despite growth management's impetus for continued urban residential density, suburban residential and economic growth will not be halted in its tracks. Over time - as more and more families logically seek better schools and housing values in Seattle's suburbs - more employers could follow, and downtown's role as employment center could shrink. We could go the way of downtown Vancouver, if we're not careful.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at October 23, 2005 11:41 AM | Email ThisI'm curious. I hear all the time about what a great city Seattle is.
I've lived my whole life in this area.
Seattle produces what? besides lawyers and budding politicians.
All of the MANUFACTURING ability is outside the city area, included only because Seattle says so.
What industries remain in the norhtwest do so in SPITE of Seattle's policies. Most people in King County that I know hate the fact that Seattle seems to dictate county policies in contravention to the wishes of the rest of us.
Seattle has the docks (which they almost destroyed), tourism, and a shopping area that USED to be the only place to go. (well, they do have most of the liberals...)
I am NOT impressed by Seattle. It had the potential to become a truly great city, but, IMHO, has trashed itself with short-sided policies and political correctness.
With the statue of Lenin prominently displayed, I submit that they are far on their way to becoming the "Potemkin Village" you speak of.
I, for one, wouldn't mind razing Seattle and starting over. (heretic that I am.)
Posted by: Elmo on October 23, 2005 02:35 PMI understand your desire to defend Seattle. And I may be a bit harsh in my criticism, but I still think the manufacturing portin of the business community survives in SPITE of Seattle's policies.
I would love to see the city become the shining example it CLAIMS to be and once was on the way to becoming.
I admit, I am very disheartened to see how this area has progressed over the last 40 years. Seattle (and the surrounding areas) had such a bright future. The area was a FUN place to be and the city was THE place to go for something new and exciting.
I think the biggest mistake has been that the planners seem to think we should be like ANYBODY else's city. We should be unique, not a clone of anybody else's idea of what a city should be.
We have unique talents and people. That is our strength and should be exploited, not regulated to death.
And an honest political system would be a nice touch....
I'm old...and grumpy...and I still remember what it used to be like.
Posted by: Elmo on October 23, 2005 03:04 PMSeattle also has a plethora of commercial and industrial lands which are largely underutilized, and can be expanded in the coming decades. Vancouver is largely constrained in this regard.
And, in case anybody didn't notice, Seattle ain't Vancouver.
I think the writer has some kind of axe to grind (as do most critics who make sweeping generalizations and base their opinions on apples to oranges comparisons), but I haven't looked into his background enough to see what it is.
Posted by: AmazedByRightWingHate on October 23, 2005 10:17 PMThen I happened to read Matt R.'s entry. My ensuing thought can be found here.
James
aka Guns and Butter
aka The Asianist
get lost troll
Posted by: doug on October 23, 2005 11:05 PMAnd G&B: I just read your blog diatribe, and found it quite funny! As if Greg Nickels and the liberal illuminati determine what future private investments will be made in downtown Seattle. I attended the latest DSA and Seattle Chamber annual events, and all those nice, wealth Republican folks seem quite happy with the way this big "liberal social engineering" experiment is going.
And if one wanted to point out just how absolutely ridiculous this whole right wing chattering circus has become, take a look at Nickels' Biotech initiative. The liberals aren't trying to stack the city with Vancouver-style condos - they know the value of keeping a good jobs base in the central city. Why do you think Safeco picked Seattle over Redmond? Because of condos?
Please, guys, get an argument for once. Mr. Rosenberg brought up some good points, as usual, but how's come you sheep always have to fall flat on your faces? C'mon, kids, you can do better than that!
One can only guess that you clowns are just afraid that more density means more Democrats. What else would drive these hyterical delusions?
Well, guess what? Bellevue is building high density development as well. So just keep rolling that big paranoid rock up the hill. It will roll back down over you very soon.
Posted by: AmazedByRightWingHate on October 23, 2005 11:27 PM