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Michael, a thoughtful reader of our Fundamentals blog, posted a comment about our proposed principle, Ensure every child is wanted, in which he asks: “[This] goes beyond sustainability’s purview, doesn’t it?” Sightline has long argued that family planning plays a significant role in a range of sustainability issues, starting with our book Misplaced Blame back in 1997, and as recently as our latest book, Cascadia Scorecard 2005 (pdf)–not to mention...

One of the defining characteristics of sprawl is a branching street pattern—one in which cul-de-sacs feed residential streets, which feed local arteries, which feed thoroughfares, which ultimately feed freeways. It’s a design that can work fine for cars, but not so well for people.  I spent (or misspent) part of my childhood in that sort of neighborhood.  There were houses that were literally 100 yards from my house as the...

Two pieces of somewhat hopeful news on urban redevelopment in Washington State.  First,  from today’s Post-Intelligencer: with the help of EPA grants, Seattle is cleaning up and redeveloping some contaminated urban sites to build new housing—including, apparently low-income and affordable housing units.  And in what seems to me to be a wise move, they’re involving community groups in the cleanup: Making sure the cleanups are done right is also a...

Apropos of Clark’s density posts. I thought I’d try a new tack. It’s a risky one, because I’m disagreeing with my boss. Sort of. First, I agree with Clark, that supply-side housing policy (increasing density) keeps city housing more affordable than it otherwise would be. But I also believe (with Sheldon Cooper) that market-based mechanisms cannot meet the housing needs of lower- and middle-income people because the market is structurally...

In two recentposts, I argued that urban high-rise apartments—as are being proposed for downtown Seattle—can be good for housing affordability.   But in a thoughtful comment on one of my posts, Sheldon Cooper from Homestead Community Land Trust argues out that high-density urban redevelopment can crowd out affordable housing, not increase its supply.  Now, who’s right?  I actually think we both are, since we were talking about slightly different things—both of...

I’m always late with this sort of thing, but last Friday’s New York Times had some interesting data on rising housing prices in US Metropolitan areas.  Three things stand out to me as worth noting.  First, even though runaway home prices are a hot topic at party conversations, the gains in greater Portland and greater Seattle aren’t too far from the national average.  Across the US, housing prices have grown...

Seems like there’s been a rash of anti-density columns in Seattle of late. First there was last week’s Mossback column in the Seattle Weekly (which I discussed here). Then, on Saturday,  P-I columnist Joel Connelly got into the action with this chestnut in a piece about Seattle’s struggling middle class: Are working families going to move into the higher buildings and downtown condos championed by Mayor Nickels? Not likely. The...

I’m trying my best to give a charitable reading of Knute Berger’s Mossback column in the Seattle Weekly railing against urban density. But it’s hard. To summarize as best I can:  Berger doesn’t like Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels’ plan to promote high-rise housing near Seattle’s downtown because, well…I guess Knute liked the Seattle skyline just as it was in 1980, thank you very much. Now, Berger makes at least one...

Editor’s note: The following essay is by blog contributor (and former Vancouver city councillor) Gordon Price, a reprint from his "Price Tags" newsletter and Business in Vancouver. (See the Price Tags version for accompanying images.) Why is the Provincial Government going to spend $3 to $5 billion on a strategy which it acknowledges will not work? If, as everyone seems to say, we can’t build our way out of traffic...

From our good friends and map gurus at CommEn Space:  a nifty visualization of how Pierce County has changed over the last century or so.  Nifty eye candy, showing the effects of sprawl, logging, and forest regrowth on the landscape.