Transportation + Transit

Latest Research

Housing + Cities Transportation + Transit

From Highways to Homes: The Opportunity to Reconnect Communities Divided by Freeways

This article is part of the series YIMBYtown 2022 The conversation shared below was part of the YIMBYtown 2022 conference, cohosted by Sightline Institute and Portland: Neighbors Welcome.* At its peak, federal highway construction demolished 37,000 homes a year to make way for roads. More than 1 million Americans—a significant …

April 12, 2022

Event: Build Small, Live Large

Curious about small and sustainable housing? The Build Small Live Large Summit in Portland next month will explore the leading edge of …

October 1, 2015

Dear Mr. Mayor

On Wednesday, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announced he would not pursue the recommendation of his housing affordability committee (HALA), on which I served, to allow greater flexibility of housing types in single-family neighborhoods, such as cottage clusters, mini-duplexes, rowhouses, and stacked flats within existing rules on setbacks and building height and size. I sent the mayor a letter yesterday, expressing my disappointment in this decision, which I fear will begin to unravel the grand bargain of more housing/more affordability that HALA hammered out over ten months—and which I hope will form a bold new model for all of Cascadia’s cities. In the letter, I acknowledged the intense and politically damaging outcry from some residents of single-family neighborhoods and agreed that he needed to respond. Here are parts of the letter: Dear Mr. Mayor: …Here’s what I wish you had said yesterday in your statement.

July 31, 2015

HALA and the Neighborhoods: What’s the Story?

The Seattle Times published my op-ed on housing in Seattle’s single-family zones this morning. Here’s the slightly longer version I submitted: In 1993, when I was 28 and my second child had just been born, I rented a two-bedroom house in the Central District near where I grew up. I paid $800 a month. That’s how my Seattle housing story begins, and it’s typical of my generation. In that house, I started the venture I still run, which now employs 14 people. In time, I was able to buy, and now I live in a house in Ballard that’s somehow appreciated to a shocking $700,000. The housing stories of young people nowadays are radically different. My friend Travana, who grew up in the CD a generation after me, cuts hair downtown and commutes by bus from a row house in Everett. That’s the closest family-sized place she, her husband, and their baby girl can afford. She hopes to start a business as a clothing designer soon, if she can get ahead of her bills. My friend Meaghan, a new mom, may move to Renton to find an affordable two-bedroom place. Her husband is starting a new career, and Seattle’s rents are crushing their finances. Travana and Meaghan are among the lucky ones: they have jobs and supportive families. Thousands of members of our community sleep under bridges or in cars each night, pushed there in part by our city’s white-hot real estate market.

July 20, 2015

HALA and the $100,000 Question

In the last ten months, Zillow says my house in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood has appreciated by more than $100,000. Seattle has about 150,000 houses like mine. The owners of every one of them have been getting richer daily from the city’s housing affordability crisis. One person’s affordability “state of emergency,” in other words, is another person’s cha-ching. That’s the harsh economic and political reality that made the Seattle Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) committee, on which I’ve served with 27 other Seattleites during these last ten months of surging home values, such a challenging undertaking: demand for housing in Seattle is white-hot, property owners are making money hand over fist, and low-income families are getting squeezed out. But do the privileged in Seattle actually want housing to be more affordable? Is there any political coalition with enough power to overcome the desire among 150,000 homeowners for the next $100,000? As of this hour, HALA is done, its report is released, and the ban its members agreed to on public comment is over. So I can finally say some things publicly about HALA.

July 13, 2015

“I Love the Change I’ve Seen in My Neighborhood in the Last Ten Years”

Given the hubbub over the draft report leaked earlier this week from Seattle’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) committee—on which, full disclosure, I sit—and the coming release on Monday of the official report, Sightline thought we’d share a perspective that hasn’t received much attention in the debate. This past Monday, Sara Maxana, a homeowner in Seattle’s fast-growing Ballard neighborhood, testified before Seattle City Council. She expressed her enthusiasm and strong support for exactly the kind of growth and density that some would have us believe are the bogeyman threat to Seattle’s “neighborhood character.” As The Urbanist blog rightly pointed out, “The only way that makes sense is through the vacuous suggestion that Seattle’s character is dependent on suburban homes rather than diverse people, uses, and business.” Hear, hear.

July 10, 2015

Preview: Stuck in a Jam

Several months ago, I sat down with a few earnest young filmmakers of Undrgrnd Productions, who were eager to discuss one of my own favorite topics: traffic! Just this morning, Luv, Vijay, and Mahim emailed me the trailer for their film. As they write, “it’s about traffic and transit, but also about related issues like housing, density, the city’s exploding growth, its history, politics, and problems.” Yep—traffic conversations certainly surface all of those other topics as well. The full film will debut in August, but for now, be sure to check out the trailer:

July 10, 2015