The case for density in Seattle

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

13 February 2012

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen thinks Seattle needs more tall buildings:

Billionaire Paul Allen wants Seattle to grow up — again.

City planners are preparing a recommendation on raising height limits for new buildings in South Lake Union, the former warehouse district north of downtown where Amazon.com Inc. moved its headquarters. Vulcan Inc., Allen’s Seattle-based investment company, is the main proponent of taller buildings in the area.

It would be the third time since 2005 that Seattle has raised the maximum height of buildings in and near downtown. The potential change, to be presented by June to the mayor, was spurred in part by a forecast that Seattle will gain as many as 100,000 residents and 84,000 jobs by 2024. Mayor Mike McGinn will make a recommendation to the city council, which is likely to reach a decision by the end of the year.

Allen's right, and to see why, you just need to take a trip up Seattle's most famous structure, the Space Needle. (It's a fact-finding mission cheap enough you'll get change from a twenty.) 

Seattle's South Lake Union neighbourhood from the Space Needle

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That's a photo I took in 2010 of the neighbourhood in question. The tall buildings on the right hand side of the shot are the northern end of the downtown core. It makes absolutely no sense for a part of the city that accessible to the Pacific Northwest's biggest urban centre to be so low-density.

Like a lot of American cities — particularly American cities in the west — Seattle is a town where the car is king. Interstate 5 snakes along the east side of downtown, shuttling commuters along the 60 miles of the Puget Sound region between Tacoma and Everett. Great floating bridges, which are frequently jammed in rush hour, connect the city with the suburbs on the eastern side of Lake Washington, including Redmond, where Microsoft's massive campus is located. Even the pedestrian-friendly, walkable neighbourhoods around the city, like the U District, Ballard, Fremont, or Green Lake, are difficult to travel between without an automobile. For a part of America so conencted with the outdoors and environmentalism, it's not exactly green friendly.

But that doesn't have to be the case. Seattle has done a lot in recent years to improve its public transport system. Since 2007, South Lake Union has been served by a streetcar, and there's talk of extending that system out to the northwestern neighbourhoods of Fremont and Ballard. Since 2009, Sound Transit has run a light rail service connecting downtown to the airport, with stops throughout downtown, the stadiums south of downtown, and the suburbs to the south of the city. Work is currently being undertaken, with some help in funding from the federal government, to add another line through Capitol Hill to the University of Washington, and voters have approved a new line that would connect Seattle with its eastern suburbs. At the moment, you still need a car to get around much of the city, but unlike the Los Angeles subway, Seattle's rail system is one that's actually useful to local residents. The extensions will make it even more so. This is what it looks like when a car-dependent city retro-fits itself with an effective public transport system.

But part of instituting these changes is to make it easier for the public to use them. South Lake Union is well-served by public transport already, and height limits only make it harder for people to live in homes served by the light rail. The equation is simple: taller buildings equals more people who can catch trains equals fewer cars on the road pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Paul Allen has this one right.

Seattle from the Space Needle

In fact, it would be smart if the city worked on encouraging density beyond South Lake Union. That dead zone there is immediately south of the neighbourhood, just near where I used to live in Belltown. Another advantage about a downtown area filled with people who are able to use an effective rail system? No need for all that space to be wasted on parking lots. 

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Kurt Cobain will have his revenge on Seattle

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

29 September 2011

Seattle skyline from Gasworks Park, picture by Jonathan Bradley

Seattle, Washington (Photo by Jonathan Bradley)

I really enjoyed this article by Chris Leadbeater, in which he searches for the legacy of Nirvana in the band's adopted hometown of Seattle, on the twentieth anniversary of the release of its breakthrough album Nevermind. The short story of Nirvana and its frontman Kurt Cobain is an oft-told one, and if you'd like to revisit it and the ensuing "alternative" culture of America in the '90s, I recommend this excellent Pitchfork review by Jess Harvell. Leabeater, however, uses the band to paint a quite vivid picture of Seattle, as well as the entire Pacific Northwest:

For Seattle is a fascinating city, San Francisco's cool cousin, all implausibly steep streets and fractious climate — but blessed with a youthful vibe (it was only founded in 1852) where its Californian "neighbour" pines for the Sixties. It is also a curious hybrid, a hard-working port with a real cultural edge. And its two-tone appeal is immediately apparent — the sweat of its industrial zone, where the main Boeing plant churns out aircraft; the high-brow Seattle Art Museum, where water-colours sit next to striking contemporary pieces.

And:

But it would be simplistic to define Nirvana only in terms of Seattle. The band's roots sprouted not in the city, but in Cobain and Novoselic's adolescence on the Olympic Peninsula, the expanse of mountains and forest that shields Seattle from the Pacific.

This is significant. For while Nirvana are as indelibly the sound of America's west coast as the Beach Boys, this is a different west coast, marinated in rain, mist and darkness ...  Ruby Beach belongs to the same continental flank as California, but it suggests a different universe: its sand grey and damp, the giant trunks of dead cedars piled where the tide has left them.

Washington and Oregon are often overshadowed by the behemoth that is California, but the Pacific Northwest is a part of the country with its own distinct culture. Travel writing can too often devolve into a list of landmarks and high priced restaurants, but when it's done well, as Leadbeater does here, it gives a smart sense of a distant place. Nicely done.

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Striking out

By Jonathan Bradley in Seattle, WA

7 November 2010

Dino Rossi, the Republican candidate for the Washington senate seat.

Matt Yglesias wants to know what the deal is with Dino Rossi:

In all seriousness, how many times does this guy need to lose close, winnable races in Washington State before the WA GOP stops nominating him? It’s not like he’s the only Republican in the state, after all. They’ve got several congressmen, a couple of downballot statewide officeholders, and there’s got to be someone recruitable among the ranks of Microsoft/Amazon/Starbucks executives. Right?

I asked the same thing back in May before he announced his run:

The Tea Partiers I spoke to at the Tax Day protests this past April 15th were hopeful of a Rossi run, and I wanted to say to them, "Really? I watched the guy lose to Christine Gregoire in the 2004 gubernatorial election, then y'all watched him lose again to Gregoire in 2008. Now he's back for a third time to try to take Patty Murray's Senate seat?" How many times do Washington State voters have to tell this guy they're not interested?

As it is, Democrats did fairly well in Washington. Murray won a fourth term, and Rick Larsen, seeking to retain the Second District, which encompasses the area to the north of Seattle and south of the Canadian border, looks as if he'll hang on. Republican Jaime Herrera did win the open Third, which covers the southwest of the state along the Oregon border, but for the most part, the Republican wave didn't extend to the Pacific coast.

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The President comes to Seattle

By Jonathan Bradley in Seattle, WA

30 October 2010

Seattle in fall is a swirl of grey, particularly in the mornings. I walked last week through the University of Washington campus, pink brick buildings and red foliage drifting in and out of mist, to the Hec-Edmundson Pavilion, the 10 000 seat arena where the college basketball team plays its home games. But something possibly even greater than a Husky victory was scheduled for today: a rally for Senator Patty Murray, who hopes that next Tuesday voters will add another six years to her eighteen year stretch in D.C. Special guest: President Barack Obama.

I showed up early because there was no telling how quickly an event like this would fill up, and I was wise to do so. By the time the President took the stage, around midday, the arena was full, and laggard Seattleites were filling the football stadium next door, where they could watch his speech on the big screen. But even at nine o'clock, when the arena's doors opened to the public, the street outside was packed with people. Supporters of Murray's opponent Dino Rossi waved placards outside, and Secret Service agents instructed visitors to throw out their water bottles before coming through the metal detectors. A UW student volunteering at the event told me people had spent the night outside the pavilion to ensure they'd find a spot inside.  

Once inside the arena and out of the chill, I opted for a place on the arena floor rather than in the stands, ignoring a Murray volunteer's warning that "it's standing room only." Striding over the blue carpet laid down over the court, I gazed at the dazzling lights illuminating the dais from which the rally's guests would speak. Already, a palpable excitement was spreading through the room: college students in Obama '08 gear talked excitedly to firefighters wearing vests emblazoned with the name of their union on the back, while parents herded children, taken out of school for the day, up into the bleachers. A young South Asian man with a big badge reading "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican" booms loudly at a short, excited white woman sharing a banana with nearby Murray supporters. I was three quarters of the way toward the back of the arena, and happy enough with my position, but I quickly spotted an opportunity: a volunteer overseeing the barrier dividing the front portion of the arena from the back who seemed uncertain as to how zealously she should guard the divide. In her hesitation, I and a few other opportunistic folk made the decision for her. We dodged through the barrier and took up a spot about five metres away from the main stage. Of all the good fortune!

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If the Democratic base is as depressed as the media reports, it showed no sign of it that morning. And the speeches were not measured, centrist placations for nervous undecideds. This was a rally for the true believers. After a vocal group delivered a cappella performances of standards like "Amazing Grace" and "God Bless America" and a Marine had lead the Pledge of Allegiance (an act of groupthink I still find a touch creepy), the university's student body president introduced the King County executive who introduced Suzan DelBene, the Democrat challenging for a seat in Seattle's eastern suburbs. DelBene, to great cheers, proclaimed that she was a Husky (that is, a UW alumna), and explained that she was interested in "moving forward" for "working families" — this Australian thought for a moment that our Prime Minister Julia Gillard had entered the arena and was recycling talking points from her most recent campaign.

DelBene was followed by politicians of successively greater importance, all delivering speeches about how great they thought Patty Murray was, and how proud they were to be Huskies. Norm Dicks, a ruddy-faced Congressman representing the Olympic Peninsula seemed as interested in talking about the double-overtime win the university's football team had the previous weekend as anything political, and no one really seemed to mind. But after the sports talk had wrapped up and Washington Governor Christine Gregoire had delivered a speech filled with jabs at Dino Rossi, the man she had beaten in her previous two gubernatorial elections, it was time for the President to take the stage.

Or, rather it was time for another interminable wait, and then time for the President to take the stage.

President Barack Obama speaking at the University of Washington's Hec Edmundson Pavillion

Photo by the Seattle Times

Obama strode out with Senator Murray to deafening cheers from the crowd, a roar bordering on the hysterical. Supporters waved bright red signs supporting the senator, and shouted "I love you" to the President, who replied "I love you too!" And then... he stood and watched Murray give a speech.

We watched courteously, and to be fair, Murray is an adept politician who delivered a fine speech. "Pork" was not the dirty word it usually is in politics here; Murray boasted of the federal projects and associated jobs she had brought home to the state, and the crowd cheered appreciatively when she talked of supporting workers for hometown industries like Boeing and Microsoft. When she brought up legislation supposed to be unpopular in the rest of the nation, like the health care bill and the Wall Street reform, she was greeted with wild applause.

But Murray knew whom everyone had really came out to see, and she kept her remarks brief. As she handed over to Obama, the massive roar filled the pavillion once again, and the President was forced to stand patiently at the lectern waiting for cheers that seemed as if they might never subside. When they did, however, he spoke with the full force of the engagement and passion for which he's famed. It seemed almost inevitable that he would astonish, but a small part of me worried he would be unable to live up to the high expectations his reputation had built up.

But he was exactly as good as you have heard. This was not the dry, professorial Obama; it was the soaring and impassioned orator that propelled himself from first term senator to President in the space of four years. He led the crowd in chants of "Yes we can," and had fun delivering jabs at the Republican Party's economic management. He delivered his favoured campaign parable of America being a car driven into a ditch under GOP watch, and deftly inserted new twists. Patty Murray, in this take, was helping him push the stricken vehicle — "She's small, but she's tough," he said. We all surely knew the punchline by heart, but he piled it on anyway, because, of course, we wanted to hear it: "When you want the car to go forward, you put in D; when you want it to go backwards, you put in R!" His audience enjoyed it so much they didn't need to listen, and they nearly drowned out his words in response.

When it was all over, he and Murray climbed down from the stage and worked their way along the barrier shaking hands and exchanging smiles. Supporters surged toward the stage, but Obama reached out to grasp as many outstretched hands as he could, progressing at snail's pace.

Outside the arena and after the president had stepped on to Air Force One to make his way to the next rally in support of the next embattled Democratic politician, the scene is quite different. The Democrats will lose a swathe of seats. There's a better than average chance they'll lose one house of Congress, and they might even lose both. Turnout won't reach the heights it did in 2008, and Obama's approval rating looks good only when compared to how bad it should be given the state of the economy. But for a few hours inside a University of Washington sports arena, it felt just like 2008 again. 

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What it looks like when the President comes to town.

By Jonathan Bradley in Seattle, WA

18 August 2010

Protesters and onlookers outside an Obama fundraiser in Seattle.

The big fundraising event in Barack Obama's visit to Seattle today was held at the downtown Westin hotel, two soaring skyscrapers just north of the Westlake Center. I wasn't able to get inside, of course, but I went for a walk downtown to see how crazy the scene was.

The answer? Not as crazy as I expected. In D.C., I grew used to seeing scores of police officers toting impossibly hefty weaponry, supported by lurking helicopters casting bright spotlights over the street below every time the President ventured outside the White House. The scene in Seattle, featuring city police closing off the single city block on which the hotel stood seemed low key by comparison.

More pictures below the jump, and a word about the protesters.

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Although police blocked off the square enclosed by 5th and 6th Ave and Virginia and Stewart Streets, protesters were permitted along the side of the road opposite the hotel. The activists were low-key and disparate.

Protesters outside the Westin Seattle where President Obama held a fundraiser.

The expected band of conservatives showed up, carrying "Don't Tread On Me" flags and signs opposing the Federal Reserve. Compared even to the moderate crowd that had filled Westlake Park on April 15 this year, however, they were few in number.

Anti-war activists outside the Westin Seattle.

Almost as many protesters came from the left as the right. Some of these were anti-war activists, but the most organised group on either side were immigration rights protesters, who came equipped with large banners and speeches.

Immigration activists in Seattle.

Immigration activists in Seattle

A good many people showed up just to have a look at what was going on and take some photos.

Onlookers awaiting the President's arrival in Seattle.

The only really controversial bunch was a handful of people waving signs for the loony activist Lyndon LaRouche. I'm loathe to even show them, because they represent no actual constituency or ideology; their biggest interest is in drawing Hitler mustaches on people and handing out leaflets filled with conspiracy theories. They can be reliably expected to show up to any rally held for whatever reason in Seattle. But for the sake of completeness...

Lyndon LaRouche nuts in Seattle.

Whether any of this protesting did any good is doubtful; the President likely saw none of it. His motorcade, a succession of white vans, black SUVs, police cars, and motorbikes rocketed down Virginia Street, and apparently delivered the man himself into the bowels of the hotel. It was over in a flash and seemed even less eventful than the protests that had preceded it. And even these protests were characterised more by friendly banter and chit-chat between the crowd and the police rather than angry yelling. Maybe Seattle was just feeling particularly tame today, but apart from a brief parade of motorbikes, whose riders had to dismount and hang around in a comically large crowd a block down the street once the whole thing was over, this Presidential visit was just another day in America.

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A note about the Washington primary.

By Jonathan Bradley in Seattle, WA

18 August 2010

I would loved to have gone along to a polling station here in Seattle to give you guys an on the ground perspective of an American primary contest, but sadly it is not possible. In King County, which encompasses the city of Seattle, all voting is conducted by mail. In the biggest city in the state, this election will play out at kitchen tables and through postboxes, not in school halls and community centres. 

It's a shame, because I visited a station in Washington's Whatcom County for the 2004 Presidential election, and found it fascinating. The lines were long, though nowhere near as long as in parts of swing states like Ohio or Florida. The vote was conducted using a rather complex punch card system not dissimilar from the one that caused so much trouble in Palm Beach County in 2000. The polling officials even indulged my request to try a sample ballot on one of their machines. After my experimental attempt, I began to sympathise with the Floridians who found the ballot confusing.

Perhaps this is a reason to recommend mail-in ballots like those used in King County. It seems likely that letting voters cast their votes from home would reduce the chance of error. Allowing people to vote whenever they find time rather than requiring them to show up to a specific place on a specific day also seems an excellent way to bolster turnout. Mail-in voting is popular out west — many parts of Oregon also use it — and while I usually find American voting innovations to be wacky and overly complex (e.g. touch screens), this seems a logical way to improve efficiency and participation.

As for the returns this evening, I meant to mention this in my earlier post today, but it slipped my mind until I saw this Politico article: the thing to watch out for in tonight's results will be the proportion of the vote Senate candidates Patty Murray (D) and Dino Rossi (R) get. These are an imperfect predictor of the general election result, as Republicans will likely be more motivated to vote in this primary than Democrats, considering they have a more competitive field to choose from. Likewise, though Rossi is expected to win, he might pick up support in November he didn't have today, from voters who back the Sarah Palin-endorsed Clint Didier but would still vote for Rossi in a two-way contest against Murray. Even so, this will give us an insight into what kind of chance the Republican Party has of swinging Senate seats that in a usual cycle would be safe for the Democrats.

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Mr Obama goes to Seattle.

By Jonathan Bradley in Seattle, WA

17 August 2010

Campaign signs in Bellevue, WA

Campaign signs in Bellevue, WA (pic from BellevueReporter.com)

I won't be holding my breath for a glimpse of the Commander in Chief, however. The President's visit will consist of a private visit to a small business in the historic downtown Seattle neighbourhood of Pioneer Square, before he heads off to a couple of big-money fundraisers for the state's incumbent Democratic Senator Patty Murray. (Tickets for one of these events run at $10 000 a head, the Seattle Times reckons.) Obama is expected to be out of town before the afternoon is over.

Not to worry; the state has plenty to keep itself busy. Today is Primary Day in Washington state, and for all but a select few Democratic Party dinner guests, August 17 will be about local politicians rather than the one visiting from D.C.

A host of races are on the ballot, including state government representative and senatorial seats, as well as a number of judgeships. Yes indeed: as with many other states in America, Washington elects its judges. The local alternate weekly newspaper The Stranger has even been actively campaigning to remove one from the state Supreme Court — your opinion on the bizarreness of this will likely depend on whether you're reading this in the U.S. or not.

But the race to pay attention to will be the Senatorial contest. Murray has no serious Democratic challengers, but a few Republicans are vying to take her out in November. And they might have a shot at doing so:  RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight both rate the state as a toss-up, though both have Murray slightly ahead in their polling aggregates.

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Though the race is closer than you might expect in blue Washington, I suspect Murray will be likelier to win another term than not this November. But a couple of GOP hopefuls think they can swing the seat. The Tea Party pick is the Sarah Palin-endorsed farmer and ex-footballer Clint Didier, a fiery fellow from the conservative eastern side of the state. However, Washington Republicans have apparently not heard that this is the year of the political outsider, and the GOP favourite is still Dino Rossi. Rossi is a well known politician in the state, and he ran for governor here in 2004 and 2008, losing narrowly both times. Rather than try to remake himself as a Tea Party convert, he has campaigned as a straight-up Republican, and though I've said before that I have my doubts how welcoming the state will be of a two time loser, this is probably his best strategy. He's clearly hoping that this is indeed the year of the Republican Party, and that Democratic unpopularity can tip him over the top. And if the GOP is to have any chance at all of performing the unlikely feat of gaining control of the Senate, Washington is the kind of state it will have to win.

The most likely outcome from today is that Dino Rossi and Patty Murray will be selected to face each other in November. However, it's not assured, particularly considering Washington's unusual primary system. Called a Top Two Primary, it is unlike most other primary contests in that the races are not segregated by party; for each political office up for grabs, the two candidates who receive the most number of votes today will compete in the general election in November, even if they're both from the same party. In fact, the Washington State primary doesn't even acknowledge party affiliation, and considers each candidate to be running as an individual. Candidates signal their party membership by listing on the ballot which party they prefer.

It's a symptom of the West's grizzled independent streak — or its obstreperousness, if you'd prefer. Between 1935 and 2003 voters could cast their primary ballot in any race they chose; voting, for instance, in the Democratic Senate race before making a selection in the Republican mayoral contest. The system was found unconstitutional because it infringed on the party's right to free association. The Top Two Primary was the state's means of retaining a primary that kept control with voters while thumbing its nose at the major parties.

It's worth keeping an eye on the races today, because California has recently adopted the same system, in hopes of clearing some of the partisanship out of its dysfunctional government. The only upset we have a chance of seeing in Washington's Senate race would be a scuttling of Rossi by his party's right wing in favour another Tea Party insurgent. But keep an eye on the race, and try to imagine what chaos the voters of California might cause when they get their hands on this system...

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And the band played Men at Work.

By Jonathan Bradley in Seattle, WA

8 May 2010

Kangaroo and Kiwi Pub, Seattle, on ANZAC Day, April 25 2010

When you're far from home on a national holiday, you make do as best as you can. For me on ANZAC day, making do meant a long bus ride to the Kangaroo and Kiwi pub way up in north Seattle. The Kangaroo and Kiwi is a suburban bar situated alongside a stretch of highway dotted with gas stations, fast food outlets, and gun stores. Inside, the decor is outback shtick — bare timber rails, Fosters on tap, Men at Work on the stereo — mixed up with some genuine authenticity: the TVs show NRL and AFL games, apart from Wallabies and All-Blacks gear, the sporting paraphernalia on the walls represents teams only real Australians* would recognise or care about. Every now and then, a Powderfinger song would slip into the Oz Rock for Foreigners mix. The clientèle that evening leaned heavily Australian, and it gave me the opportunity to hear something I hadn't encountered in quite a while: Australians shouting drunkenly across a bar in broad accents at each other. 

While there I enjoyed an imported bottle of James Boags — this Tasmanian beer is a precious rarity in the U.S. — and an imported bottle of Coopers Pale Ale, a drop that is still hard to come by, but not quite as rare as the Boags. I was even able to order a meat pie, which was listed on the menu as a "steak pie," but there was no way I was going to refer to it as such. It tasted like one of the frozen Four and Twenty ones you buy in a four pack from Woolies, but I didn't mind. The bartender served it with a knife and fork (which I, of course, ignored) and a bottle of tomato sauce (which I, of course, did not ignore).

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When I left to catch the bus home, I waited outside the gun store with a man who introduced himself by asking if I had any black tar. "Heroin," he clarified when I looked puzzled. I told him I did not, so instead he told me how he'd come west from Spokane to get a job in the computing industry. When I told him where I was from, he kept asking me if Australia was very Americanised, and though I told him that, no, I found the two countries were quite different, he seemed determined to accept it as a given that his country had made, as Randy Newman put it, "every city the whole world round into just another American town."

Then the bus came and our brief friendship was over.

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*Technically this is an Australian and New Zealand themed pub, but I think the Kiwi aspect is there just so they don't alienate the stray traveller from that part of the world who might stop by. For all intents and purposes, this is an Aussie pub.

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