Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

nathenry.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 398 posts

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#131

Post by brewdad »

throw0101a wrote: post #73
duxup wrote: post #2

I like the idea of walking 15 minutes to get all the things. But man when I think of the costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere (no small cost to drop in a high school somewhere), or plop down a grocery store in a neighborhood ... that sounds both super expensive and politically difficult, and for some good reason…

> But man when I think of the costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere Not absolutely everything needs to be walkable in 15 minutes. Once kids are teenagers having go to school on transit or bicycle would be fine. Perhaps focus on elementary schools being walkable.

Elementary schools having the added advantage of being a smaller footprint. In my area, elementary schools tend to be 200-400 students. Middle schools are around 800 students and high schools about 1500. I (car dependent suburb) live within walking distance of one elementary and a second one would be walkable if you didn't have to wind through a series of cul-de-sacs to get there.

The closest high school is 2.5 miles away and the high school my child attended was 6.5 miles away due to a quirk in the boundaries and which schools feed into which higher level school.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#133

Post by chamanbuga »

WaxProlix wrote: post #129
mdorazio wrote: post #126

>Of the 89 neighborhoods considered, only nine are “15-minute neighborhoods” walkable for 90% or more of their residents. I'd love to see the median rent in those nine compared to elsewhere in the city. Can any Seattle residents here provide some insight?

Downtown (CBD): Expensive International District: Euphemism for Chinatown, not expensive Pioneer Square: It varies, but fairly expensive despite the rampant homelessness Pike Place Market: Very expensive Ballard: Expensive new buildings, more affordable older ones Capitol Hill: Expensive, generally South Lake Union: Expensive Madrona: Expensive

Living in ID is not a choice, but a necessity when other options fail.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#134

Post by chamanbuga »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #128

Do any Seattle-ites not have a car? How do you get around? Asking as a NYer who would consider living there if the car-free life wouldn't be too painful

Living the car-free life in Seattle is depressing due to gloomy weather. Life in Seattle is great if you accept the grey and live outdoors as much as possible. For that you need a car.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#135

Post by fnimick »

pjc50 wrote: post #24
nicoburns wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere (no small cost to drop in a high school somewhere), or plop down a grocery store in a neighborhood ... that sounds both super expensive and politically difficult, and for some good reasons. A high school I understand (where I live in the UK it's common for high school ki…

> Just convert a house. In many places there is a miserable quantity of political and legal infrastructure to prevent that from happening. Undoing that is a necessary part of 15-minute cities, but it may be weirdly unpopular. (also, people expect a wider range of things than will fit in an old style corner shop, and you need to have HGV parking..)

Not weird at all. People don't like change. There's a reason NIMBY attitudes are nearly universal.

I don't agree that it's how it should be, but even in an already urban area (Somerville) getting things built is like pulling teeth. There's a literal hole in the ground from a fire a decade ago that people have been fighting development on for years, because they argue it will bring more people to the area and make it harder to street park. As if there's a guaranteed right to have public space dedicated to your private vehicle.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#137

Post by j_heffe »

coldpie wrote: post #63
spacemadness wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hope is that if not Gen Z then the following generation will push for American cities to get their act together and become better for people to live in. It is going to take a lot of political will to make it work as the entrenched older generations want things to stay the same as always and/or cannot envision a different way of living. A walkable city with car free zones seems like a fantasy and that is a real sha…

It is truly shocking how much damage the car has done to our cities and lives. Here in the Twin Cities, we have three enormous concrete canyons completely dividing up the city[1], destroying any chance at walkability or density for miles. All for the sake of people who don't even live in the cities to drive 30 minutes in their personal luxury steel cages from their suburban mansions to spend 30 hours a week here and…

Not to mention the opposition of public transportation here. People are already up in arms about the light rail expansion cost, plus the people angry about losing parking on Hennepin Ave for the proposed 24 hr bus lane.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#138

Post by dmoy »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #56
hammock wrote: post #38

The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one. They are usually surrounded by a mile of blacktop and concrete, for all the drive-in shoppers in the front and all the trucks offloading goods or picking up deliveries in the back. Would much rather be near a decent small or midsize grocery with no or limited off-street parking, and which receives its deliveries on the street in the e…

All of the grocery stores in the core of Seattle are exactly like that--urban centers with underground parking. Some even have apartments on top of them so you could live above the store if you desired.

I guess that depends on your definition of "core of Seattle". There's definitely grocery stores in ID, Wallingford, UW area, etc that all don't have underground parking and have outdoor lots taking up a lot of space.

Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

#140

Post by r00fus »

dublinben wrote: post #66
duxup wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, kids busing to school is very common in the US too. I agree about a bus stop. Heck even suburban schools around me are trying to stop everyone from dropping off their kid with their car in person. It's just a hassle / traffic.

That’s the inevitable consequence of the local decisions that have made it dangerous or impossible to walk to school. Many school districts then see an opportunity to save money by charging families to ride the bus. Ergo, massive traffic jams of parents individually driving kids to school.

The logical followup would be to subsequently charge parents to use the pickup areas and lower/subsidize the bussing costs.
Post reply on HN