Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what the supermarket in Lower Queen Anne looked like when I lived in Seattle.
Out of curiosity, which one: QFC or Safeway?
both
Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
161–170 of 398 posts
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#162Incredible analysis! As a Seattleite I can say the conclusions here are very close to accurate, with the key additional note being that distance is not the only thing that defines walkability. Seattle has some of the most confounding civil engineering I’ve ever seen, and I’ve lived in five cities and visited dozens more. Here are some things that make a pedestrian life near impossible in my neighborhood: - two high-t…
Seattle has so many intersections that are completely bonkers. They’re not only poorly walkable, they also make driving extremely stressful.
Queen Anne has a 7-way stop! The first time I encountered it I was thoroughly stumped. Actually, I'm still stumped years later every time I go through it. At some point, I just commit and hope for the best.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#163The 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…
The IGA in downtown Seattle is a great example of how it should be. It's just a standard store front on the block that goes down a level to a normal sized grocery store. No huge parking, and in fact, I walked past it for years before realizing it was a grocery store.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not American but I really agree with this comment. Each time I do go to America, everything just feels very.. American. Lots of concrete, big vast spaces of industrial, roads that seem far too wide and just overall very, overwhelming and big. Just my personal observations of course.
True in a lot of areas in the USA, but someday when you are in the US explore some of the less populated areas in small to mid-sized towns, far away from the major population areas. Sometimes I think people that grew up in, and live in a big city forget that not everyone in the USA lives like that. There are still a tremendous amount of beautiful places in all 50 states.
I grew up in a rural area of upstate NY with a very low population... but still has the same "overbuilt, overwide, overfast" road problems.
I've lived in a few US cities since then; of them, NYC was the only place that didn't feel built for cars more than humans. But NYC still feels like humans have been pushed "out of the way" in favor of car traffic in many places, especially outside of lower Manhattan.
I currently live in a small New England town that does an OK job at "human" infrastructure because it was originally built for walking and there just aren't enough cars to ruin things for pedestrians. But I would love to hear suggestions of other not-cities in the USA that are walkable, bikeable, and not car-dominated. I've been considering buying a home to combat out-of-control rising rent prices and walkability is a requirement for me, so I love adding new areas to my list.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#165The 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…
> 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. I live in a walkable Seattle neighborhood. Accordingly, the "supermarkets" are not quite the mega-large stores they are in other parts of the city, and t…
>> ...despite living walking distance to 3 grocery stores, I still typically drive a mile away to a larger store because...
A mobile consumer base, people with cars that can travel to potentially hundreds of retail options, is a backbone of American competition. Like cars or not, they empower consumers to defeat local monopolies. The next stage, pickup trucks, then empowers retailers to sell large products (appliances) to an enormous consumer base from a central location without dealing with transport companies and/or teamsters for local delivery.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#166Do 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
To be perfectly honest, although it's technically possible to go car-free here, it can be more trouble than it's worth. You'll be able to get to the essentials easily enough, but there are a long tail of places that you may want to get to which are only bus-accessible if you transfer- and that can add a ton of time to your trip.
It's more realistic to think of Seattle as a city where you can be "car-light": it's entirely possible to go without driving during the week, assuming you commute by bus and have a small supermarket nearby to pick up dinner/essentials. Then, on the weekend, a vehicle can be super useful to fill in the gaps, whether that's going to the larger supermarket for bulkier goods, getting out of the city into nature, or going over to a distant neighborhood to check it out.
Part of this is because of the city's geography- I might not mind (for instance) living in West Seattle and commuting by bus to downtown, but if I'm trying to go visit the Woodland Park Zoo up, I'd probably want to drive there because it would be a considerably longer trip involving a transfer in Downtown.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has any city been able to do that? With the current hands-off punishment of theft, stores have multiple incentives working against them to open in low income neighborhoods.
Retail theft as a new/major issue is mostly a lie, told by corporations and parroted by the media who love a crimewave story, even if its fabricated. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shopli...
If you google the New Yorker and Atlantic articles on shoplifting issues in the US, you get a slightly more nuanced take combining them all.
What I take away is that retail theft 1) is technically on the rise, mostly due to the ability to then sell those goods online, including on Amazon 2) It doesn't impact major retail chains by much, basically they do what they've always done and just adjust prices. It actually helps amazon on some other online sellers. BUT 3) it definitely contributes to how shitty it is to actually work retail 4) AND it will influence where places like Walgreens set up shop (I'm neutral on this, I would rather have a bunch of local corner stores than walgreens)
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Bussing in the USA was a civil rights innovation to integrate schools. At the time neighborhoods were still racially segregated, so neighborhood schools were overwhelmingly the race of whatever the local neighborhood was. The only way to have integrated schools was to send many kids to a school in a different neighborhood, hence bussing.
That’s distinct from just having school buses. Most school bus service does not exist to desegregate school districts.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#169The 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…
Many of the supermarkets in the urban areas of Seattle have no surface-level parking lots and some have no parking lots at all. They are mixed in with all the other store fronts.
Re: Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Living in ID is not a choice, but a necessity when other options fail.
Until it gets gentrified like previous neighborhoods. Other neighborhoods missing: Fremont Wallingford Georgetown Columbia City Rainer Beach Northgate W. Seattle Queen Anne Belltown Magnolia S. Seattle Ravenna Beacon Hill South Park Leschi Madison Park Northlake Greenwood And a bunch more places that non-transplants know about...
I'm familiar with all of these neighborhoods as a < 5 year transplant, and several are not particularly walkable neighborhoods, certainly not by the definition proposed in the article. This is an odd thing to gatekeep on.