141–150 of 389 posts
I'd like to see more solar covered parking lots. Bonus points for integrated EV charging stations. They would be great in the hotter parts of the country. How much fuel/energy is spent cooling cars back down after they have sat in the sun for an hour?
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Why are those services not available in the north of the city? This is as much a planning issue as traffic is.
I think it has to do with the way the city grew out north and south, with the city itself as a chokepoint (since it is surrounded by water otherwise). Common reasons people need to go from north seattle to south seattle: IKEA, Southcenter, Seatac. I'm sure there are reasons for people to go north as well, but I have a harder time thinking of them (other than that they went south and now have to come back north).
Parks, lots of parks.
The only decent real "spas" I've found are all up north (Again, Shoreline, just outside of the city)
Ballard and Fremont are both big draws.
UW, kind of a biggie.
I'd even go a step further and set a maximum amount of parking in a given area to disincentivize driving. As an extreme example, if a mall is only allowed to have 5 parking spaces then they'll need to design around supporting public transit. So many places in the US are almost impossible to live in without owning a car - you might have bike paths if you're lucky, and in many places there aren't even sidewalks
Shopping centers are a bad example for this, because if you buy stuff, you somehow have to take it home, and carrying a carton of 12 liters of milk, 2 10-packs of toilet paper, a bag of frozen stuff and shower curtain rod, all of that in your hands on a bus, is well.. a pain. Also, at least over here, most shopping centers have underground parking. The "historic city center" and all that crap... that I understand...…
When there's a lot of housing there, people sure do do their weekly shopping downtown - but it's mostly the people who live in the area. I lived in central Philadelphia for 7 years or so and when I needed groceries, I walked to one of the grocery stores in the neighborhood. I mostly wasn't carrying a ton of stuff on the train, but that's because there were shops close enough to walk to instead anyway.
(Though also, you can fit a lot of stuff in a cargo bike.)
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The US is urbanized...if you want it. There are plenty of places where people that enjoy living in urban areas can do so. However, to me, that sounds like an unenjoyable hellscape. Been there, done that. The beauty of the US is that people have choices, and aren't pigeonholed into someone else's idea of "enjoyable".
There really are not plenty of places in the US where you can live a good, urban, non-car-oriented life, and you can tell that is true because the ones which do exist tend to be very expensive, showing that they are in high demand. You clearly do not desire an urban lifestyle, and I won't try to change your mind about that, but those of us who do want urban living generally don't find that our choices are either plen…
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Speaking of brownfield, you may (more likely not) be surprised to know that golf courses are pretty nasty places themselves. You can find soils contaminated with arsenic, mercury, and cadmium from fungicides. So those rolling green links might not be the cheapest places to establish new housing when you include the remediation.
Oof, that's pretty bad. I did not know that. Do you happen to know if forests would help clean that soil? Feels kind of appropriate if you could grow forest on a site for 50 to 100 years or more. Then harvest the wood with all the nasty stuff in it. Then bury all that contaminated wood somewhere deep. Then build houses on the newly clean earth.
Not really sure if trees uptake heavy metals.
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You are located in the north of the city and need to get somewhere south of the city, or vice versa. You only have a few roads to do that east or west of Lake Washington. In most cases, people aren't going to downtown Seattle, downtown Seattle is just in the way.
Why are those services not available in the north of the city? This is as much a planning issue as traffic is.
> I'm sure there are reasons for people to go north as well, but I have a harder time thinking of them (other than that they went south and now have to come back north).
@sean To reach UW, northgate (well it's demolished just ice skating for now lol), ballard and fremont; granted this is a bit optional, uvillage is nice to visit as well.
Also I find it a bit interesting you have a harder time thinking of interesting stuff in north seattle, I am actually sometimes annoyed having to drive north past downtown seattle to reach north seattle. I didn't really think about it but yeah ikea/southcenter are relatively easy for me to reach. :)
@uoaei Anyways regarding planning itself. Seattle is actually actively planning their next community plan, one of the items called out is whether to allow more 'urban villages' which have shops and other amenities.
For malls, Northgate should have been the north seattle mall but it's currently being redeveloped. There's U village but it's a bit high end. The other alternative of Alderwood mall isn't too bad to get to by driving but during peak traffic can be quite slow.
Strong Towns has called a good amount of attention to the mandatory parking requirements in many cities (and shockingly, many downtowns). Thankfully, it seems a fair number of cities are removing such restrictions, but hopefully it becomes more widespread. In general I hope the US can urbanize, the older I get the more I realize it’s not really enjoyable living in this country. I don’t think I want hyper dense, but h…
you don't necessarily need to urbanize. just make things more walkable. Instead of having 1 large library or grocery store the size of a theme park, have 10 smaller ones in walking distance instead.
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The US is urbanized...if you want it. There are plenty of places where people that enjoy living in urban areas can do so. However, to me, that sounds like an unenjoyable hellscape. Been there, done that. The beauty of the US is that people have choices, and aren't pigeonholed into someone else's idea of "enjoyable".
The most common criticism I hear against cities is that they are loud. Cities aren't loud; cars are loud. You experienced a bad compromise of having high density of a city and the high car ownership of suburbia. Like a "stroad," a road that is trying to be a street, it doesn't work. Try to spend a week in a place with walkable density and no cars: Amsterdam, Oslo, or closer to US, Disney Land.
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I think it has to do with the way the city grew out north and south, with the city itself as a chokepoint (since it is surrounded by water otherwise). Common reasons people need to go from north seattle to south seattle: IKEA, Southcenter, Seatac. I'm sure there are reasons for people to go north as well, but I have a harder time thinking of them (other than that they went south and now have to come back north).
There is some really great African food up north just outside the city. :-D Likewise along the northern parts of Aurora you can get some really great Korean food. (Also not strictly in the city limits). Parks, lots of parks. The only decent real "spas" I've found are all up north (Again, Shoreline, just outside of the city) Ballard and Fremont are both big draws. UW, kind of a biggie.
Schools are better in the north, which is why we chose Ballard rather than Beacon Hill. The reason I don't think about North Seattle so much is because I live here, I guess (and getting places isn't so hard if I'm not crossing Seattle).