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

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

#351

Post by kweingar »

battery_glasses wrote: post #281

This underscores how important small businesses are to the health of a city. I live a in less walkable neighborhood on this map - but about a year ago a small (tiny really, ~700sqft) corner store opened up 2 blocks from me. It sells coffee, pastry, simple sandwiches, but also pantry staples (flour, sugar, milk etc.) and has a really good beer and wine selection. I can't do my normal grocery shopping there, but being…

> This underscores how important small businesses are to the health of a city.

In this case it wasn’t the size of the business but rather the size/location of the physical store that mattered.

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

#352

Post by rubidium »

battery_glasses wrote: post #281

This underscores how important small businesses are to the health of a city. I live a in less walkable neighborhood on this map - but about a year ago a small (tiny really, ~700sqft) corner store opened up 2 blocks from me. It sells coffee, pastry, simple sandwiches, but also pantry staples (flour, sugar, milk etc.) and has a really good beer and wine selection. I can't do my normal grocery shopping there, but being…

Would you mind naming the shop and location? I’ve been tossing a similar idea around and would love to contact the owners to learn from them.

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

#353

Post by greesil »

marssaxman wrote: post #317
battery_glasses wrote: post #281

This underscores how important small businesses are to the health of a city. I live a in less walkable neighborhood on this map - but about a year ago a small (tiny really, ~700sqft) corner store opened up 2 blocks from me. It sells coffee, pastry, simple sandwiches, but also pantry staples (flour, sugar, milk etc.) and has a really good beer and wine selection. I can't do my normal grocery shopping there, but being…

This is why Euclidean zoning needs to die.

Manifold zoning is definitely better in principle, but it's hard to compare neighborhoods that are farther apart.

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

#354

Post by bialpio »

bears-n-beets wrote: post #308
bialpio wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) that's not something I would consider a viable walk. Why not? As long as it's truly a 15m walk? The metric should take into account that the speed is going to be reduced when walking on a steep incline, otherwise it's a bad metric...

You might change your mind if you saw how steep Queen Anne Hill is, haha

Is it steeper than Spring St roughly from the waterfront to the library? ; ) In any case, if it's a workout to walk the distance in 15m, then it's not really a 15m walk. I can cover way more ground in 15m if the assumption is that I'll be out of breath when I'm done... :P

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

#355

Post by lotsoweiners »

jdeibele wrote: post #340
mulmen wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington takes privacy and the presumption of innocence seriously. You can read the relevant state law here: https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.63.170 . The cameras can't take pictures of the driver or occupants and court time is accrued when anyone other than the registered owner committed the infraction: (f) Automated traffic safety cameras may only take pictures of the vehicle and vehicle license p…

Oregon has a slightly different approach: the photograph has to show the driver. They then mail a notice to the registered owner. The last I knew, it was possible to say "no, that's not me" without being required to say who it was. You do have to send in a copy of your driver's license so they can (presumably) compare the two photos. https://www.portland.gov/police/divisions/photo-enforcement makes it sound like a bu…

In Az we just crumple the letter up and toss it.

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

#356

Post by WaxProlix »

wenc wrote: post #300
WaxProlix wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are technically correct, the most socially isolating kind of correct. If you can think of a word with different, or fewer connotations I'll gladly swap it in. Mea culpa for the hasty pasting, though.

I appreciate the reply and suggest just stating that it is Chinatown-International District with no additional adjectives other than expensive (or not) like you did with the other neighborhoods listed. I have a connection with the C-ID and it is a neighborhood like any other and is in my opinion one of the more vibrant neighborhoods food-wise in Seattle despite (or due to it?) being working class.

I lived there myself and love it, and wouldn't want to cast aspersions. Fell in love with spicy soups and banh mi. Not all of us were 18 year old college students straight into the 6 figure lifestyle, you know?

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

#357

Post by lotsoweiners »

zw123456 wrote: post #338

When I first started reading this article, I'll admit, the first thought, as a life-long Seattlite, that crossed my mind was, here we go again, some dumbass writes about what it is like to live in Seattle. Goddamit. But when I saw the chart that showed walking distance to a park at the top of the list then I started to realize this one hit the mark. I actually purchased the home that I did because it is one block fro…

I just want a property with a park like atmosphere in the backyard. Pretty jealous after taking my kindergartener to a classmate’s birthday party a few weeks ago.

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

#358

Post by QIYGT »

marssaxman wrote: post #318
2bitencryption wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And my personal favorite: Street traffic is allowed through Pike Place Market. Every weekend I have a grand old time in the market, watching tourists make the worst mistake of their visit, their rental car crawling at 1mph through probably the largest tourist attraction in the PNW.

Street traffic is allowed through Pike Place Market because the vendors want it that way. The Market is an irreplaceable treasure and I think we generally ought to support the preferences of the people who make it work, for fear of "fixing what ain't broke". How much damage can drivers do at 1 MPH, anyway?

Business owners are notoriously terrible at understanding how street usage affects their business. https://www.wired.com/story/the-battle-over-bike-lanes-needs...

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

#359

Post by irrational »

kneebonian wrote: post #322
battery_glasses wrote: post #281

This underscores how important small businesses are to the health of a city. I live a in less walkable neighborhood on this map - but about a year ago a small (tiny really, ~700sqft) corner store opened up 2 blocks from me. It sells coffee, pastry, simple sandwiches, but also pantry staples (flour, sugar, milk etc.) and has a really good beer and wine selection. I can't do my normal grocery shopping there, but being…

Shame we decided to shutter all those down across the country, for an extended period because they were deemed "non-essential", leading to many of them to shutter forever. At the same time massive mega-corps were able to be deemed essential, and allowed to continue to operate, turning record profits. But of course that's just conspiracy theory thinking and only someone who hates grandma would say something like that.

Not everything closed during the past few years because of restrictions. There was a chocolate shop that we loved going to for date night. All the locations closed during the pandemic AFTER they had been reopened for months because the parent company was bought out by a venture capital firm who only wanted the chocolate production part of the business (for selling to high end grocery stores) and didn’t want the retail stores.

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

#360

Post by bombcar »

bialpio wrote: post #303
kenperkins wrote: post #39

Seattle is complex in this regard as the elevation changes between neighborhoods are an additional dimension. If I was living at the base of Lower Queen Anne and the "facilities" meeting the 15m criteria was at the top, that's not something I would consider a viable walk.

> (...) that's not something I would consider a viable walk. Why not? As long as it's truly a 15m walk? The metric should take into account that the speed is going to be reduced when walking on a steep incline, otherwise it's a bad metric...

Half the roads on Queen Anne are just literally staircases.

A 15 min walk down and up stairs in a skyscraper would count but few would want to do it on the regular (and those who did wouldn’t need to worry about leg day).

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