Keith Harris on what might be a new-er urbanism emerging in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, something I have been wanting to call “rehabilitation urbanism” as the development industry takes on board a whole host of best-practice planning ideas (green building, mixed use, density, etc.) as part of their avowed ethic. The idea would be for the industry to acknowledge their errors in the past, but to also say we have been rehabilitated, we get it now, you can trust us. “What a great job they are doing in SLU,” everyone says. No need for the public sector, no need for oversight, the development industry has been rehabilitated, they can be left alone to create magic.
In the SLU case, the misbehavior that has not been reformed has been displacement: the original population is almost completely gone, there is almost no affordable housing, and the neighborhood has been pervasively yuppified (e.g. the people’s community center is now a Zumba studio). Stay tuned for what Keith uncovers…
While preparing for my dissertation proposal defense I came across this marketing video that is now a central experience of visiting the South Lake Union Discovery Center. Here are a few cursory thoughts on how I’m going to approach this sort of thing as I progress…
Update: here’s the original video…a much different vibe.
<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/12322891″>Vulcan | SLU</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/soulmoto”>Soulmoto</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
Path to the Possible 