Laura came to Seattle as a musician and a science teacher, and got involved in local politics during the 2015 City Council race as a campaign manager. She discovered significant barriers to getting engaged in government decisions on land use, and found herself jumping headfirst into housing advocacy citywide.

She attributes the Seattle YIMBY movement’s success to Washington’s Growth Management Act, which sets a framework for concentrated growth, and the region’s light rail expansion stimulating conversations about high density development. We also dive into why certain housing messages are effective (for instance, emotions win out over data) and the tension between free market and social justice urbanists.

In 2017 she was elected to Sierra Club’s Washington State Chapter Executive Committee and also serves on the Seattle Group Executive Committee.

She receives half of her income through the generous support of individual patrons. Women urbanists are welcome to join her Facebook group intersectional densinistas (#yimby #yioby #seattle) to discuss the future of growing cities. Follow her on Twitter @YIMBYsea. And catch her keynote speech at the YIMBYtown 2017 conference!

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This article is a cross-post from The Northwest Urbanist.

The post CascadiaCast Episode 7: Laura Bernstein first appeared on The Urbanist.

Of his preferred shift, the nighttime 7, he said, “It’s the lowest seniority route in the entire system…because of the clientele and the parts of town it goes to in Rainier Valley. It’s my favorite route. For the very same reason. I love those people, there’s good people everywhere.”

Born in Los Angeles but largely raised in Seattle, we discuss Nathan’s early fascination with transit and how he came to study photography at the University of Washington. He finds a deep, humanistic link between driving buses and photographing scenes of urban life and people. Nathan prefers film, saying “…film has the ability to do things that are a little more painterly that can offer emotional truths, that the very crisp literal truth of digital cannot quite get to.” He wants to answer the question, “…what does ordinary life feel like this in this corner of the world? Or, how can I capture something that I couldn’t quite get down in words, but maybe I can get with a picture?”

Nathan and I talked further about Seattle’s growth, neighborhood advocacy, and changes in cultural norms: “Once the service industry slash working class folks are priced into having to drive, because they have to live so far away, you’ve really killed something in terms of the economics of the city and how it can function.” He anticipates how University Link will improve his commute and considered how Seattle’s transportation network can evolve further. Nathan is also inspired by his travels to locales as diverse as Italy and South Korea.

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This article is a cross-post from The Northwest Urbanist.

The post CascadiaCast Episode 6: Nathan Vass first appeared on The Urbanist.

I had the exciting opportunity to talk with Cathy Tuttle, Executive Director of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways. We took a fascinating dive into her background as a Seattle parks planner, Planning Commission staffer, and local sustainability advocate. A sabbatical in Sweden and her family’s challenges in bicycling and walking around Seattle inspired her to advocate for safer streets for everyone.

Today, her influence is apparent in the City’s Bicycle Master Plan, greenways and corridor safety projects across the city, and the policy agenda of the Seattle City Council. She also helped lead the city’s adoption of the Vision Zero movement and the voter-approved Move Seattle levy, a ten year, $930 million package that will improve transportation options citywide.

We conclude with advice on how people can begin similar grassroots efforts in other communities:

We can have cities that are inclusive, that really pay attention to the values that families have, that everyday people want to have when they’re walking and biking. And driving! And living lives that are full of dignity on our streets. I mean, you have to keep on building coalitions. You can’t just make it, grassroots are interconnected roots. You can just say ‘it’s my blade of grass’. It’s a field of grass.

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This article is a cross-post from The Northwest Urbanist.

The post CascadiaCast Episode 5: Cathy Tuttle first appeared on The Urbanist.

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Map of Bremerton.

This is a cross-post from The Northwest Urbanist.

The post CascadiaCast Episode 4: Patty Lent first appeared on The Urbanist.

Listen to just the audio or view it with our slideshow on YouTube.

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You can also download the slideshow here (PDF).

My fellow panelists were: Nick Welch, planner at the Seattle Department of Planning and Development; Owen Pickford, Executive Director of The Urbanist; and Josh Feit, founding editor of Publicola. I discussed how planners can start their blogs for the benefit of their own careers and their community. Nick shared local examples of grassroots media benefiting local projects, including the University District upzone and the movement for a light rail station at NE 130th Street. Owen described grassroots media as the bridge between lay people and experts, and why planners should get involved. And Josh discussed the differences between how the mainstream media and grassroots media report on nerdy planning issues.

Thanks to Owen for quickly getting on board with my proposal last year, and to Nick and Josh for joining us with such short notice but continued interest. By sharing our presentation with those who weren’t able to make it to the conference we hope we can develop the conversation on grassroots media and the evolving nature of public participation in city planning.

The post Planning with Grassroots Media first appeared on The Urbanist.

In this episode I sit down with Michael Maddux, a paralegal and Democratic Party leader running for Seattle City Council in District 4. Michael helped spearhead the formation of permanent parks and recreation funding through the voter-approved Seattle Parks District in 2013. And hailing from Eastlake, a neighborhood that has not seen its fair share of public investment over the past two decades, Michael has a vision for a more vibrant and equitable city. His ideas include reforming the land use code to better protect neighborhood character while increasing housing stock, improving how police officers and construction workers are recruited from within the community,  creating a more progressive tax structure, and investing more in schools as the city grows.

Michael closed by referencing the uncertainty around Sound Transit funding, saying, “We don’t need Olympia’s approval to be a great city. When we thrive our whole area thrives.…the last time we had massive, bold investments in the area was the 1960s and 1970s, Forward Thrust. Let’s do it again. Let’s do it for housing, for transit, and parks”.

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This article is a cross-post from The Northwest Urbanist, the personal blog of Scott Bonjukian. He is a graduate student at the University of Washington’s Department of Urban Design and Planning.

The post CascadiaCast Episode 3: Michael Maddux first appeared on The Urbanist.

This week I’m joined by Cory Crocker, an active University District resident who helps head up U District Square. The group is working to secure parks and open space amenities as the neighborhood rapidly grows and faces a population boom with the arrival of a light rail station in only six short years. The U-District has a dearth of open space that the city is trying to address, and Cory is passionate about the option of a large central plaza. He’s also been working on a streetscape project with a new parklet and possible sidewalk cafes. We also discussed the medley of transportation and housing options in the neighborhood and recent trends in the design and management of public space.

I’m still learning as I go and it’s now much more obvious a noisy coffee shop isn’t the best location for recording audio; headphones may improve the listening experience this episode. But as promised, the series is now available on iTunes (search for “CascadiaCast”). You can also subscribe via RSS: http://northwesturbanist.libsyn.com/rss.

Episode 2 | 28 minutes | Download (16.3 MB) or stream below.

The post CascadiaCast Episode 2: Cory Crocker first appeared on The Urbanist.

I’m excited to announce the start of a new podcast series for fellow urbanists in the Pacific Northwest entitled CascadiaCast. I’ll be sitting down with fellow planners, activists, government officials, and other interesting people to discuss the issues that matter to those who aspire for greater and greener cities. The details are still a work in progress and sometimes I’m awkward as hell in person, so bear with me as the series develops with your feedback! I’m also open to suggestions on people you would like to hear from or topics you want covered in depth.

The series kicks off with a great conversation with Ben Schiendelman, a software developer who moonlights as an activist and policy wonk in the realms of transportation and land use. He founded Seattle Subway and cofounded local websites Seattle Transit Blog and The Urbanist. We discussed the future of the Puget Sound, including a vision for highspeed rail and the potential impacts from climate refugees, along with the prevailing political headwinds that are challenging better urban development today. Ben also shared his views on removing height limits, how Sound Transit should expand, and the upcoming Seattle City Council races.

Our discussion went longer then expected, so this first episode is available both in full (via Libsyn) and four parts (via SoundCloud) of about 20 minutes each. Stream or download below. Future episodes will only be about 30 minutes, and the series will soon be available on iTunes.

Full Episode 1 via Libsyn, 81 minutes | Download (46 MB)

Parts 1-4 via SoundCloud, see player below.

Part 1
Ben’s activist background. The culture clash between government and engaging the tech community. The economics of building transit within suburban sprawl. Japan’s example of high speed rail. Measuring urban density.

Part 2
Municipal broadband. Sprawl as a result of people wanting stuff. Mixed use and online retail. Washington’s transportation projects. The reasons why height limits exist.

Part 3
Climate refugees. How zoning pushes people out of the city. Getting the city to fund transit. Getting Sound Transit to do another round of projects in 2016, not 2023. Ballard and West Seattle light rail route alignments.

Part 4
The Big Bertha fiasco. Seattle’s Bridging the Gap levy. Regional infrastructure competitiveness. Council district races. Bus reroutes and a second downtown transit tunnel. Sound Transit’s state and local tax funding.

Music credit: “Central Park Sunday” by Electronic Arts.

The post CascadiaCast Episode 1: Ben Schiendelman first appeared on The Urbanist.