Sure, that's a pretty picture, but let's face it: Pike/Pine as a corridor sucks. Yeah, there's a lot of lovely buildings and kitschy businesses dotting the length of it, but the streetscape is desperately unbalanced as a multi-modal corridor. Travel along this stretch of the Pike/Pine corridor any Friday...

In his “Why Urbanism?” post, Ben cited research showing cities cause people to voluntarily have fewer children. From a planetary carrying capacity perspective, that may be a good thing. As Ben put it, “the more dense a city center is allowed to become, the lower each person’s emissions become.”...

I'm honored and thrilled to now be part of The Urbanist, a site dedicated to examining urban policy and expand our thinking on public transportation and numerous related subjects. For those of you reading me for the first time, check out my blog of art and bus driving stories at nathanvass.com. Some time...

Housing prices in many cities are on the rise. This trend has been pushing lower income workers out of housing in many cities, including San Francisco. The backlash has captured national attention and even framed talking points here in Seattle. It's good that this problem is getting more attention. Allowing...

We all know Seattle is in the midst of a development renaissance. But just how much development are we experiencing and where? What will that growth look like? And will we still have room for further growth in the future? I set out in search of answers to these...

In a previous post we established a few important points. First, the housing market isn't a solution to be accepted or thrown out but rather a tool we get to design. In many cities, the market is designed very poorly, including in Seattle. The best way to approach how the...

  It has become a common refrain among anyone paying attention to housing costs that the market simply doesn't work. Many legitimate and important concerns motivate this observation, including rising costs, homelessness, displacement and inequity. Often though, the conversation about housing turns to complaints about the failures of the unfettered...

Last week, Michael Andersen at People for Bikes posted new data based on the most recent Census that shows the poorest Americans are twice as likely to bike as the richest: As we can see, bicycling infrastructure is a clear social justice issue - it provides affordable transportation for those...