Category Archives: Housing

Residents Protest Lowrise Height Limits

A 2010 change to Seattle’s Lowrise 3 (LR3) zoning designation hasn’t sparked much public interest until now, when the economy has picked up and developers are taking advantage of increased height limits for new multi-family buildings. Residents in neighborhoods with … Continue reading

Posted in Demographics, Government, Housing, Land Use, Policy, Residential | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Parking-Free Development Making Appearances

In the postwar decades of the 20th century American cities stood by their carefully calculated minimum parking requirements, resulting in underutilized land and encouragement of car travel. Planners outside of the largest cities have started to reverse this trend by … Continue reading

Posted in Housing, Land Use, Parking, Transportation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Thinking Outside the (Big) Box

The U.S. is seeing a slow reversal of a half-century of migration to the suburbs, with people more interested in walkable communities closer to the core cities of metropolitan regions. With the Millennial generation also less interested in driving and … Continue reading

Posted in Editorial, Housing, Land Use, Landscape, Mixed Use, Parks, Public Space, Sustainability | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

(re)Building Resilient Communities

As the impacts of climate change become more noticeable around the world, planners and politicians are taking steps to reinforce their cities against natural disasters. Though climate scientists stress that no single weather event can be attributed to climate change, … Continue reading

Posted in Climate, Government, Housing, Land Use, Landscape, Megaprojects, Policy, Residential, Resources, Sustainability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Mixed-Use Project to Increase Urban Vitality in D.C.

For a little break from the Northwest we venture to the nation’s capital in the other Washington, where an exciting urban design project is under construction. On a 10-acre megablock previously home to a convention center, the CityCenterDC project will … Continue reading

Posted in Density, Housing, Land Use, Mixed Use, Parks, Public Space, Sustainability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Planning to Preserve Wilderness

Trees, mountains, streams, and wildlife. These attributes and the recreational opportunities offered by them are why many people choose to live in the Northwest. The abundance of wilderness areas in this region goes back to European colonization being only recent … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Density, Government, Housing, Land Use, Resources, Sustainability, Wilderness | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Survey Affirms Millennials’ Move to Cities

The Millennial generation, which I describe as people born between 1985 and 1995, has long been heralded as a game-changer in urban issues. Apparently we want to drive less, text and share more, and live closer to everything, and extrapolating … Continue reading

Posted in Demographics, Housing, Transportation | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments