Upzoning

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Yes Dan, these people really do live on another planet.

What boggles my mind sometimes is how some of the people who live in the vast swaths of single-family, auto-oriented Seattle fail to see the benefits of upzoning around their area. There are large tracts of Seattle where one cannot walk to a coffee shop (let alone a grocery store, bank, or dry cleaner). The reason for this is that the density in these areas is supremely low. When we upzone MLK around the stations, suddenly these businesses become viable, and lots of single-family homeowners in the surrounding neighborhoods have all sorts of amenities within walking distance.

The piece about schools is totally puzzling. Southeast Seattle is quick to raise hell when the School Board threatens to close their schools. Wouldn’t more students in the area make school closures less likely?

To be sure, I sympathize generally with the plight of Southeast Seattle. As the least wealthy quadrant of the city, it tends to end up with the short end of the stick far too often. So I can see how this beleagured, constantly-under-assault mentality develops. But, as I noted above with respect to schools, increasing the area’s density is likely to give them more clout, not less.