Mar

22

Spring brings more Seattle sidewalk cafes

Filed Under Great City, Streetfood | Leave a Comment

From Publicola:

There have been five applications—two approved, three pending—for sidewalk cafe permits around the city so far this year, in: Belltown the new Local 360 market where Flying Fish used to be; Capitol Hill Kanape, a cool new crepes spot by the Harvard Exit; downtown the Olive 8 on 8th; Pioneer Square Umbria, the Italian cafe on Occidental; and Ballard the 5 Corner Market.

via Spring Has Sprung, Sidewalks of Seattle Unite | PubliCola – Seattle’s News Elixir.

Mar

9

Seattle: One Taco Closer to Becoming a Real City | Slog

Filed Under Great City, Streetfood | Leave a Comment

It’s hard to talk about street food without referencing Portland, where pedestrians can easily eat every meal—breakfast, lunch, dinner, second dinner, drunk snack, Thanksgiving—on the street, with their fingers, if they so desire. We simply don’t have those kinds of options in Seattle, mostly because of a few poorly written, decades old laws that govern street food—laws that require sidewalk vendors to get written permission from the businesses they vend in front of, and basically limit their wares to popcorn, hot dogs, and coffee (really). But those rules are about to change.

More please.

  • James Callan via Flickr
  • More please.

This month, the DPD will introduce legislation to the Seattle City Council to vastly improve the city laws regulating where and how street vendors—both sidewalk carts and curbside food trucks—are allowed to operate. If passed by the council, the changes would apply to commercial areas of the city only (not residential neighborhoods). “We’re hopeful that we can get a new system in place before good weather sets in,” says Gary Johnson, a street use mastermind with the Department of Planning Development (DPD) who’s helped craft the new legislation.
If passed, the new rules would allow up to two sidewalk cart vendors per city block face (or eight per block), and empower the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) to create curbside food zones where food trucks could park and sell.

…more, via: Seattle: One Taco Closer to Becoming a Real City | Slog.

Mar

8

Edward L. Glaeser: How Seattle Transformed Itself – NYTimes.com

Filed Under Great City, Sustainability | Leave a Comment

Harvard economics professor Edward L. Glaeser was in Seattle recently to talk about his new book “Triumph of the City.” Today, he blogs a bit about his thoughts on our fair city.

How Seattle Transformed Itself

By EDWARD L. GLAESER

Today’s Economist

Seattle has used high-rise construction and good public transportation to support growth and bolster its economy.Stuart Isett for The New York Times Seattle has used high-rise construction and good public transportation to support growth and bolster its economy.

As the 2010 Census rolls out, much of the attention of news organizations is focused on the continuing growth of Texas and Florida, but there is much to be learned from the less extreme, but still significant, population growth in less sunny places, like Seattle.

Seattle is one of the few large cities outside the Sun Belt that is growing more quickly than the country as a whole. The city’s growth reveals the benefits of concentrating smart people in dense cities.

The success of Seattle was hardly foreordained, as it shares much with America’s many declining cities. Like Detroit and St. Louis, Seattle grew as a node of the great transport network, which included canals from Erie to Panama and intercontinental railroads, which enabled Easterners to access the vast wealth of America’s hinterland.

… more: via Edward L. Glaeser: How Seattle Transformed Itself – NYTimes.com.

Dec

6

Eric Liu Presents Seattle’s Civic Secret Sauce

Filed Under Cities, Great City, Great City TV | Leave a Comment

One of those rare instances of a Seattle-ite saying what’s right about Seattle. A nice, inspirational pick me up to start your week.

Dec

4

Next Brown Bag: Vignettes of Provocative Urbanism

Filed Under Great City | 1 Comment

Where: GGLO Space at the Steps, 1301 First Ave., Level A
Date: Thursday, December 9, 2010
Time: 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
Enter through door located about 1/4 of the way down the Harbor Steps (click for map)

Chuck Wolfe, Principal of Charles R. Wolfe, Attorney at Law, will draw from his active law practice and frequent writings on urbanism to present a year-end series of vignettes from around the world, posing universal questions for today’s efforts to remake the way we live and work. From brownfields to hill towns, the history of community planning to today’s transit-oriented development, please join us for a thought-provoking session.

Presenter:
Charles R. Wolfe, M.R.P., J.D. is an attorney in Seattle, where he focuses on land use and environmental law and permitting, including the use of innovative land use regulatory tools and sustainable development techniques on behalf of both the private and public sectors, and the successful redevelopment of infill properties under federal, state and local regulatory regimes. He is an accomplished speaker and author on growth management and innovative zoning, “transit-oriented development”, and brownfield/sustainable development topics, regularly participates in regional and national seminars and serves as a reporter for the national publication, Planning & Environmental Law. He is also an Affiliate Associate Professor in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington, where he teaches land use law and a range of planning and development courses to planners and future design professionals and is a contributor to major research efforts addressing urban center, transit oriented and brownfield redevelopment. Additionally, Chuck serves as Vice Chair, Fund Development for the Urban Land Institute (ULI), Seattle District Council, is a Member of the Boards of Futurewise and Great City, and is a King County Trustee of the Cascade Land Conservancy. He contributes regularly on urban development topics for several publications including seattlepi.com, Crosscut.com and blogs at myurbanist.com.

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