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Feb

2

Fête Update & YIMBY T-shirts

Filed Under Brownbag, Events, Great City, Membership | Leave a Comment

Fête du Flâneur

This just in! Great City is pleased to announce we’ve secured the following silent auction items for our upcoming party, the Fête du Flâneur:

  • Breakfast and fresh, organic eggs with Councilmember Mike O’Brien
  • Rum and Cigars on the Porch with Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith
  • An annual passport to any of Cascade Bicycle Club’s events

We’ve got more silent auction items in the mix, which we’ll be updating as we get closer to the event. Oh, and it’s also going to be a great party!

On Thursday, February 25, Great City presents the Fête du Flâneur, a Fantastic Urban-Themed Party. The Fête, a fundraiser for the organization, will feature a limited-admission private reception with Great City founder and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, City Councilmember Mike O’Brien and Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith. Following the early reception will be a celebration of enlightened, if fanciful, urban living featuring music, open bar, hors d’oeuvres, silent auction, an address by Mayor Mike McGinn, crowning of the Great City–Cascade Land Conservancy Mustache Challenge champion, Flâneur-inspired art, dancing and DIY costumes…

For more event details and to purchase tickets, Click Here!

Brown is the New Black

The blogs are atwitter as fashionistas across the city are buzzing about the “must have item of 2010“ – The Official Great City YIMBY (Yes In My BackYard) t-shirt. With spring around the corner, isn’t it time to trade in that polar fleece pullover you’ve been lugging around? Our handsome, 100% organic cotton t-shirts are appropriate for the gym or the opera or anything in-between!

Here’s a picture of our Program Coordinator, Paul Chasan, sporting his new shirt:

How do you get one? The shirt is available to Great City members at the $100 level and makes the perfect Valentines Day gift for the urbanist you love.

To become a member and order your t-shirt, Click Here!

To become a member and order your t-shirt, Click Here!

Note to existing members:

We know that many of you have been patiently waiting for you shirts to arrive. We’ll be sending them out to you this week If you have any questions about sizes or want to chat logistics, please contact Paul Chasan, paul@greatcity.org.

Upcoming Brownbags

February 11th – FOLKpark / Uptown Loop
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

February 25th – Where’s the Family in Multi-family?
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

March 25th – The Eco-Laboratory: Weber Thompson’s Answer to Urban Agriculture and the 2030 Building Challenge
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

Join Great City

To become a member of Great City, see our website for member levels and methods of payment. We appreciate your support!

Jan

21

Fête du Flâneur

Filed Under Events, Great City | 1 Comment

An Urban(e) Party hosted by Great City

partyInvite

TO PURCHASE TICKETS, CLICK HERE

On Thursday, February 25, Great City presents the Fête du Flâneur, a Fantastic Urban-Themed Party. The Fête, a fundraiser for the organization, will feature a limited-admission private reception with Great City founder and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, City Councilmember Mike O’Brien and Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith. Following the early reception will be a celebration of enlightened, if fanciful, urban living featuring music, open bar, hors d’oeuvres, silent auction, an address by Mayor Mike McGinn, crowning of the Great City-Cascade Land Conservancy Mustache Challenge champion, Flâneur-inspired art, dancing and DIY costumes.

What: Great City’s Fête du Flâneur

When: February 25th, 2010

Where: Melrose Market, 1535 Melrose Ave, Seattle (On Capitol Hill between Pike and Pine Streets just East of the freeway. click for map)

VIP Reception: 6:00 pm – 6:30 pm

  • With Special Guests: Mayor Mike McGinn, Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith and City Council Member Mike O’Brien
  • VIP Tickets: $145.00
  • Includes all drinks

General Admission: 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm

  • Open to the Pulbic
  • General Admission Tickets: $45.00
  • Includes all drinks

Event Details

  • 6:00 – 6:30 pm VIP reception with Great City’s founder, Mayor Mike McGinn and former board members, Deputy Mayor
  • Darryl Smith and Council member Mike O’Brien
  • Silent Auction
  • Inspired art and DIY costumes
  • Performance Art
  • An address by Mayor Mike McGinn
  • Overview of Great City’s 2010 Work Plan
  • Hosted bar and snacks

About the Theme:

The “Fete du Flâneur” takes its inspiration from a mid-19th Century movement in Paris which celebrated walking the city and reveling in the street life. Here in Seattle, we have an opportunity to make our streets engaging and active for walkers, bikers, shoppers, school children, and everyone in between – the flâneur movement has arrived!

Event Sponsors:

Gold ($2,500 and greater)
Jabe Blumenthal, Cascade Bicycle Club, Cascade Land Conservancy, CleanScapes, Dunn + Hobbes LLC, Eagle Rock Ventures LLC, GeoEngineers, GGLO, SvR Design Co., Vulcan, Doug and Maggie Walker

Silver ($1,000)
Charles R. Wolfe, Attorney at Law, The Fearey Group, The Freehold Group, McCullough Hill, ReadWagoner, Jessie Israel, Via Architecture

Bronze ($500)
The Pike Brewing Company, Rainier Plaza LLC

TO PURCHASE TICKETS, CLICK HERE

Dec

10

aLIVe – Call for Ideas

Filed Under Bicycling, Cities, Design, Great City, Public Art, aLIVe | 2 Comments

aliveLogoSmallRevised2

aLIVe – Call for Ideas
Deadline: Monday, January 25, 2010 by 5:00pm
Eligibility: Professional artists and artist teams, architects, landscape architects, designers of all types, engineers, tinkerers and community members residing In Washington, Oregon, California and British Columbia are invited to apply.

4Culture in collaboration with Great City is seeking ideas that will inspire and engage the broader community in a conversation about transportation. Currently, our transportation system is designed around 40 ton trucks, but what if we were to design around the human body instead? A bicycle is a low-impact vehicle. What else can be imagined? Selected project ideas will be funded and exhibited in a variety of ways, depending upon medium and context. This is a great opportunity for people working across disciplines to explore how the arts can enhance existing systems and stimulate public conversations about energy, livability and design. Citizens from all backgrounds are encouraged to submit ideas for everything from poetry to prototypes.

Guidelines and Applicationpdf-icon (small PDF)

To learn more about aLIVe, check out this see:
http://www.greatcity.org/about/alive

and http://www.4culture.org/publicart/calls/default.asp#alive

Dec

8

Great City Updates

Filed Under Brownbag, Great City | Leave a Comment

Good Afternoon Great City Friends,

Here are a few announcements on this frigid Tuesday.


Great City Executive Director Joshua Curtis and Cascade Land Conservancy President Face off in the Mustache Challenge. Details Below!

New Board Members and Board Chair Transition

Great City is pleased to announce the addition of six new board members: Rebecca Deehr, Marshall Foster Jessie Israel, Alison Van Gorp, Diana Vergis Vinh and Chuck Wolfe. Each brings a level of experience, passion, and perspective that fills out our already robust board. Learn more about them (and our current board members) here. We also bid a fond adieu to our board chair of the past 3 years, Darryl Smith. Darryl has been a tireless leader and voice of change within our organization – we’re extremely grateful for all that he has done for us. While he’ll remain on our board, we have a feeling we’ll be seeing less of Darryl, what with his new job and all. In other news, we are very excited that Brice Maryman has stepped up to take over the board chair role. Brice has been a leader within Great City since our founding, is recognized locally and nationally for his civic and professional work on Green Infrastructure (the Muni League recognized Brice this year with their Doug Mason Award for his efforts on Open Space 2100) and has been a leader in Great City since our founding. We look forward to Brice’s continuing vision and leadership in the years to come.

Annual Board Retreat

This past Saturday we held our annual board retreat at Mike and Julie O’Brien’s beautiful Fremont home (thanks, Mike and Julie!). We had a great day, and will be reporting back soon with our 2010 Work Plan and legislative priorities. In the meantime, you can see photos of our board hard at work here.

Brownbag Schedule

We have rescheduled this week’s to next Thursday, December 17th (description below). Due to holiday scheduling, we won’t be holding another brownbag until January, when we will continue our regularly scheduled brownbags on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month.

“Social Sustainability Conference” Overview Brownbag
Thursday, December 17th
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A

Enter through door located about ¼ of the way down the Harbor Steps

Election results showed that Seattle voters care about diversity and social issues, in addition to the environment. Social sustainability is the next frontier of the green movement. Sustainability is everything, not just carbon and climate. Gender, education, race and housing are all areas that impact and are impacted by the environment of our planet and our how we treat our local and global community.

OUT for Sustainability hosted the 1st annual Social Sustainability Conference (Great City was a proud partner) to ask the question, “what is social sustainability?” Panelists from the government, local business and non-profits came together over 5 seminars to discuss how demographic characteristics like gender and age intersect with logistics of daily life, like education and housing.

Seminars included:

  • Gender + Healthcare: Focused on access to services for women and transgender people. Speaker: Carolyn Fuller ND
  • Age + Community: Focused on planning community for an aging urban community. Panelists: Don Moreland, Tom Rasmussen and Jeff Reibman
  • Class + Education: Focused on resource differences in different communities. Speaker: Ken Shulman
  • Orientation + Family: Focused on the non-political side of Domestic Partnership. Panelists: Thomas Pitchford, Cynthia Buhr and David Wing-Kovarik
  • Race/Ethnicity + Housing: Focused the debate between affordability and density. Panelists: Jacque Larrainzar, Heyok Kim and Darryl Smith

Great City is excited to host a brownbag with Gerod Rody, Executive Director of OUT for Sustainability, to discuss the common themes of the conference and to identify avenues that turn awareness into action.

Gerod Rody is the Executive Director of OUT for Sustainability, bringing the LGBTQ community together with social and environmental sustainability. He is also the Marketing and Communications Associate for the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, where he earned his MBA in Sustainable Business focused on Building and Community Economic Development. Gerod earned his BA in European Studies, emphasis on Sweden, at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Upcoming Brownbags

January 14th – Transfer of Development Rights (TDR), Seattle, and King County
GGLO Space at the Steps, 12:00-1:30 pm

January 28th – Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement South Portal and its Impacts on Pioneer Square

Location TBA, 12:00-1:30 pm

Great City Has a New Office Space

We are pleased to announce that Great City has moved into a new office in GGLO. We’re excited to be here, and would like to extend a huge “Thank You” to the staff at GGLO for making us feel at home. As an added bonus, we get to sit next to Alex Steffen and the fantastic worldchanging team.

We would also like to extend a shout out and thank you to The Fearey Group and SVR both of whom have loaned us temporary desk space over the past few months while we searched out our new digs.

Mustache Update

Great City’s Mustache Competition and Membership Drive is heating up! For those of you not in the know, Great City Executive Director Joshua Curtis has challenged Cascade Land Conservancy President Gene Duvernoy to a Mustache Competition as part of our 1st annual Membership Drive.

Joshua has made impressive ground in the past two weeks and the two faced off recently at CLC’s Holiday Open House. While civility was upheld at all times, the tension was thick as Gene sized up his competition. To see photos of the now legendary exchange, truck on over to our Facebook page. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to click that “Become a Fan” button at the top of the page.

Who will ultimately reign supreme? You decide! Great City Members will get to vote on which of the two sports the most macho mustachio. A basic membership starts at $25. A $100 + donation will land you a highly coveted “YIMBY” (Yes In My Back Yard) t-shirt or super-sustainable tote bag!

To become a member, click here.

Nov

16

Next Brownbag, McGinn’s Transition Feedback, and a Hearty Congratulations

Filed Under Elliott Bay Water Taxi, Great City, Helicopter, Puget Ridge, Seen around town | Leave a Comment

Monday Morning News

Good morning, Great City friends. Due to Thanksgiving, Great City is holding its next brownbag this Thursday, November 19. Please join us. Also, stay tuned for a membership drive announcement later this week!

Urban Design Framework for South Lake Union

Thursday, November 19th
12:00 – 1:30 pm
GGLO Space at the Steps
1301 First Ave, Level A
Enter through door located about ¼ of the way down the Harbor Steps

For the past 10 years the City of Seattle, community leaders and property owners have worked together to implement a bold but flexible vision for South Lake Union – transforming it into a center for new life sciences research while enhancing its existing residential and business community, all anchored by Seattle’s new streetcar line. These partnerships have created 9,000 new jobs and 2,000 new housing units since South Lake Union was designated an Urban Center in 2004, while at the same time expanding small business and expanding affordable housing in the neighborhood.

Looking ahead, the City and the community are now developing an Urban Design Framework for South Lake Union – with the goal of establishing a shared vision and implementation strategy to guide the next wave of South Lake Union’s growth. The Urban Design Framework aims to define the key place?making and urban design strategies that will ensure South Lake Union emerges as a livable, dynamic neighborhood – building on the vision in its 2007 Neighborhood Plan, while at the same time seizing new opportunities presented by two-way Mercer, the North Portal project and a rethinking of traffic patterns north of Denny Way.

After months of intensive work, key recommendations have taken shape. Join Marshall Foster and Jim Holmes from the City’s Department of Planning and Development for an overview of the process, key recommendations and ongoing challenges of creating an Urban Design Framework for South Lake Union.

Mike McGinn’s Open Source Transition

Great City’s Executive Director, members of the Great City board and other civic leaders were invited by Mayor-Elect, and founding Great City Executive Director, Mike McGinn to provide some transition advice. We were asked to serve as ambassadors by reaching out to our networks and seeking advice for the incoming administration. Mike himself explains the intent here: http://www.youtube.com/user/McGinnTransition.

As some of the best thinkers on urbanism, land use and sustainability in the city, we wanted to invite all of Great City’s friends to participate. Click on this link and fill in the form: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDVMRWJfbnF3VThQYmVOWnFxcVBkaVE6MA.

The transition team has asked that we have comments to them by Monday, November 23. In order to meet that goal, we ask that you have comments to us by Sunday, November 22 at 6pm. We’ll then synthesize and compile those comments and provide them to the transition team.

This is your first opportunity to help shape the incoming administration. We look forward to sharing what you have to say with the transition team. Let’s push them to build the Great City we all know is possible.

Congratulations Are In Order

Great City would like to formally congratulate Mike McGinn (our founding Executive Director) and Mike O’Brien (founding Board and Executive Committee member) on their new jobs. Great City owes much to each of these visionary leaders and looks forward to working with the new administration and City Council in the years to come.

Great City would also like to issue special congratulations to the organizers of the Housing Levy, No on 1033, and Approve Referendum 71. As we stated in our Great City voters guide, progressive leadership is enabled when we give the government the tools to achieve our common goals of making Seattle a more livable, economically vibrant, and equitable city.

New Emails

As a household item, Great City has switched servers and we have new emails: Joshua Curtis can now be reached at Joshua@GreatCity.org and Paul Chasan can be reached at Paul@GreatCity.org.

Join Great City

To become a member of Great City, click here to see member levels and methods of payment. We appreciate your support!

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