The root cause of virtually every problem in our world today is Suburbia - enabled by our 20th century car culture. It’s easy to simply blame it all on George W., kick back, and wait for Obama to make it all better. But until we take responsibility and change how we live at the community level, we shouldn’t be pointing our fingers at anyone but ourselves.
Density is the answer. It mitigates the threat of war and global warming by reducing our reliance on the oil-dependent automobile. It lowers our transportation costs, which lowers our overall cost of living. It enables us to eat more healthfully because less sprawl equals more local farmland.
Density also brings communities together and helps address social ills. Suburbia has polarized our society; density will moderate it. In our suburban culture today it’s easy for the haves to ignore the have-nots: homelessness isn’t a problem to a typical suburbanite – it’s merely a once-in-awhile inconvenience. Density offers us the opportunity to change this by bringing us closer to one another.
But density is not as easy as simply building high rises in urban cores. In order to make a community function with density, the built environment must be designed with both humans and the outdoor environment in mind. This is what the term Smart Growth is all about. If we ignore the questions of where and how to accommodate more people living in our urban core, density could actually do more harm than good to our downtown.
The activist and renowned urban critic Jane Jacobs argued that in order for city parks to foster - not hinder – healthy urban communities they must be surrounded by the daily activities of human life – living, working and exchanging goods and services. She argued that expansive urban parks that don’t play a role in these everyday activities denigrate urban cores by fragmenting the organic patterns and conventions of city dwellers, and by providing an unwatched habitat for at-risk members of society to fester uncared for by the greater community.
Heritage Park is a beautiful monument, but it is already enormous. Percival landing is a fabulous esplanade, but functions only as a destination to most – not as a part of the everyday comings and goings of most citizens. By cradling these two public spaces within beautiful structures that support the 24/7 lives of our citizens, we will sew these great parks deeper into the fabric of our downtown, nurturing a sense of safety, function, vibrancy, virtue and civic pride in and around them.
But, alas, a view is at stake - no one is arguing that it isn’t. Here, citizens of Olympia must think deeply and ask themselves: what truly makes the best view for our community?
Is a completely unobstructed view of the water and the mountains really what we want if the foreground of that same view is of blight, or of office space for 9-5ers who drive in from the ‘burbs, or of shady places for the vulnerable members of our society to escape the checks and balances freely offered by a tightly-knit community?
As a life-long Washingtonian, I want a view that confirms that Olympia was chosen by our former state leaders as the Capitol because it is an exemplary city unto itself, not just because it offered a grand perch upon which to set our capitol campus.
As an Olympia resident, I want a view that tells me that our city can adapt to change and live up to its reputation as a progressive, environmentally conscious and globally minded community.
And as a father, I want a view that gives me a sense of hope for the uncertain future that lies ahead.
