Dense city? These maps show just how spread out Seattle actually is

[subterranean]

Originally Posted by Pavlov's Dog

I think Seattle and Vancouver are more similar than Portland and Vancouver. Portland is striving for a medium density built form and all over town 3-5 story buildings are densifying former streetcar line neighborhoods. I don't think there is the same kind of market forces yet that lead to a large number of high rise towers. Portland isn't a high rise city and isn't trying to be a global cosmopolitan city like Vancouver and Seattle. It is competing in a different game and doing well enough at it. Seattle is so constrained geograpically that it will undoubtedly get much denser than Portland. It has a much stronger employment market and property values that will ensure very high density going forward.

Would generally agree with this. However, there's still a high probability I'll live to see the day Portland's city proper population leapfrog's Seattle's due to the former's larger geography. I would also add that despite the geographic constraints of Seattle, the UGB does in fact act a bit like this, albeit more elastic.

[bobbyv]

As someone who lives in Seattle I have been greatly unimpressed by the city's density, outside the core it gets very rural, hard to tell you're in a major metro area when driving around here.

[mSeattle]

^ I can't find the lie.

[mhays]

Agreed. Lots of the city is not dense at all.

The greater Downtown boom continues to go beserk. Today, most of a block fenced off for a two-tower, 40-story apartment with 1,179 units in South Lake Union. On Monday a 500' office tower at 2nd & University will start demo/prep with intent to flow into construction. Today a 13-story lab for Seattle Children's had its ceremonial groundbreaking at Stewart & Terry. Two city blocks of Google offices with a little housing have geared up site prep in the past few days on the south shore of Lake Union. Away from Downtown, the North Satellite at Sea-Tac started a $500 expansion/renovation this week. As weeks go developmentwise, it's a good one. Who knows, maybe a 40-story condo will fence off at 1806 Minor in SLU...got a land use permit two weeks ago, and appears to be moments away from a shoring permit.

[mSeattle]

Yes, some things are happening, but on most plays, the city falters short of its potential. Exhibit A right now is the Yesler Terrace redevelopment, steps from downtown where buildings rise 600'-900'. Thus far, most of the land appears to be headed for this kind of development when it should be two or three times as much.

Yesler Terrace - Inner city low Density

http://news.theregistryps.com/vulcan...errace-15-5mm/

[Ant131531]

Why doesn't Seattle use more brick in their buildings or even new development? Because of the rain? That's something I've noticed.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

Why doesn't Seattle use more brick in their buildings or even new development? Because of the rain?

earthquakes and traditional masonry construction are no es bueno.

[hipster duck]

Suburban Seattle is sprawly, even if the average residential lot size is comparatively smaller than in a place like Atlanta. In the flat expanse south of Tacoma, especially, there's a lot of infill subdivisions surrounded by hobby farms and vacant lots.

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Suburban Seattle is sprawly, even if the average residential lot size is comparatively smaller than in a place like Atlanta. In the flat expanse south of Tacoma, especially, there's a lot of infill subdivisions surrounded by hobby farms and vacant lots.

The small lots of Western suburbs are super important in my opinion. It lends itself nicely to urban infill if we ever get our act together on zoning. Much of the denser parts of LA was developed this way.

[NorthernDancer]

Originally Posted by mhays

On the flip side you have cases like Vancouver where even the iconic park next to the Downtown Peninsula isn't within city limits.

Stanley Park is absolutely within Vancouver city limits. Someone's been lying to you.

[NorthernDancer]

Originally Posted by mhays

That would drive me nuts if I lived in Denver. Portland is similar though not to the same extent, with tens of square miles between Forest Park, various wetlands, and some industrial alongside the river bottoms. Other cities annexed 200 square miles of suburbia including a lot of undeveloped land.

It happens on the neighborhood level too. Some might be pretty dense, but the other half of a census tract might be a park. A big exception is Manhattan, where Central Park is its own tract, so it doesn't reduce the huge density numbers for the surrounding tracts.

On the flip side you have cases like Vancouver where even the iconic park next to the Downtown Peninsula isn't within city limits. And just drawing the city limits close-in means the density figure is a bit higher than it should be. Of course it would still be dense by US standards with another 50 square miles but it would be less so. San Francisco and Miami are similar.

Back to Seattle, we've been adding about 150-200 per square mile per year lately. Since most of it is in 1/7 of the city, it's more like those areas are collectively adding 1,000 per square mile per year on average in the fastest years. (Actually much of our growth has been an increase in roommates, kids living at home, fewer vacancies, etc., which are more evenly spread out.) That won't continue but it's exciting to watch.

Here are Vancouver's city limits. Who in the world told you Stanley Park lies outside of them?

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Van...4d-123.1207375

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Suburban Seattle is sprawly, even if the average residential lot size is comparatively smaller than in a place like Atlanta. In the flat expanse south of Tacoma, especially, there's a lot of infill subdivisions surrounded by hobby farms and vacant lots.

True, although these extreme low density areas like south of Tacoma account for a tiny proportion of the total urban area population, most of whom live in dense suburbs.

Conversely, 5 or 10 condo towers in some Vancouver suburb don't add very much in terms of population density, even if they look nice on the skyline.

The real difference maker is highways, which allow more far flung developments (including offices) and which are much more common in Seattle.

[mhays]

I was thinking of the wrong Vancouver peninsula.

[M II A II R II K]

As jobs grow in downtown Seattle, workers are turning more to transit

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...re-to-transit/

.....

- While the working population in and around downtown increased by 45,000 in the past six years, drive-alone commutes increased by approximately 2,255 morning trips, based on data published Thursday by Commute Seattle, a nonprofit funded by business and transportation agencies. In other words transit, walking, bicycling, carpools and telecommuting soaked up nearly all the growth. Only 30 percent of center-city workers drive alone, meeting Commute Seattle’s goal four years early. Transit use rose from 42 percent in 2010 to 47 percent last year, or 117,000 morning trips.

.....

[mhays]

That's an awesome trend. Driving has reached capacity, to the point of gridlock for outbound commuters. Transit is the only way we can increase capacity. Of course we're playing catch-up on transit too, but some service has been added since 2010 plus things are fuller now.

The surprise is that non-motorized modes didn't grow. The number of people living near workplaces has skyrocketed, but apparently that only kept the numbers proportionately the same.

For the 2018 survey, my guess is non-motorized modes take a much larger percentage of the growth. Both transit and roads are at capacity, and we're not adding much transit except for some additional bus service. In 2019 Link will get more light rail cars which will increase capacity significantly. Actually various construction projects will make all modes tougher in 2018. But a ton of additional housing will have opened.

[emathias]

One thing people don't really consider when talking about density is road size and property frontages.

Ancient cities like Paris and London are dense not because they have highrises, but because their streets are narrow and there is little to no frontage on the lots. It's just a matter of geometry.

If you have 9 square miles in a perfect square, such that it's 3 miles by 3 miles, and there are streets every 1/10th of a mile it adds up. In a lot of American neighborhoods, local streets will be as wide as 65', compared to maybe 25' for side streets in Europe, and sidewalks in the U.S. might be 6' wide vs 3' wide in Europe. If every street in the U.S. is 46' wider than in Europe, and there are 30 EW and 30 NS in a 9 square mile area, that's over 5% of land that's automatically vacant using US design vs. European design. Then if you start adding in 10-20 feet of frontage "front yards" and it's not long before well over 10% of land that Europeans are living on is just left empty for U.S. design standards. And within city limits, most central cities in Europe have residential buildings with 3-5 stories even in less dense areas, where U.S. cities are often 1-2 stories in height even for apartment buildings, and/or have their own dedicated private "park land" instead of simply sharing public parks.

Americans want the amenities of Paris or London, with the quiet privacy of Montclair, New Jersey, or, more to the point, Mercer Island. But even all the money on Mercer Island can't rectify those two diverging wants, let alone your average middle class neighborhood.

[mhays]

Paris in particular also uses entire lots pretty densely. https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8640.../data=!3m1!1e3

Since we're talking about Seattle, my favorite subject... (though going up next to Paris will make us look bad!)

We do townhouses in a denser form than many cities. None of those UK-style front and back gardens or Houston-style two-car garages. A few examples from different neighborhoods follow. Townhouses and multifamily are allowed in about 20% of the city of Seattle, up from maybe 15% when I posted four years ago...maybe half of that is really townhouse country.

https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6195.../data=!3m1!1e3
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5874.../data=!3m1!1e3
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5638.../data=!3m1!1e3
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6742.../data=!3m1!1e3
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6968.../data=!3m1!1e3

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by emathias

One thing people don't really consider when talking about density is road size and property frontages.

Ancient cities like Paris and London are dense not because they have highrises, but because their streets are narrow and there is little to no frontage on the lots. It's just a matter of geometry.

If you have 9 square miles in a perfect square, such that it's 3 miles by 3 miles, and there are streets every 1/10th of a mile it adds up. In a lot of American neighborhoods, local streets will be as wide as 65', compared to maybe 25' for side streets in Europe, and sidewalks in the U.S. might be 6' wide vs 3' wide in Europe. If every street in the U.S. is 46' wider than in Europe, and there are 30 EW and 30 NS in a 9 square mile area, that's over 5% of land that's automatically vacant using US design vs. European design. Then if you start adding in 10-20 feet of frontage "front yards" and it's not long before well over 10% of land that Europeans are living on is just left empty for U.S. design standards. And within city limits, most central cities in Europe have residential buildings with 3-5 stories even in less dense areas, where U.S. cities are often 1-2 stories in height even for apartment buildings, and/or have their own dedicated private "park land" instead of simply sharing public parks.

Americans want the amenities of Paris or London, with the quiet privacy of Montclair, New Jersey, or, more to the point, Mercer Island. But even all the money on Mercer Island can't rectify those two diverging wants, let alone your average middle class neighborhood.

Great post!

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by emathias

One thing people don't really consider when talking about density is road size and property frontages.

Ancient cities like Paris and London are dense not because they have highrises, but because their streets are narrow and there is little to no frontage on the lots. It's just a matter of geometry.

If you have 9 square miles in a perfect square, such that it's 3 miles by 3 miles, and there are streets every 1/10th of a mile it adds up. In a lot of American neighborhoods, local streets will be as wide as 65', compared to maybe 25' for side streets in Europe, and sidewalks in the U.S. might be 6' wide vs 3' wide in Europe. If every street in the U.S. is 46' wider than in Europe, and there are 30 EW and 30 NS in a 9 square mile area, that's over 5% of land that's automatically vacant using US design vs. European design. Then if you start adding in 10-20 feet of frontage "front yards" and it's not long before well over 10% of land that Europeans are living on is just left empty for U.S. design standards. And within city limits, most central cities in Europe have residential buildings with 3-5 stories even in less dense areas, where U.S. cities are often 1-2 stories in height even for apartment buildings, and/or have their own dedicated private "park land" instead of simply sharing public parks.

Americans want the amenities of Paris or London, with the quiet privacy of Montclair, New Jersey, or, more to the point, Mercer Island. But even all the money on Mercer Island can't rectify those two diverging wants, let alone your average middle class neighborhood.

This is how Tokyo and other Japanese cities achieve the densities they do, despite being predominantly SFH and multi-unit housing under 5 floors.

[SFBruin]

If Seattle gets denser, hopefully it does so with TOD.