Now that Mayor Ed Murray has shifted Housing and Livability Agenda (HALA) priorities away from changes to single-family zones and back toward Seattle’s traditional focus on density and urban village or urban centers, it strikes me, based on 30 years of experience, that the real work has barely begun.

Writing now from a world of detached simplicity, while on vacation—far away from my hometown’s bombastic debate—I am benefiting from the gestalt of reflection. Suddenly, I remember simpler, yet similar times 25 years ago, and have some cautionary tales to tell about human nature amid the specter of change.

Click here for the rest of today’s essay in Seattle’s Crosscut.

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