Category: placemaking

indicators of the sustainability transition, small town style

On By Chuck WolfeIn pedestrianism, placemaking, sustainability, urban views5 Comments

Are America’s small resort towns evidence of a growing sustainability ethic, where, inter alia, autocentric streets are in transition from past to future? Based on selective photography, today’s landscape in Chelan, Washington suggests such a conclusion.

Five days prior to Earth Day, 2010, five indicators emerge, as captioned below:


1. Small town streets, while auto-dominated, interact with a growing pedestrian presence.


2. Businesses are seeking street interaction wherever possible, even while conventional parking schemes remain.


3. The juncture of parks and natural resources enhances town settings.


4. Street and park fairs celebrate Earth Day.


5. Local groups organize around sustainability amid the monikers of conventional infrastructure and transportation.

A review of the Lake Chelan Mirror (April 14 print edition) shows the City Council addressing balanced street uses and potential incentives for sustainability in discussion of the Draft Downtown Master Plan. Simultaneously, the Council is discussing balanced integration of a potential 270 acre mixed use development adjacent to current city limits.

Seattle as medieval city?

On By Chuck WolfeIn infrastructure, placemaking, politics, sustainability, urban administration1 Comment

In the May 2010 Seattle Magazine, Editor-at-Large Knute Berger uses myurbanist (see clue #4) as one piece of evidence that Seattle is heading towards a “new medievalism”. Uh-oh.

where the car is a stranger

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, infill development, pedestrianism, placemaking, sustainability, urban views, vignettes8 Comments

As the future of the automobile is roundly debated amid increasing discussion of pedestrian, bicycle and transit environments, images remind us of the changing nature of the street.

density stories: grace in vertical space

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, infill development, placemaking, urban views7 Comments

Precipitous shore-side venues once reliant on marine commerce show retrofits adapted to the needs of modern housing, transportation and tourism. While such images show the potential of human adaptation, they also suggest the myriad of land use regulatory challenges associated with the prospects of compact development.

So goes the dance of density….

urban greening on a morning walk

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, pedestrianism, placemaking, sustainability, urban views5 Comments

Last month, we illustrated some potential “quick wins” for placemaking, gleaned from a morning walk. Here are some additional, “scaled” lessons learned through observations of an historic urban park network partially restored by neighbors, in cooperation with a big city park department.

Local action supplements big ideas through demonstrable implementation. Seattle’s Madrona Woods story, accessible here, shows us how and why.

1. City woods, then (1909) and now (2010):

2. Stairways along the way, public and private:

3. New pedestrian bridge, restored lake shore:

4. The prize of the daylighted creek: