So my wife and I visited Seattle a couple of weekends ago. It’s one of those cities I’d never had any particular interest in visiting, but I was sure it was one of America’s great cities, and I had the impression that it was quaint, walkable, and historic. I guess maybe it’s one of those things.
Like so many old cities, a freeway runs right through what must have been some of the loveliest and most classically urban blocks, or at least that’s how we’d see them today if they’d survived. The touristy parts of the city, as far as I can tell, are limited to a couple of areas around the market and the Space Needle, separated by the emptied-out, office-heavy downtown. The nightlife and culture is supposed to be in “the neighborhoods,” and while that might be the case, Seattle lacks the sort of unbroken, continuous urban fabric that makes me love a place like Montreal or Philadelphia. (Or Cincinnati, which I just visited for the Strong Towns/Congress for the New Urbanism conferences, and which I’ll be writing about later.)
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