When I read this, I see the people of Seattle giving up public land in a park to make up for the enclosure of so much land in private parks (yards).
If you magically doubled the density of Seattle and freed up that much land currently under and around single family homes Wall Street’s new favorite commodity, imagine the amount of park land and public space we would have…and still only one-third the density of Paris. The City of Light houses 2.2 million people — three times as many — in one half the area…and there are public spaces, parks, railways, trams and bus lines, as well as ample and safe space to cycle.
I wonder if people are really as opposed to publicly visible encampments as they claim to be. Maybe people get a frisson of satisfaction as they glide past a tent encampment under a freeway bridge. After all, you can’t have winners if there are no losers.
I note this story on the declaration of a “homelessness emergency” with a pledge to end it in 10 years — in 2015. 6.5 years later, I’m not sure there is an emergent solution. But then I didn’t expect one. As was pointed out in the local paper two years later, Seattle had no idea how to manage its good fortune.
When the vacant land we already have is developed into much needing housing and commercial space (there are parts of Seattle that are close to being labeled “food deserts”), rather than carving up public parks, maybe we can take some of this seriously. Any parcel of land that has been idle for years — not even turned into pay parking — should just be reclaimed under eminent domain, taxed or fined as an eyesore, whatever it takes to get it developed, rather than sacrifice public spaces. But under the current city leadership, our glad-handing mayor and complacent council president, I don’t expect much to happen.