More Condos! Why not?
So I’m learning. . . and unless you want to volunteer to say something more interesting you’ll be forced from time to time to hear about it. This semester I’m taking a class in ‘planning for sustainability’. It’s come to my attention that on average 15% of most metropolitan regions are vacant. So… why does this matter? Well while developers are busy building inefficient, souless tract housing in Puyallup with absolutely no sense of community or neighborhood, on average 15% of Tacoma is vacant and ready for development.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t exactly see vacant land in my neighborhood. However if you look at downtown you start to see a different picture. My professor really, really, likes google earth. Who can blame him when you get images like this?
See all that green area downtown? That’s not an urban park system, it’s vacant land. That’s money spent in the 1950s and 50s on slum clearance. Back when the federal government was in the business of tearing down cities.
So next time someone asks, “Does downtown REALLY need another high end condo?” My new answer is sure! Why not? I’m a big proponent of mixed-income housing, but the voters spoke, and unless the city adopts some kind of inclusionary zoning practices we’ll just have to let the market dictate things for a while. Markets employees hundreds of people to ready to pounce and build things like grocery stores, banks and drug stores. When downtown is ready things will happen. Lets just hope we can have some influence and attract interesting development.
Posted By: James
urban-planning | | Apr 17, 2006
Comments
Hi James—my husband and I moved to Tacoma about 9 months ago. We live in the North Slope Historic District (by accident, but now we love it) and both blog. Now that we are settled, we’ve decided to get busy becoming part of the community. Just wanted to say hi and let you know the Tacoma blogging community is growing!
— ensie Apr 21, 06:12 PM #
Welcome and thanks for stopping by. We live just down the road from you closer to UPS. Its a great neighborhood, we've been talking about doing some sort of summer event as a way to get to know all of the other Tacoma folk online. Head over to the forum and be sure to register.
— James Apr 23, 11:48 AM #
Exactly Mike. The more people the better. If they happen to be rich empty nesters, – who can afford a stainless steel kitchen with marble countertops – that’s great too. We need more people and money downtown, when it starts to really turn around we’ll see so much more opportunity for moderately priced housing.
— James Apr 30, 09:26 PM #
Its kind of funny. People are remarking about all of the codos going up.
What they don’t realize is how far downtown Tacoma still has to go to have a viberant downtown.
Take a walk in Seattle, Vancouver, BC or even Bellingham at night. Then you get to see what a downtown can be like that is functioning well.
— mike May 1, 07:56 PM #
James – We’re not quite ready to abandon ‘souless’ Puyallup quite yet….but my wife grew up in your neighborhood, and we’ve always spent time downtown. We’ve watched the slow re-birth for some time…unfortunately the growth seems to be mostly on the high-end (El Goucho) businesses, given the crazy property values….
— Les May 19, 02:24 PM #
