We've got a question and I've got some answers, so let's talk historical preservation / housing / and why Seattle's problem is a bit unique compared to other cities. https://twitter.com/LuxInvictus_/status/1298799073361686529

The crux of this question boils down to: why aren't we preserving more of the old houses in the city and why is there all this new boxy architecture?

The short version of the story is: we can't afford to keep those houses and the boxes are all we can build. I'll explain more.

One of the unique and defining features of Seattle is that we are isthmus: not an island, not quite a peninsula. We have water on two sides so that limits how the city grows. In addition, more of the area north and south of the city belongs to other towns. So...

...that means that whenever we grow, we have to allow for more housing units to be built within the city if our intentions are for those new Seattleites (whether new living here, new being born here, or new working here) to live within the city limits. That is in addition...

...to providing for the Seattleites that already live here, who go through different life phases which typically require different types of housing. So summing that all up, we allow for more housing (change the zoning) or even just split up houses to make more units.

This was fairly normal until the passage of the Growth Management Act, a fairly unique bill to WA. Adopted in 1990, it set literal, physical boundaries for cities that intended to prevent us from sprawling out. (That's where the word sprawl comes from.) The reason for this...

...is that the state was already recognizing the damages of global warming in addition to the concerns that new housing would result in our precious natural environments and long living forests from being torn down for the sake of new homes. So what did this mean for Seattle?

Well, the city had to come up with a system of preparing for future growth and had to think long term. Their solution?

The Urban Village Strategy.

I'm not going into all the details about this, but basically the strategy focuses development in specific parts of the city, Urban Villages and Downtown, in exchange for preserving the rest of the city. In 1994, this made complete sense. The city was growing very very slowly...

...and by all accounts this was going to create a predictable way for the city to allow for future housing.

This made less sense after the tech boom after the 2008 recession.

The tech boom, though focused on hardware/software/etc, required lots of skilled labor and quickly. What this meant was companies in places like The Bay Area, Austin, and Seattle, were looking to bring in people to work and willing to pay top dollar for them. This...

...has driven the economy and caused a level of growth that the city hasn't seen since the start of the Jet era. In turn, those new jobs bring people who need additional services, which brings more people to the city looking to find their own path to wealth.

In essence...

The tech boom is the major reason why cities have grown so exponentially in the past decade, particularly in the US. What's different from the US as compared to other countries is that we haven't invested over time in our centers (b/c racism) so when we did we needed fast change.

What that looks like in Seattle is whereas a city like Berlin has had six floor apartments for decades, we are just now building them. In addition, there are 100s (and I mean 100s) of rules that regulate what buildings look like in the city, so that is why they all look the same.

But why are we tearing down these homes to build these six story apartments? That's because when faced with this level of growth, the city decided to double down on the Urban Village strategy. They said, "ok instead of 2 stories you can now build 6 and instead of 4 you get 8."

And b/c the areas that the development is occurring happen to be the oldest parts of the city (most of the north end wasn't developed until the mid 1900s) that is why you don't see that many older "historical" homes.

Though I'll also argue many historical homes came...

...from Sears catalogues and Craftsman homes exist in every US city.

If Seattle had taken the approach of not allowing any new apartments to be built, the city would be just as expensive as San Francisco, and WITHOUT rent control. It'd be a nightmare.

So to make a bit of a point, if we want to preserve more of the buildings we already have, we need to allow for more modest increases in housing citywide. That way people can take that single-family home and split it in half or into quarters. That's easy.

I will also push back on the dangers of historic preservation. In essence, what you are preserving, in most cases, is the history of white supremacy and colonialism. "America" is still a fairly new country, and so I hope to see more architecture and design (which inherently...

...is subjective) that speaks to both BIPOC cultures as well as the need for more sustainable design. It's also part of the reason why I became an architect. But we aren't going to get there with design review.

And as my final final point, we won't get a variety of housing designs until we have more diverse creators of housing. That doesn't just include me as an architect, but engineers, clients, and real estate investors.

Also money, b/c I'm not cheap.

/End