Progressive Urbanism: Our Vision for Seattle

We are optimistic that Seattle can be a global leader and can provide for the wellbeing of its current and future residents, but only if Seattle fully embraces sound building blocks: dense residential neighborhoods, public transit, well-networked streets, bicycle facilities, pedestrian facilities, great architecture, parks, ecological (green) infrastructure, new technologies, waste reduction, recycling, energy conservation, local food production and consumption, local businesses, new industries, and good-government principles.

Friends of Seattle envisions a city that grows substantially in the next fifty years, yet becomes an even better place to live. Seattle residents and local government act progressively to create a sustainable, healthy, and livable future for all who live here, while respecting our unique cultural, environmental, and architectural assets.

To achieve this future, Seattle can and should aspire to be a city of walkable neighborhoods, more affordable housing, an efficient transit network, a restored natural ecology, and more parks and public gathering spaces, all while taking responsibility for its impact on the environment.

Guiding Principles

• Embrace progress, growth, and development, provided that these forces are properly harnessed to meet the needs and aspirations of the public.
• Preserve and utilize our cultural, environmental, and architectural treasures.
• Make waste reduction, energy conservation, and minimization of global warming-causing emissions central goals of community design.
• Value and promote neighborhoods where people of mixed backgrounds (as defined by income, profession, ethnicity, culture, age, phsyical and mental ability, and other qualities) are able to live together.
• Establish zoning rules that permit enough housing to be developed to accommodate population growth.
• Plan every neighborhood so that any resident can easily walk to great places for work, recreation, commerce, education, civic participation, and other activities essential to daily life.
• Design communities so that the location of buildings and the way they relate to the street encourage pedestrian activity throughout the day.
• Develop great architecture throughout the city.
• Improve the planning and increase the efficiency and coordination of government agencies responsible for public transportation in Seattle and the Puget Sound region.
• Make public transit, not highways, the core transportation infrastructure for managing the region’s growth and development.
• Give every resident many efficient transportation choices for traveling through the city and to other neighborhoods.
• Make it easier to get around by bike, foot, and public transit.
• Link neighborhoods with trails for walking and biking.
• Design parks to balance the citywide needs of recreation, ecological preservation and celebration, and larger public uses such as festivals and concerts.