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Progressive Urbanism:
Our Vision for Seattle

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.

Principles

Our principles are inspired in part by the New Urbanism movement and the Ahwahnee Principles for Resource Efficient Communities.

• 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 are able to live together, as defined by income, profession, ethnicity, culture, age, and other qualities.
• 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 points in the region.
• Make it easier to get around by bike, foot, and public transit.
• Link neighborhoods with trails for walking and biking.
• Develop enough parks so that any resident can easily walk to a park or public gathering space.
• Design parks to balance the citywide needs of recreation, ecological preservation and celebration, and larger public uses such as festivals and concerts.