Downtown devotees adapt to life with children
The Thornhills lived downtown before they had kids. Once they became parents, they moved to the suburbs, following the prevailing wisdom that that's where families live. But they hated it and moved back to Belltown several years ago.
"When we lived in the suburbs, we had to depend upon our car to do everything," Djaimi Thornhill said. "Then we realized that the amount of time we spent in the car commuting and running errands was eating into the time we could otherwise spend with the children. We all felt stressed out. In our view, the convenience of living downtown actually allows for us to have a better life with our children."
There aren't a lot of families like the Thornhills downtown — in their building, Centennial Tower, they are one of about 10 families with children. And out of the 5,019 or so households in their Belltown neighborhood, according to the 2000 Census, only 145 had children.
That's because a lot of us apparently have bought into the notion that downtown is not a place to raise children — that, instead, raising children requires a large house on a large lot. Because of that, we have spent decades crafting public policies, regulations and capital investments that protect the primacy of the single-family neighborhood. (Actually, calling a single-purpose aggregation of houses a "neighborhood" is a perversion of the term. Real neighborhoods contain a variety of housing types and densities, as well as shops and services. But that is a subject for another day.)
Children as a design priority
There is, in fact, scant evidence that raising children requires lots of land. Indeed, millions of kids have grown up in this country — and elsewhere in the world — healthy and happy without access to a swath of grass that wraps around their home. Some recent research even suggests that American children are obese because of the sedentary lifestyles associated with suburban-development patterns.
As it turns out, downtowns are not inherently inappropriate for children. It is how they are configured and designed that makes the difference.
Other cities in the Pacific Northwest have proved that children can be not only welcome but valued in dense urban settings. Vancouver, B.C., and Portland have spent the past 10 or 15 years taking tangible actions to ensure that families with children can find suitable places to live right in the core of the city. Seattle, as a city, is lagging behind.
Years ago, Vancouver redesigned some of its downtown streets to discourage fast-moving, high-volume through-traffic. Traffic circles and diverters were installed at dozens of intersections, trees were planted and sidewalks were widened. The result is safe, convenient and quiet density that supports a plethora of goods and services, restaurants and entertainment within easy walking distance of housing. Moreover, the City of Vancouver made a number of capital investments to enhance livability for families downtown — building parks, schools, community centers, public swimming pools and branch libraries.
In addition, in the West End, a district zoned for multiple-unit buildings, the Vancouver city Zoning and Development bylaws require "developments suited to families with children" (20 percent of the units in all multiple-dwelling buildings in the district must have two or more bedrooms), and the buildings must include an outdoor play area for children. Similar zoning exists in Concord Pacific, a mega-development of high-rises and public spaces in the Yaletown Edge neighborhood, though Yaletown itself is not zoned for families.
Portland also has attracted families downtown — and not just low-income households, but people who might otherwise have settled into a detached home. The south downtown district and the more recent Pearl District in Portland's city center are conducive to children. On one visit to the Pearl a while back, I watched a clutch of young children happily playing hopscotch on a busy street, with cars and trolleys cruising by a safe distance away.
And, like Vancouver, Portland has built parks aimed at families.
Seattle doesn't get it
The recently opened Jamison Square, occupying a full block, is one example. On warm days, kids cavort through its expansive fountain, which is designed as an urban beach. Cops on bikes have a visible presence, as do people sweeping streets and picking up trash. And like Vancouver, Portland has encouraged developers to build what is called "ground-related" housing: apartments and condominiums with stoops and gardens right on the sidewalk. This very traditional form of urban housing brings with it residents who have a direct stake in the safety, comfort and cleanliness of streets. An added bonus: The streetscape is lush, lively and filled with human touches.
But Seattle cannot seem to master this simple form of urban housing. And, while Seattle has directed high density into downtown — in part to protect single-family neighborhoods — little has been done in the way of dramatically altering the place in ways that would attract and sustain households with children.
For example, the City of Seattle still views four of the seven avenues in Belltown as major arterials, with signals timed to encourage speed and volume. The only significant public open space in the neighborhood is Regrade Park, a quarter-block patch of lawn and concrete that few adults would feel comfortable in, much less children.
Any given evening, at various intersections, groups of rough-looking characters hang out, dealing drugs or carousing. Social-service agencies have been allowed to let their patrons form long queues along sidewalks, blocking walkers and creating a threatening atmosphere, even to adults.
Seattle has had its moments — in the 1970s, when the number of children in the city plummeted, then-Mayor Charles Royer led a "KidsPlace" campaign to persuade families to stay in town. In 1999, Seattle was named the most kid-friendly city in America by Zero Population Growth, based on education, crime, economics and health factors, and the city ranked second in its 2001 kid-friendly report card.
But still, according to the 2000 census, Seattle had the smallest percentage of children of any major U.S. city except San Francisco.
Recent events — including proposed changes to the current plan for downtown — should improve Seattle's family-friendly profile, especially in Belltown. City voters have funded a community center, to include a multi-purpose room; kitchen; and spaces for classes, community meetings and celebrations, for Belltown's First Avenue. The renovation of the Belltown Cottages includes a small green space. And the Seattle Police Department has increased bike patrols in the downtown area.
Checklist of needs
A good start, but not quite enough to earn Belltown a "family-friendly" designation. To do that, Seattle needs to:
• Build a park. What Belltown needs is a big, urban park. There are several blocks in the neighborhood occupied pretty much by asphalt. Take one of them — say, the block bounded by Second and Third, Bell and Wall — and follow a few classic rules of good urban-park design, rules that have been used to successfully create safe and serene public spaces in cities all across the country: Make the park fully visible from at least three adjacent streets. Ring it with trees. Put in a generous amount of open grass. Install a fountain as a centerpiece. Find a food-and-drink vendor to animate and monitor the space. And throw in a whole bunch of moveable, folding chairs. No need for play equipment; kids will use their own imaginations.
• Tame the traffic. Slow down cars on the major streets — Elliott, Western, Second and Fourth — by installing more lights, narrowing the traffic lanes and extending the curblines at intersections to decrease walking distance from curb to curb. (Unlike segments of those streets in the core, in Belltown they have on-street parking all the time, so re-configuring the intersections should not pose a problem to traffic movement.)
• Create a true community center. Include a gymnasium, like virtually all other community centers in the city. Add day care. Maybe a small branch library. Build housing with family-sized apartments in the airspace above it all.
• Civilize the sidewalks. Like clinics, social-service agencies should provide waiting rooms for their clients. But more than that, sidewalks should be designed to make pedestrians feel safe and comfortable. The City's Green Streets program is fine, but we need to see efforts like "Growing Vine Street," which would turn Vine Street into a pedestrian oasis, actually built and not just talked about.
And, while we're at it:
• Put in a school. There is a great model at Seattle Center called, appropriately, The Center School. It's small and well-managed and allows students to take advantage of the diversity of choices around them.
Like the Thornhills do in Belltown.
The Thornhill children — 22-month old Remy and 4-year old Chloe — thrive on the diversity and choices of downtown, their parents say. From their home in the Centennial Tower at Fourth Avenue and Wall Street, the family often walks the few blocks to Seattle Center to participate in its festivals and programs. Chloe has weekly swimming lessons in the building's pool, and the baker on the ground floor hands treats to the children when they drop in. They attend neighbor kids' birthday parties simply by taking an elevator to a well-appointed party room. And they know all the dogs in the neighborhood by name.
Djaimi Thornhill, who stays home with the children, says virtually everything she and her family need is within a 10-minute walk; in fact, her husband, Matthew, often walks to work at the IDX corporate building.
Having a few families like the Thornhills living well right in the middle of the city is certainly heartening, but to attract more, Seattle — and any other Puget Sound-area city hoping to develop a family-friendly downtown — needs to step up to the plate, learn from its Northwestern neighbors and invest both the time and the money to make real, substantial changes.
Mark Hinshaw is director of urban design for LMN Architects. He can be reached at homes@seattletimes.com.