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Goal: Livable Neighborhoods

To strengthen our neighborhoods and communities by creating viable public spaces and promoting the creation and restoration of compact, walkable, safe, mixed-use cities and towns in our region.

Columbia City Park, Bookstore and Library Photos by beesler

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What Is Happening?

A major shift has been taking place with the way neighborhoods are designed. However, the results in our region have not always been appreciated.

Neighborhoods are where concerns about quality-of-life issues take on tangible meaning. People want to live in neighborhoods that are good places to raise families and that support connection and community. They want varied choices of housing, recreation, and shops and services within walking distance and easy access to schools and open space. In short, they want livable neighborhoods.

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The city’s land use patterns and policies can be the catalyst for the development of livable neighborhoods. The goal, here as elsewhere, is more cohesive and compact neighborhoods that ensure safety with the smart application of mixed-use strategies. Sustainable neighborhoods conserve land and are sufficiently dense to support frequent transit service and neighborhood-serving businesses. At the same time, we need different kinds of neighborhoods to meet different people’s needs. Livable neighborhoods have distinct characters that can meet the diverse and unique needs of the region’s rich and varied cultures. A key built environment element in designing livable neighborhoods is the inclusion of neighborhood gathering places and parks and open spaces. Are there places for people to celebrate the life of the community and to connect with others? For children to play? Are these places accessible to everyone in the neighborhood? Community interaction is also affected by a neighborhood’s walkability or the presence of an attractive, pedestrian-oriented public realm with low traffic speed, volume, and congestion. Many Seattle neighborhoods score high on walkability but are poorly connected by transit to other parts of the city.

Status Indicators
Acres of Urban Parks and Open Space --- Urban parks and open space give city dwellers a place to breathe, relax, play, walk their dogs, have picnics, and hold community gatherings. Open spaces provide urban wildlife habitat and drainage for local streams. It would be hard to call a city sustainable if it didn’t have enough open space to meet its citizen’s needs. As a rough guideline, the National Recreation and Park Association recommends a ratio of 10 acres per thousand urban residents of "close to home" park space and a ratio of 15.2 acres per thousand for "Regional Space”. (view data graph) Neighborhood Gathering Places --- The everyday social life of neighborhoods is found in its gathering places. Inclusive spaces where neighbors can play, meet others, organize themselves to work together on projects and activities, shoot the breeze, and watch the world go by, perform the valuable community service of fostering social ties. These gathering places might be built, semi-open or open green spaces. Open gathering spaces include parks, pea patches and waterfronts while built environment gathering places include libraries, community centers, performance auditoriums, theaters and so on. Other favorite focal points of neighborhood life include businesses such as nail parlors and barbershops and our region’s ubiquitous coffee houses. Land Use Mix --- Well-planned communities with a balanced mix of land uses (e.g. retail, office, and residential uses) give residents the option to walk, bike or take transit to nearby attractions. Low density, segregated land uses and disconnected streets are associated with increased auto use, increased obesity and other chronic illness. High residential density by itself has only a weak relationship with walking – the presence of mixed land uses and meaningful trip destinations are more important for encouraging walking. Walkability Index --- People tend to walk more in mixed-use neighborhoods that are well planned. Different destinations, such as parks and neighborhood gathering places, libraries, community centers, and shops and services, interwoven with pedestrian friendly pathways and streets, encourage people to walk more. Walkable neighborhoods can positively affect other issues such as pollution, health and traffic congestion. The Walkability Index considers residential density, the number of street connections, and the mix of homes, stores, parks, and schools in a neighborhood. (view data graph)
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Why Is It Happening?

Our region faces many threats to the future livability of its communities. Rapid population growth, traffic congestion, loss of farmland, open space, and habitat, and a lack of affordable housing all come to mind. But we also have much to boast of – a diversity of cultures, awesome scenery, being close to nature, and a creative citizenry. All of these play out at the neighborhood level.

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Perhaps the biggest challenge to livable neighborhoods is how to accommodate a growing population. At the policy level, the preferred solution is more density and transit-oriented development, with an emphasis on alternative transportation. A growing consensus among developers, environmentalists, and transportation planners recognizes that concentration of growth in urban centers and transit nodes can limit negative effects associated with sprawl, and improve walkability and other quality of life aspects. But in a region where single-family residency dominates it is not always easy to increase density without changing the character of a neighborhood. Changes in land use in a neighborhood can affect housing affordability, just as the price of housing in a neighborhood has much to say about its livability. We need a way for community members to weigh in on land use and built environment decisions and have their needs considered. Currently, Seattle is updating its 38 neighborhood plans with the input of hundreds of folks living in those neighborhoods. At the same time, Seattle, along with most of the other municipalities in our region, imposes strict building codes and zoning laws that provide for little flexibility in how we build our neighborhoods. The result has been a rash of recent housing and commercial developments that add little to neighborhood livability. Increasingly, the region’s municipalities are also taking measures to protect and enhance elements of our natural as essential to livable neighborhoods. For example, Seattle has passed measures to improve the management of the city’s trees and strengthen protections to ensure the health, quality, and overall coverage of Seattle’s tree canopy.

Upstream Indicators
Housing Affordability by City --- Affordable quality housing for everyone is one of our region's biggest challenges. The gap between median incomes and median home prices, for instance, has grown to the point where in many parts of King County less than 2 percent (and often none) of the house sales are at a price that is affordable to low or moderate income households. In consequence, the locations where affordable housing does exist are farther and farther from urban centers, jobs, shops and services. (view data graph) Net Residential Density --- Greater residential density allows for more and better transportation choices, including mass transit, biking, and pedestrian trails. Such density also improves the walkability of neighborhoods and access to services and amenities while decreasing sprawl and the consumption of land. Density depends on both dwelling unit size and household size. (view data graph)
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Why Is It Important?

When we live in an environment that makes it easier for us to connect and share with those around us, we can expect our lives to improve in multiple ways. For example, a well-designed neighborhood contributes to social cohesion by cultivating our connecting to neighbors.

Healthy neighborhoods also encourage us to get out more with consequences for our health. A walkable neighborhood can, for example, impact positively on how fit we are. Getting out more can also affect our sense of safety as we connect more often with our neighbors and feel that we can call on them for help when needed.

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Neighborhoods should be safe, affordable, attractive, and convenient. Good planning can achieve all of these goals, while sprawling communities can only achieve some. Neighborhoods where needed goods and services are close at hand can reduce car trips. And public transit-oriented neighborhoods can help keep the combination of housing and transportation costs affordable.

Downstream Indicators
Neighborhood Social Cohesion --- Social cohesion is a measure of trust. It is the foundation for cooperation and mutually supportive relationships in our communities. In a diverse community, it is the product of nurturing social networks between both socially homogeneous and socially heterogeneous groups. Not all areas of King County enjoy the same degree of social cohesion. (view data graph) Perceived Neighborhood Safety --- A sustainable society requires cooperation and trust at basic levels. Feeling safe and secure at home, work, and in the community is an essential prerequisite for sustaining a high quality of life. Perceived neighborhood safety is important not only to our physical and psychological health, but also to the success of local businesses and the vitality of our communities. (view data graph) Housing AND Transportation Costs as a Percentage of Budget --- Working families (defined as households with incomes between $20,000 and $50,000) face a basic trade-off between saving on housing and paying more for transportation. In order to find more affordable housing, they often have to consider living in suburban or rural areas where car dependency and commuting costs quickly rise. Combined, the costs of housing and transportation, the two largest expenses in most working families’ budgets, account for 57% nationally and 61% in the Seattle area. (1) Nationally, according to 2003 Bureau of Labor Statistics, for every dollar a working family saves on housing, it spends 77 cents more on increased transportation costs. (view data graph) Prevalence of Overweight & Obese Adults --- Inactivity and overeating generally lead people to become overweight. A reliance on calorie-laden fast and processed foods also contribute. Daily schedules do not make time to prepare healthier meals, and portion sizes, in the home and out, have drastically increased. Being overweight or obese increases the risk of many diseases and health conditions including hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, and coronary heart disease. (view data graph) Vehicle Miles Traveled --- Too much time in our cars poses a number of serious problems. There’s congestion which costs residents and businesses in the Central Puget Sound hundreds of millions of dollars annually in lost productivity. Air quality suffers. And there’s climate change. The principal source of Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions is transportation, accounting for 47% of total emissions in 2005. Transportation-related emissions are also projected to be the largest contributor to future emissions growth in the state from 2005 to 2020. (view data graph)
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Additional Resources

Planning the Process: Updating Seattle's Neighborhood Plans
This 2008 report details the findings of a University of Washington Department of Urban Design and Planning design studio aimed at collecting and analyzing data useful to the City of Seattle in updating its neighborhood plans.

NABRS Rainier Beach Full Scorecard
This document presents a snapshot of sustainability in the Rainier Beach neighborhood, developed in 2009 by Sustainable Seattle as part of its Neighbors Acting to Build Resilience and Sustainability (NABRS) program.

NABRS North Green Lake Full Scorecard
This document presents a snapshot of sustainability in the north Green Lake neighborhood, developed in 2009 by Sustainable Seattle as part of its Neighbors Acting to Build Resilience and Sustainability (NABRS) program.

NABRS north Green Lake Mini Scorecard
This is a shorter version of the full north Green Lake scorecard, designed to support the neighborhood's selected action project. Part of Sustainable Seattle's NABRS program.

NABRS Rainier Beach Mini Scorecard
This is a shorter version of the full Rainier Beach scorecard, designed to support the neighborhood's selected action project. Part of Sustainable Seattle's NABRS program.

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