By Erica C. Barnett
On Seattle Nice this week, we discussed Mayor Bruce Harrell’s “Downtown Activation Plan,” which proponents called a “roaring success” at a press event last week. Even by the metrics the city is using to gauge progress, though, the report card is mixed. Although Mayor Bruce Harrell credited the year-old plan for visible changes downtown over the past year, including new businesses filling storefronts, new residents, and more office workers and visitors in the area, the direct link between downtown recovery and the 46-point DAP is unclear.
Much of the plan consisted of low-hanging fruit (more murals and art in vacant storefronts in Pioneer Square; ) or projects that were already underway, such as the renewal of the Downtown Seattle Association’s longstanding Metropolitan Improvement District, or the continuation of police crackdowns on drug dealers and efforts to address gun violence citywide. Other action items are vague, like “support community-driven activations and cultural celebrations Downtown.” This makes it hard to tell what it means, if anything, to say that “93 percent of DAP initiatives are completed or in progress,” as the city boasted last week.
Additionally, Harrell’s list of “real, positive changes” include items that weren’t even part of the DAP plan, like the expansion of the CARE Team of non-police first responders, encampment removals by the (unrelated) Unified Care Team, and the number of major events at the stadiums.
Ultimately, Sandeep and I both agreed, the “state of downtown Seattle” comes down to vibes—regardless of the numbers, does downtown feel (to lightly paraphrase the mayor) “revitalized and transformed”? Obviously, the answer depends on which part of town; when; and what you mean by revitalization and transformation—but we agreed that downtown, in general, is feeling livelier than a year ago.
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Leaving aside the second goal (which, broadly speaking, Sandeep and I share), there’s still a live debate about whether forcing people who currently work from home to return to their cubicles in downtown Seattle should be the primary basis for downtown “recovery.” For Harrell, a “revitalized” downtown is one where the number of office workers during the day is roughly the same as it was before the pandemic, among other measures. I think a thriving downtown needs to have a diverse economy that doesn’t roll up the carpets at 5pm, and where businesses aren’t a monoculture of lunch spots for office workers.
Not to get too existential, but one of the key lessons of the pandemic, for workers, was that life is much more than work. For many, working from home instead of commuting provided hours of extra time to spend however they want, and offered an environment with fewer distractions where they could be more productive.
This isn’t true for everyone—Sandeep says he’s one of those people who couldn’t wait to get back to his office—but forcing everyone into a single mode of work feels untenable, if not cruel, to those who benefited from working from home. (Additionally, many workers now perceive that the hours they spend driving or taking the bus to work each day are actually unpaid labor.) In my view, this self-sortingis actually good for both workers and daytime businesses in neighborhoods outside downtown—which isn’t the only neighborhood in Seattle that matters, after all.
Listen to our surprisingly civilized (!) debate on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
