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  • Why conventional wisdom on Japan is wrong

    The anniversary of the Fukushima tsunami and nuclear disaster is just the latest unpleasant news from Japan. There's also the recent failure of a huge electronics company, Japan's widening trade deficit and ongoing political paralysis.

    courtesy of popwuping.comSince I spent my 20s living and working in Japan, people often ask me whether the country can rebound amid news like this.

    That premise is wrong. There's plenty of positive change in Japan and reasons to expect better ahead. In many cases we would be lucky to follow their lead.

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  • The nonstop flight I’ve been waiting for

    The air-travel geek in me is titillated to learn that Air France is launching nonstop flights from Paris to Wuhan. When I visited that Chinese city by train in 1994 it was a burning hot, dusty place that seemed completely isolated from the rest of the planet. I knew it as the backward setting for parts of the Cultural Revolution and not much else.

    Air France drops Seattle, adds Wuhan, courtesy of routes-news.comFor years I've thought we'll know that globalization truly has arrived when Wuhan has intercontinental flights. Well, the capital of Hubei Province is one of China's biggest cities and increasingly a magnet for international investment. It was just a matter of time.

    This shows the ongoing transformation of China, of course, and also that cities have to compete for people like never before. When there are nonstop long-distance connections to second-tier cities there's no need to stand around at gatekeeper places like JFK, LHR or HKG.

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  • Are true Londoners extinct?

    This quote in The New York Times Magazine today struck me:

    London in 2012 is in significant flux, much less beholden to sepia-tinged notions of what it used to be and much more a product of its new arrivals.

    London is about one-third foreign born and shows it. What about Seattle and other American cities?

  • Keep an eye on Las Vegas

    Imagine if every city had a Tony Hsieh.

    ImagesThe founder of Zappos.com, the online retailer owned by Amazon.com, is spending $350 million of his own money to transform downtown Las Vegas into a hip urban area filled with entrepreneurs and creative types. Instead of expanding the Zappos headquarters in the suburbs, he's moving its local employees downtown and creating new infrastructure that should lure others to follow.

    The project will transform the city and could pay off both for the company and community. It hits home to me following news that Amazon itself plans to build a new 3 million-square-foot office complex in central Seattle, changing a neighborhood of mostly parking lots and low-slung buildings located between downtown and the South Lake Union neighborhood where the company is already housed in leased space.

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  • Hate to say I said so

    State transportation planners have announced that revenue from tolling of the future tunnel under downtown Seattle is half what they forecast. I expect this is the first of many problems with this flawed project.

    ElemaufusSpending billions of scarce dollars to let cars bypass a major downtown is a 21st century solution to a 1950s problem. Instead of facilitating sprawl we should be looking for ways to spend money more efficiently to strengthen the center city and move people and freight more effectively. 

    At what point will people decide to move away from Seattle rather than pay for this sort of thing?

    During my council campaign last year I argued vocally against the downtown tunnel — a principled stand that cost me the November election. A majority of the citizens who voted for the project in an August referendum did so, I believe, because they were exhausted by the issue and just wanted a solution, any solution. After that vote I predicted — correctly — that there's still lots of work to be done in order to make the project work.

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  • What I learned in Mexico

    If attending a writing conference doesn’t inspire a blog post, nothing will.

    I spent the last several days in Mexico at the San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference and Literary Festival in a charming town about four hours drive north of Mexico City. I was proud to hold the flag for Seattle’s Richard Hugo House, where I serve on the board.

    The conference inspired me to try to write more often and more carefully. It also reminded me that writing is about conveying ideas and standing for something.

    San miguel de allende. writing isn't just for memoirs
    The town of San Miguel made the event unique. Every day, we would walk from our rented house on the hill overlooking the old town to the conference hotel, finding a different route through cobblestone streets just wide enough for one or two cars and hemmed in by tall walls of red, orange or blue clay. The walls hide shops, houses and gardens ranging from dirt and concrete to something that would be aspirational in Santa Fe's Canyon Road neighborhood.

    At the conference hotel a few hundred mostly older folks met for seminars and hobnobbed about writing and publishing, but the real energy was outside.

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  • What makes a great waterfront

    Turning Seattle's underused central waterfront into a civic centerpiece will require political courage to learn from previous missed opportunities.

    seattle central waterfront tidelines and folds, courtesy of land8.netIt could be one of the great urban spaces of the world. I’m thinking along the lines of Union Square in Manhattan, La Rambla in Montevideo, the banks of the Kamo River in Kyoto and the boulevards of Paris. There are many great examples.

    Under the leadership of James Corner Field Operations, the folks who designed New York's High Line, planners have come up with ambitious ideas for when the viaduct freeway finally comes down.

    That's why I'm alarmed when I read short-sighted comments from politicians. “It’s pretty expensive, and I don’t know if it’s what Seattle is looking for,” said Councilman Richard Conlin, co-chair of the council's planning committee, according to the local blog Publicola. “I think we need to start getting realistic about what’s financially possible and more in touch with what Seattle residents are looking for.”

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  • A challenge for a new year

    One lesson I learned in 2011 is that satisfation comes from advocating FOR the kind of future I want to see while still being realistic. Looking ahead at a new year, I refer to Wendell Berry's The Way of Ignorance for some wisdom. Here's a favorite passage:

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  • Making our city a model for sustainability

    Like many Seattleites, I treasure my connection to the outdoors. I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in the south end where I built dams in roadside ditches and looked forward to camping on our lawn each summer. It was more Raymond Carver than Norman MacLean.

    ImagesThough these days it often feels like my subscription to Backpacker magazine is as close as I get to wilderness amid obligations at home and work, I want to ensure that everyone has access to our region’s natural riches.

    I know that being an environmentalist requires more than good intentions. It means working toward bold policy changes. Here are five areas that I campaign on during my run for city council:

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  • Transparency and accountability: Walking the walk

    One thing that always strikes me during conversations with fellow Seattleites is how frustrated people are with government. They don’t feel listened to and they don’t believe that city government lives up the excellence of its citizens. And they don’t trust politicians.

    I know we can do better. In the spirit of transparency, during my campaign I released my answers to questionnaires from various interest groups playing a role in the election. I asked my opponent and other candidates to release their questionnaires so that voters could see how they responded to business, labor and environmental groups that seek to influence the election with endorsements. Endorsements are valuable to voters only if the process is transparent.

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