The Urbanist

In this podcast, managing editor Natalie Argerious and I talk summer vacation and the best ways to carry urbanism with you in your travels. We talk summer reading and favorite short trips from Seattle. Natalie also interrogates my younger child Gillian to find out how many of my vacation stories are actually true.

But the name of the game in urbanist style travel is awareness. Is the way we're traveling actually the best way to get around? Can shifting just a little make the places we visit a bit more walkable? And have we kept in mind the many generations of people that came before our current visit? For that last one, here is a great resource called Native-Land.cato find the indigenous tribe whose land you're standing on. And check out some links below to the fun stuff we talk about, including Natalie's review of the Empire Builder, a visit to every Vancouver Sky Train station, and reviews of all the breweries in southwest British Columbia. Some ideas if that travel bug starts nibbling.

This is also the finale for the first season of The Urbanist Podcast. We deeply appreciate you listening as we've worked out a few of the kinks. There are some hilarious stories about the trial and (many) errors we've gone through these last few months. Those will be shared sometime, and we look forward to joining you again for a couple miniseries over the summer and coming back again full steam in the fall.

Of course, we want to know your thoughts, opinions, and summer vacation stories. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org. As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. 

And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners. 

Founder of Larch Lab, a design studio and think tank devoted to climate adaptive architecture and urbanism, Mike Eliason holds a wealth of knowledge about how to create buildings that make for denser, more sustainable, more livable cities. In this episode, he uses the same simple language he uses to demystify architecture in his articles for The Urbanist and other publications like Crosscut and Treehugger, to give reporter Ray Dubicki and I a crash course in architectural terms like passivhaus design (not just for houses!), mass timber, single loaded corridors, and more. 

Each of architectural terms discussed in the episode holds a key for designing better cities, and Mike also shares insights how Seattle and other cities could be doing more to unlock their potential. You will definitely walk away from this episode with a larger vocabulary and a bigger appreciation for all the wonderful things architecture can achieve.

Have a question about new information you learned in the episode? Or maybe you want to share an architectural or design concept that you believe would have a positive impact on our cities? Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org. As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. 

And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners. 

Natalie Argerious and Ray Dubicki talk about the 2021-2022 public school year. The kids have a lot of catching up to do. The teachers are trying their best and providing them with social and emotional education that we never got. But is the District actually being helpful? That may not be a passing grade. And there are broader trends that are showing Seattle schools will be losing population in the years to come. Is it time to rethink long summer breaks or where we put new schools?

Of course, we want to know your thoughts, opinions, and experiences about the school year. Do you want to see year round schools in Seattle, or are the long summers just fine? Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org. As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. 

In this episode, reporter Ray Dubicki and I talk transit and mobility. Specifically we take on the thorny question of whether or not transit rider use has recovered from pandemic lows. While it's clear that transit ridership is higher than it was back when we many of us were flattening the curve of Covid infections by staying home and social distancing, societal changes resulting from the pandemic continue to significantly impact transit ridership. 

The truth is transit never left -- some of us just had the choice of whether or not we wanted to use it to get around. Even at the height of the pandemic, transit offered a lifeline for many people.

But while King County Metro recently released some encouraging ridership numbers, the picture gets less rosy other agencies are taken into consideration, both regional and national. Plus, as transit advocates, both of us want to see transit use not only recover to pre-pandemic ridership levels, but actually increase beyond them. Thus the idea that some agencies might be still be suffering from blows dealt by the pandemic is distressing, to say the least.

In our discussion, Ray and I share our personal experiences about how we get around changed during the pandemic. We also zoom out to the future. What can agencies do to attract riders -- both returning and new? How can we build a system that's more resilient to the challenges that will inevitably arise moving forward? There's so much tackle in response to this topic.

During this episode, I reference some information from Stephen Fesler's latest edition of Transpo Notes published by The Urbanist. If you are not yet a reader of Transpo Notes, I highly recommend you become one. It's a great way to keep on top of our most important regional transportation news. 

Of course,  we want to know your thoughts, opinions, and experiences related to transit use. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org. As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. 

And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a "like" or "thumbs up" on your favorite platform. It's a great way to spread the word to new listeners. 

 In this podcast, reporter Ray Dubicki and I dive into the Harrell administration's new homelessness data tracker. We assess how well it is fulfilling its purported role of increasing communication and transparency around this pressing and difficult issue with the public and discuss some of the context around it's creation and whether it is really is the beginning of Seattle's first real strategic plan for addressing homelessness. 

Homelessness has proven to be a tragic, and seemingly intractable, problem in Seattle in recent years. The issue was front and center during the most recent mayoral and city council elections, in which candidates, including now Mayor Bruce Harrell, pledged to take action to address the problem and bring more people into shelter. This week Seattle is now seeing the first tangible new contribution from the Harrell administration aimed at confronting homelessness: a data dashboard that Harrell promises is the beginning of Seattle's "first strategy" to reduce the number of people living unsheltered, in tents, or in vehicles, on the city's streets. 

At a press conference to unveil the homelessness data dashboard held on the steps of Dockside, a future site of housing for people exiting homelessness and lower-income workers in Greenlake, Harrell described the incredulity he felt after departing a 12 year tenure on the City Council to "watch from the sidelines for two years" as the City failed to take action to address homelessness. "I asked, what is the plan? What is the strategic approach? It was clear a database approach was needed," Harrell said. 

 "When I came into office in 2022, there was no strategic plan," Harrell reaffirmed in his remarks, which also referenced how his prior career in the private sector had influenced his determination that increased data-tracking, measurement, and also transparency, would be needed to make gains in the homelessness crisis. 

Harrell is not the first to call for increased measurement and accountability around how well efforts in addressing homelessness are performing. In tech-savvy Seattle, data is often presented as the key for unlocking the doors to progress. But we also all know that data has its limitations; it can be misrepresented or even manipulated. And when it comes to assessing an issue as complex as homelessness, data may paint an incomplete picture, failing to capture certain realities that lay at the core of the problem. 

 There is also the question of money. How much change can the Seattle public expect from a system that tracks and measures certain data points related to homelessness, but at least at this point, is not connected to bringing new funding or resources to the table? 

 Want to share your experiences with understanding Seattle's new homelessness data dashboard? Or share your thoughts, ideas, and experiences related to addressing homelessness in Seattle or elsewhere?  Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org. As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. 

Natalie Argerious and Ray Dubicki open this week's podcast talking about how much the shiny app icons on your phone are deceptive. The apps talk a good game about disrupting an industry and end up leaving a mark on our streets. In the second half, we talk about PayUp Legislation, Seattle's attempt to quantify how much it takes to pay app workers a minimum wage.

Want to share your experiences ordering from an app or working in the on-demand or marketplace areas? Reach out to us at [email protected].  

In this episode, I call in from Nantes, France, to chat with reporter Ray Dubicki about my current trip to Europe. We discuss all kinds of urbanist topics like multimodal transportation, public spaces, how all cities, even walkable European ones, come head to head with bad planning decisions, and of course, bidet culture. Well, that last one is not necessarily an urbanist topic, but it was fun to talk about anyway!

Want to share your travel adventures or insights you learned about cities, culture, and more while out exploring the world? Reach out to us at [email protected]. 

The Ballard Bridge is a 105 year old connection between the industrial Interbay neighborhood and thriving Ballard. With four lanes of moving traffic and completely insufficient sidewalks, it is a barrier to pedestrians. Seattle has plans to replace the bridge, but the proposals focus on car speed rather than neighborhoods.

In this episode, Natalie Argerious and Ray Dubicki walk the bridge. The trip has many of the normal highlights of crossing the Ship Canal including squishing against the wall to allow cyclists to pass by, delays due to an opening of the drawbridge, and trying to figure out the tangle of stairs and paths to get to the bus stop.

As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on ITunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. Want to share a question or opinion with us? Reach out to us at [email protected].

You've probably heard of the term YIMBY (aka. yes in my backyard), but do you know what differentiates the YIMBY movement in Washington State versus elsewhere in the country? 

In this podcast episode, I spoke with reporter Ryan Packer, who traveled to Portland, OR, to moderate a panel discussion at the 2022 YIMBYtown conference and learned a lot how this lively group of pro-housing organizers is seeking to increase housing supply in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Ryan also shared their particular perspective as a transportation advocate of how housing and transportation intersect.

As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on ITunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. Want to share a question or opinion with us? Reach out to us at [email protected].

Natalie Argerious and Ray Dubicki talk about why Walt Disney was a pesky kind of utopian, creating expansive visions of walkable traditional cities and then building them off highway exits in California and Florida. We go through some of Walt's actual vision, the influences he drew from shopping malls, and how Disneyland ideas have broken the cities we come back to. Malls and amusement parks might feel safe, but it might be an illusion that clouds our judgment of real places.

Also, did I mention that Rise of the Resistance was THE BEST.