Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/112499
Beyond the Grid Continued from page 31 In San Francisco, an experimental program converts on-street parking spaces to ���parklets��� complete with shrubbery and caf�� tables. Yet there remains something special about Portland���s DIY piazzas: they���re a reminder that every one of us has the power to ���repurpose��� our own city if we want to badly enough. From the Ground Up: Urban Renewal in Action north at the new Ballard Commons Park, across from an elegant new library and civic centre crowned with the rough growth of a living roof. William-Derry���s seven-year-old daughter splashes in an outdoor fountain scattered with man-sized faux seashells. Teenagers roll in and out of sight in the skate bowl. A couple of dishevelled men trade a tall can of beer on a nearby park bench, and a white-haired woman watches over it all from her deck on the fourth floor of a new apartment building. An older version of city living ��� where all kinds of things and people intersect instead of retreating to their own corners of the city ��� is being brought back to life. For a guy raised in suburban sprawl like Williams-Derry, it is a thrilling place to visit. Elsewhere, the city is tearing down its 60-year-old, double-decked Alaskan Way Viaduct and replacing it with a tunnel, allowing downtown to reconnect with the waterfront. A stunning sculpture park now straddles the waterfront railway tracks, attracting new condo residents and bar-hoppers from nearby Belltown for sunsets over Puget Sound; a Continued on page 45 SEATTLE When I ask him for the secret to green-city, livable buildings, the Sightline Institute���s Clark Williams-Derry gives a straight-up answer: ���At its heart, sustainability is about building places that make people happy.��� To prove the point, he tells me to meet him in Ballard, a village on the banks of Seattle���s Lake Washington Ship Canal that was annexed by the city more than a century ago. Until a few years ago, it was a sleepy place. Seattle���s freeway system bypassed it, carrying suburban growth many kilometres north. But Ballard is now a shining example of how a town can be reworked to both save the world and become more fun. I bike there on a Sunday, an easy 20-minute ride north of downtown, and am immediately drawn to the weekly farmers��� market taking over the pavement between the oldbrick facades along Ballard Avenue. The market is a riot of music, oddities and edible bounty ��� locally farmed, of course. One farmer sells 15 kinds of potatoes (Rose Finn apple potato, anyone?). Another promises pork and beef from certifiably happy, pasture-fed animals. Here is a zydeco band. Over there, a hipster kid in a trucker hat, wailing cowboy tunes. Another gentleman sits on a cement stoop using the blade of his handsaw as a violin. The Sunday crowds are dense, but boisterous and cheery; we do not mind bumping into each other. Which is good because Ballard is getting more crowded all the time thanks to Seattle���s plan to reduce its suburban sprawl, and emissions, by giving more people a chance to live in urban neighbourhoods. Mid-rise apartment buildings are already visible as its turnof-the-century storefronts are colonized by the likes of Tractor, a parlour-like concert venue that���s helping turn Ballard into an indie-music pilgrimage site. ���The more people move here, the better this neighbourhood gets,��� says WilliamsDerry when I meet him a couple of blocks WESTWORLD p28-31,36-37,44-45_Cities.indd 37 >> F A L L 2 0 1 2 37 12-08-17 3:40 PM