The Oregonian headline Sunday ran, "Downtown confronts its fears" - this referring of course to downtown Portland - but it raised some wonders. Is downtown that fearful?
The story didn't really seem to back up the idea of deep-seated fear. I've wandered around downtown Portland on a number of occasions, sometimes at night, and never felt particularly fearful, and it didn't seem as if many other people felt very differently. Last week, walking around the perimeter of downtown Seattle, the story was a little different; there were a few spots where I felt less than comfortable. But even there it was limited. Portland? Not so much. (And certainly not in smaller cities like Boise, where you also hear occasional fearful talk about walking around at night.)
That doesn't mean problems don't exist, and Mayor Tom Potter's community crackdown approach seems on a good track for fixing "broken windows" before things do get worse. There have been a few shootings, and some crime; but in the context of a big-city downtown, Portland seems relatively safe.
Downtowns generally seem to have developed a bad reputation for safety in recent years. Without dismissing the very real problems many of them have (and Portland's has some too), a great deal of this seems undeserved.
17.10.05
15.10.05
downtown, in view
This place, I couldn't help but noticing, has gotten really gentrified.
Downtown Seattle a couple of decades ago seemed a place with at least its share of grunge and rough edges. Scattered buildings and blocks had an upscale look to them, but many - even many with overlooks of the Puget Sound - looked low rent, and probably were. How this circumstance managed to maintain for so long is unclear, but for a long time, it did.
Most of my visits over the last decade - and most often when I visited Seattle I would bypass downtown, if only because of the awful parking situation - I was most overcome with the scense with construction. Streets were torn up evertwhere. Buildings were either being built or rebuilt. The place seemed a mess to get around.
Right now, downtown Seattle has ongoing what may be the single largest construction project in its history, the rebuild of the underground bus tunnel. But that is mostly invisible. What you see at ground level is quite different.
I could pay more notice this time in part because I took public transit into downtown, eliminating car worries. The trip from the Tacoma Dome transit hub was painless (and parking at the hub was free). And once in downtown, I was surprised how much of it has been upscaled and gentrified - practically everything outside of Pioneer Square (where a few rough edges remain amid the trendy glitz) and Pike Street Marketplace *which still, blessedly, has that human look to it). Everything in sight looks spiffed and expensive. And, until you wander south of Jackson Street or so, and excepting an incursion around 2nd, no one is likely to feel unsafe.
The Nickels Administration has been promoting a new sense for Seattle's downtown for a while now. Looks like it has matched up with reality.
Downtown Seattle a couple of decades ago seemed a place with at least its share of grunge and rough edges. Scattered buildings and blocks had an upscale look to them, but many - even many with overlooks of the Puget Sound - looked low rent, and probably were. How this circumstance managed to maintain for so long is unclear, but for a long time, it did.
Most of my visits over the last decade - and most often when I visited Seattle I would bypass downtown, if only because of the awful parking situation - I was most overcome with the scense with construction. Streets were torn up evertwhere. Buildings were either being built or rebuilt. The place seemed a mess to get around.
Right now, downtown Seattle has ongoing what may be the single largest construction project in its history, the rebuild of the underground bus tunnel. But that is mostly invisible. What you see at ground level is quite different.
I could pay more notice this time in part because I took public transit into downtown, eliminating car worries. The trip from the Tacoma Dome transit hub was painless (and parking at the hub was free). And once in downtown, I was surprised how much of it has been upscaled and gentrified - practically everything outside of Pioneer Square (where a few rough edges remain amid the trendy glitz) and Pike Street Marketplace *which still, blessedly, has that human look to it). Everything in sight looks spiffed and expensive. And, until you wander south of Jackson Street or so, and excepting an incursion around 2nd, no one is likely to feel unsafe.
The Nickels Administration has been promoting a new sense for Seattle's downtown for a while now. Looks like it has matched up with reality.
12.10.05
system/systems
Note to Seattle public transport officials: Consider merging all your many agencies. You might pick up some travelers that way.Yes, yes, you'll probably save money too, and not just a little. But the other part of it is that by splitting up management of the various bus/train/etc services, you make job of figuring out how to use the system vastly more complicated.
We here in Oregon have an advantage in this regard. If you want to use public transit in the Portland metro area, you check out Tri-Met, the reginal transportation entity, and especially its excellent light rail system MAX. It has one unified set of routes and carriers, and it's simple to figure out.
Headed to Seattle tomorrow, I want to use public transit to make my way around the area - from Tacoma to downtown Seattle. I plan to do that, and after a couple of hours research I think I figured out how to do it. But there was one agency after another to traipse through. Pierce County had one, Snohommish had another, King had - don't get me started on King. And the pieces fit together - how?
Well, apparently, they do fit together, and the system looks comprehensive and useful.
But they could have made it a lot more simple.
11.10.05
Canby convergence
Long-range planning in our house includes the question of how to set up electronics for the long haul. That would seem to involve convergence – meshing the telephone, television, computer, DVD, stereo and so forth into one mega-unit, or maybe a collection of mid-sized pieces linked together. It seems to be the way of the future, and a pretty good way at that.
Making the developments in Canby – pioneering in Oregon, though one of several around the country – worth watching here, and maybe in other houses too.
Telephone service in Canby is provided by the Canby Telephone Association, a long-time farmer coop. The CTA is joining an experiment in cabling television through telephone lines, an idea that seemed impossible just a few years ago but now has become doable, alongside such former impossibles as broadband Internet service.
From the Oregonian: “IPTV enters homes through a regular phone jack and then connects to a computer modem smaller than a shoe box. A small box on top of the TV decodes the signal. The service doesn't require a home computer and doesn't tie up the home phone line and Internet connection. When viewers change channels, a guide appears at the bottom of the screen to tell them what network they're watching and what program is on. If someone calls while the TV is on, the caller's number pops up on the TV screen.
“In a recent demonstration, Canby Telephone's picture generally looked clear and sharp, though fast-moving images occasionally broke up into pixels -- a defect caused by the video compression. Phone line capacity is also too limited to support high-definition TV, but the cooperative said it hopes a new generation of technology will make HDTV possible.”
What’re the odds?
Making the developments in Canby – pioneering in Oregon, though one of several around the country – worth watching here, and maybe in other houses too.
Telephone service in Canby is provided by the Canby Telephone Association, a long-time farmer coop. The CTA is joining an experiment in cabling television through telephone lines, an idea that seemed impossible just a few years ago but now has become doable, alongside such former impossibles as broadband Internet service.
From the Oregonian: “IPTV enters homes through a regular phone jack and then connects to a computer modem smaller than a shoe box. A small box on top of the TV decodes the signal. The service doesn't require a home computer and doesn't tie up the home phone line and Internet connection. When viewers change channels, a guide appears at the bottom of the screen to tell them what network they're watching and what program is on. If someone calls while the TV is on, the caller's number pops up on the TV screen.
“In a recent demonstration, Canby Telephone's picture generally looked clear and sharp, though fast-moving images occasionally broke up into pixels -- a defect caused by the video compression. Phone line capacity is also too limited to support high-definition TV, but the cooperative said it hopes a new generation of technology will make HDTV possible.”
What’re the odds?
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