Tacoma Housing in the New York Times (22. June 2007, 21:18 by Erik) ~ Salishan gets big press
A new article in the New York Times is currently on-line (although the publication date is Sunday, June 24) about Tacoma’s Salishan project.
The article paints a picture of the turnaround of Salishan with good information about funding the project and its results.
We were interested in this quote, however:
“Tacoma does have [a] stigma,” said Beau Towne, a local real estate agent. But, Mr. Towne said, the city is undergoing a renaissance. He cited the expansion of the University of Washington’s local campus; a thriving artists’ colony that is linked to the Museum of Glass; and the proliferation of mixed-use developments along the Foss Waterway downtown.
We would be interested in asking Mr. Towne what artists’ colony is linked to the Museum of Glass. Anyone know more about that? We’re curious.
Definitely interesting reading.
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With photos by Tacoma’s own Duncan James Livingston – very cool!
1 | Posted by morgan | Jun 22, 10:14 PM
Yeah, I didn’t know there are colonies in Tacoma. Now I have something to write a book about.
2 | Posted by kc | Jun 23, 12:16 AM
Given that Mr. Towne is a real estate agent it is no surprise that he would make such a statement. I’m just glad the words “Seattle Area” didn’t appear in the Times article. I guess, however, that Tacoma is no longer “formerly gritty” but back to gritty according to the Times. Maybe it is time we embrace our grittiness since it seem to be Tacoma’s most well known export.
3 | Posted by Crenshaw Sepulveda | Jun 23, 07:55 AM
It is worth noting Mr. Towne only said “Tacoma does have that stigma” — everything else in the paragraph is the New York Times paraphrasing the rest of his statement. So Mr. Towne could have been referring to the many glass blowing studios which have cropped up in recent years and the Grey Lady made it sound a bit more fancy than it really is.
4 | Posted by Brooks | Jun 23, 09:36 AM
I read that after isaacada1 mentioned it – Very interesting article! But yeah, geez, don’t pick apart and take quotes in print to seriously. There’s hardly an article written and edited where the subject wouldn’t be able to say “I didn’t say that,” or “that’s not quite what I meant,” or “out of the whole conversation, they picked that quote.” Colony, schmolony – We’ll never be completely happy, but it was nice exposure of a good thing.
5 | Posted by Broadway resident | Jun 23, 10:15 AM
Oh, Ive been to that colony! You have to get a key to the elevator on the roof of the museum, you know, at the end of “.......‘s bridge of glass”. The elevator will take you to the colony if you press the button that says “slave quarters”.
6 | Posted by daniel blue | Jun 23, 11:48 AM
The article paints a picture of the turnaround of Salishan with good information about funding the project and its results.
Salishan is a great mixed income project and was designed as part of a Hope VI Program by HUD to get away from the failed highly concentrated housing projects like the Winthrop:
In 1992, Congress created the $5 billion HOPE VI program to address the problem of severely distressed public housing…“But research at the time was showing the negative consequences of highly concentrated poverty, especially its effect on school performance. Henry Cisneros, who was Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and had been a big-city mayor, knew from personal experience the negatives of concentrated poverty.”
It is also one of the best designed housing developements and won a design award from the Congress for New Urbanism.
Without a doubt, I love this project. This is now an amazing community and will only get better over time. I’m sure people from all over the nation will be looking at this project very closely, and with good cause. Good work, Tacoma!!
8 | Posted by Crenshaw Sepulveda | Jun 23, 12:38 PM
One of my former students did field research on Salishan and Columbia Villa in PDX some years ago before the teardown; he’s commented on the NYT piece on our department blog here.
Tacoma: Now with 50% less grit!
9 | Posted by UPSPatrick | Jun 23, 02:41 PM
Never a big fan of HOA’s, but coincidentally Jake, just a few hours ago someone was telling me about a drive through that neighborhood, so I mentioned the Times article, and how the change came about. I was told that it seemed a patchwork of nicely-kept places interspersed with places “devolving” back to trashiness and lots of loitering. I hope the neighborhood rights itself.
11 | Posted by Broadway resident | Jun 23, 07:42 PM
I drove through Salishan recently on a Sunday afternoon. It’s like the “Street of Dreams” home show, but way more model homes…
This project brings to mind the town of Ruston experiment. Ruston was basically a hazardous neighborhood, in the fallout zone of a metal refining company smokestack. The refining company is long gone but the neighborhood is still scraping away the smokestack residue. In Ruston, like Salishan also a hazardous neighborhood, the new start approach first involved demolition. This approach, by the way, is also is practiced by military-industrial systems. First you demolish the target, then you build it back up according to your interests. In both Ruston and Salishan, the demolition process also attempts to excavate and haul off all traces of toxic elements. In both Ruston and Salishan you can now see the new home construction and it looks all fresh and new, but still, you know that the neighborhood once had a toxic history.
Ruston will always have arsenic and Salishan will always have “fill in the blank.”
It’s interesting that both of these projects involve residents of vastly different socio-economic levels. However, I doubt that the Salishan project, despite all the public relations machinery, will ever achieve the new urbanism, the brotherhood of man neighborhood, it promotes. For all the hype about a unified classless society, let me ask you this—-Ever seen one?
12 | Posted by Mofo from the Hood | Jun 24, 11:39 PM
I’ve learned wearing a code enforcement hat that people that do not have very much material wealth tend to display items on their front lawns to show off their belongings. Because they don’t have 6-car garages to show off their fleet of Bentleys like the people in Northeast Tacoma, they instead park several cars and toys and dishwashers on their lawns and on the street.
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