I am honored to be the first recipient of this “award.” Sometimes my posts ARE sheer lunacy, but that’s often what creates the most discussion. They’re written with the expectation that they will probably be a bit controversial…but if you think I’m insane enough to start going around torching single family houses, keep in mind that I write these posts with a smile on my face.

As for the comment that many may perceive as an attack against the historic preservation community and one of its leaders, it wasn’t intended that way. I’m a member of Historic Tacoma myself.

The thing is that Tacoma has lots of places it can go high density and preserve traditional neighborhood, thus turning the traditional neighborhoods into great neighborhoods. Think along MLK or Tacoma Avenue. Both spots ripe for some high density while preserving craftsman and pseudo-craftsman homes. Some smart mixed use high density could go a long way in taking Tacoma where she needs to go.

I kind of like 2 story structures with retail on the ground floor and residential on the second floor, kind of like they used to do in every town before the 1950’s. Made sense then and it really makes sense now. Three stories wouldn’t be bad either, but maybe more than three would be too dense for the likes of some.

In some of the Hurricane Katrina areas Wal-Mart was considering building Wal-Mart villages to replace the destroyed stores. Wal-Mart villages would be the store on the first floor and residential on maybe three or four stories above. Not sure if one was built but it seemed to be a pretty good idea.

I wonder if this weekly award will hinder, or promote award-winning comments(?). But congratulations, Drizell! Even winning this award began another great discussion above. The thoughts in the opening paragraph are all responses I’ve had to this winners comments at various times. Whether on-blog or not, there have been times where I thought he and I were the only ones who shared the same view on a topic, and other times where I’ve thought he (or perhaps more accurately, his comments) were completely out to lunch. Maybe bordering on inappropriate once or twice. I’ve been meaning to ask him if there’s any situation where he would take the side of preservation, but I haven’t gotten around to it. (Until now.) Correct me if I’m wrong, but he’s probably one who in real-life least resembles the image created by his posts. Perhaps if he wrote with his real name and title he would be able to have so much fun with it. I must say, Drizell has more interest, and fascination with Tacoma than many Tacomans I know. I think he’s got a great career ahead of him, and I think there’s still hope we can steer him in the right direction.
_{I’m just having some fun, too.}

While I agree with Drizell about many many of the issues that plague land developers and their customers ie) ground water tainted, wasted materials, high costs, necessity of owning a car, etc. saying that owning a home is like owning a hummer I feel might be a little extreme. Hummers get like 6 ft to the gallon and owning the “american dream” should not generate a wasteful mentality. Owning the home you live in does not make you a wasteful person neccesarily. However, there are a couple of things to mention. Many parts of Tacoma (and older cities) planned long ago for more dense living quarters. Many parts of hilltop (my neighborhood along MLK M L I etc.), have very small lots (almost row houses, around the turn of the century these were popular). These little community pockets, new businesses, condo conversions are jumping up, foot traffic is increasing, more people leave their cars at home (I do 3 days a week now), I see people walking downtown from the hill, we see people riding the lightrail in droves and Tacoma is being focused on nationally as a Green city because of people like Drizell and their ability to bring global concerns to light with perfectly placed ideas on this website. Thanks Drizell, your words and thoughts are spot on- mostly.