You've Got a Great Butt, Seattle

Gordon Price then stepped up to the mic and pulled off his sweater with pro-wrestler-like panache to reveal an American flag tie. Despite Seattle's general pinko leanings, the gesture drew great laughter and applause. Price then went on to defuse some of the typical Vancouver-gushing, saying that despite its worldliness and high standard of living, that city was plagued with a sameness, undifferentiation, and mediocrity.

Seattle, he said, had much greater uniqueness of not only neighborhoods but of structures themselves. He specifically singled out several examples of "architecture that takes risk." But beyond large-scale vanity architecture, Price pointed to vernacular and residential structures as well. Part of this richness comes from our use of amazing local materials--street-smart naturalist David Williams would likely agree--many of which came to us from Canada, courtesy of the glaciers.

Later in the exchange, Price pulled out a number of compelling observations. Deriding the physical isolation of Vancouver's major universities, he praised the way that higher ed campuses here blended into the city grid. As much as we love the place, we've always felt that it was unfortunate that Vancouver had no equivalent of the Ave, which despite its reputation we love wholeheartedly.

Furthermore, Price praised Seattle's "more serendipitous relationship" to its waters. You don't often hear a lot of kind words from Seattletonians for how we have managed our waterfronts, yet Price found our diverse mixture of uses, private vs public, commercial versus recreational, tourist versus local, to be an asset. Now that we think about it, he's not far off the mark; we do have a ridiculously wide-range of waterfront users. For all the talk of Stanley Park and the Seawall, Vancouver's relationship to its water is more external. Ours, on the other hand is more internally woven into our daily lives. Think about it: how often must we plan bizarre routes to get across town because we have to go over or around water? Vancouver has no equivalent of the Ballard Locks or the bustle of that saucy little bascule Also, unlike Vancouver, our ferries come right into downtown. They are an easily accessible cheap date or excursion.

The whole of the debate was much less of a debate and more of a conversation, as others have noted, with the two speakers sometimes breaking out of character and defending their own cities. Moderator and local media celeb C.R. Douglas did a good job keep them on track yet permitting enough diversion to keep things interesting. We must say that for the criticisms that we personally, and perhaps collectively as a blog, heap on this waterside shantytown, we really do love the place. The great benefit of the side-switching nature of this debate was that we got to fall in love with our city again through the eyes of an outsider.

But the best observation came early on in the evening. Speaking of the glaciers and rich clays and tills that they scraped off Canada and deposited here, Price mentioned Seattle's fantastic topographic three-dimensionality. This resonated with us because shortly after we moved here from the flatlands, we decided we would take a walk one evening from the U-District to Capitol Hill...up 23rd Ave. We broke open the map and, figuring distances from previous walks, allotted a certain amount of time. Naturally, it took us at least twice as long. Damned non-topographic maps.

So to paraphrase Price, Seattle has "great hills and great butts." We can get behind that (har har). We know what you're thinking, Seattle. You been looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, "Is my butt starting to show my age? No matter how many squats, Pilates, and yoga exercises I do my bottom will eventually loose its youthful look!" Oh noes! Fear not, Seattle. Just take a little walk on any of our fabulous hills and your great butt will never loose its youthful look.

Then enjoy your ice cream and watch the replay of the Great Urban Debate, courtesy of the Seattle Channel.