Knute Berger, a regular writer in Seattle’s online e-mag Crosscut (The Tyee of the Evergreen City), has penned a reflection on his city that could as easily be applied to Vancouver.
I complain a lot about how the city has evolved, but despite growth, upheaval and displacement, I am often struck with ways in which Seattle hasn’t changed. Vacant lots have disappeared, housing is more expensive, some parts of the city have been radically over-hauled (South Lake Union, the light-railed portions of Martin Luther King Way), landfills are now parks, downtown sprouts a fungi of ugly high rises. But many parts of the city are stoic in the face of a century of radical transformation.
Berger, who writes as ‘Mossback’, is often irascible (and he’s not a big fan of Vancouver) – but he’s always insightful. We have to get him up here sometime soon.
