Skid Road: The intersection of health and homelessness
After years of caring for the homeless in the streets and dilapidated motels of Richmond, Virginia, nurse Josephine Ensign became homeless herself.
Many of her patients were prostitutes—some as young as 15—and her conscience no longer allowed her to adhere to her clinic’s policies. Though she was Christian, she was fired for referring many of these women for abortions, for not making AIDS patients “account for their sins” before they died, and “no longer being a Christian woman with a humble and teachable spirit.”
Ensign, now a professor in UW’s School of Nursing and adjunct professor in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, recounts her work with homelessness, her “Skid Road” project, and the importance of the field of humanities in addressing this complex challenge. Ensign is also the co-PI of the Doorway Project.
Read more at Humanities Washington
Originally published by Kate Little in Humanities Washington
Frances McCue meditates on changing city in new poem collection ‘Timber Curtain’
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“This is Seattle. A place to love whatever’s left,” writes UW faculty member Frances McCue in her new book of poetry, “Timber Curtain.” “(W)here new things are coming, shinier than the last / I’m the bust standing in the boom / the poet in the technology world / spread along the timber bottom” — from the poem “Along With the Dead Poet Richard Hugo.”
McCue, a well-known area poet, teacher and self-dubbed “arts instigator,” is a senior lecturer in the UW Department of English. She was a co-founder of Richard Hugo House, at 1634 11th Ave. in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, and served as its director from 1996 to 2006. The original Hugo House — a place for writers — was demolished in 2016; it now has a new temporary home at 1021 Columbia St. while the venue awaits new digs.
Continue reading at UWToday
Originally posted on UWToday by Peter Kelley
Homeless artists showcase work at UW
Wikimedia commons: ARUP LODH World of Art: GNU Free documentation
One way to humanize the homeless is through art. “Telling our stories: art and home(lessness)” is a show Oct. 11-Dec. 15 featuring the work of six artists living in a low-barrier supportive housing project. They are part of an artists’ collective developed out of collaboration with University of Washington researchers, the Downtown Emergency Service Center and residents at 1811 Eastlake, a low-barrier supportive housing project.
“We have so much talent among individuals we work with,” said Dr. Seema Clifasefi, an associate professor of psychiatry in the UW School of Medicine. She is one of the co-directors of the UW Harm Reduction Research and Treatment Center, which helps to reduce substance-related harm and improve quality of life with substance-abusing communities.
Continue reading at Newsroom
Originally posted on Newsroom by Bobbi Nodell
Urban@UW compiles Faculty Highlights Report for research, teaching and engagement on homelessness
As part of its recently launched Homelessess Research Initiative, Urban@UW has collaborated with faculty and staff across all three UW campuses to compile a broad-ranging selection of powerful and robust projects addressing homelessness from a research lens. Check out the Faculty Highlights Report to learn more about these efforts and the people behind them.
The Faculty Highlights Report was developed by Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative.
The biggest cliché in tech is hurting cities
CC BY-ND 2.0: Flickr: Marc Van dir Chijs
If you don’t live in Silicon Valley, chances are you live in its close relative: “the next Silicon Valley.” The label has been slapped with abandon on towns, cities, regions, or sometimes entire countries. All it takes is an uptick in job growth, an influx of startups, or a new coding bootcamp for the cliche to come roaring into headlines and motivational speeches.
In 2008, Margaret O’Mara developed an urge to chronicle this obsession. A Department of History professor at the University of Washington, she’d written a book several years earlier about the search for the next Silicon Valley. The moniker remained as omnipresent as ever, so she hired an undergraduate student to compile every Silicon Valley, Alley, Peak, Beach, Desert, Wadi, Bog, and more. Six weeks later, the student had to concede defeat: There were too many silicon somethings to track. “It’s become this global race. It’s a competitive thing, it’s a branding thing,” says O’Mara. “It’s a way of saying, ‘Look, we are just as forward-thinking and 21st century as everyone else.’”
Continue Reading on Wired
Originally posted on Wired by Miranda Katz
What the bond between homeless people and their pets demonstrates about compassion
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A video camera captures an interview with a man named Spirit, who relaxes in an outdoor plaza on a sunny afternoon. Of his nearby service dogs, Kyya and Miniaga, he says, “They mean everything to me, and I mean everything to them.”In another video, three sweater-clad dogs scamper around a Los Angeles park, while their companion, Judie, tells their backstory. And in still another clip, Myra races her spaniel mix, Prince, down a neighborhood street.
The images have an every-person quality — a collection of random pet owners, explaining why they love their dogs. And that’s part of the point of the series: The people featured are homeless, and a focus on their relationships “humanizes” a population that is often neglected or shunned, according to University of Washington Department of Geography professor Vicky Lawson.
Lawson and her colleague, Wesleyan University postdoctoral researcher Katie Gillespie, studied these videos from the multimedia project My Dog is My Home, created by the New York-based nonprofit of the same name, and wrote about its essential themes for the journal Gender, Place and Culture. Their article, published online June 14, is a call to action, not only for services for homeless people and animals, but also for new understandings of them.
Continue reading at UW Today
Originally posted on UW Today by Kim Eckart
Challenging the whiteness of American architecture, in the 1960s and today
George Hodan: PublicDomainPictures.net : CC0 Public Domain
“This book tells the story of how I got a free Ivy League education.”
That’s the arresting opening sentence of Sharon Egretta Sutton‘s “When Ivory Towers Were Black,” an unusual hybrid of memoir, institutional history and broadside against the entrenched whiteness of the architecture profession in this country.
The institution in question is Columbia University and, in particular, its department of architecture and planning. The time frame is between 1965 and 1976, “mirroring the emergence and denouement of the black power movement,” as Sutton notes. And the narrative is really a two-part story, exploring how an era of intense student protest at Columbia, which peaked in the spring of 1968, gave way to a remarkably successful if short-lived effort to recruit students of color to study architecture and urban planning on the university’s campus in Morningside Heights, on the southwestern edge of Harlem.
That’s the beginning of the story of how Sutton, who is now professor emerita at the University of Washington and a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, became one of those students.
Read more on the Los Angeles Times
Originally posted on the Los Angeles Times by Christopher Hawthorne
First UW Livable City Year project reports delivered to the City of Auburn
Image Credit: UW Livable City Year
Teams of University of Washington students have been working throughout this academic year on livability and sustainability projects in the City of Auburn. The yearlong Livable City Year partnership has given students a chance to work on real-world challenges identified by Auburn, while providing Auburn with tens of thousands of hours of study and student work.
Livable City Year connects UW faculty with projects based in Auburn, which are then incorporated into their classes. The program started this year, partnering with Auburn for the 2016-2017 year. This fall marked the first quarter for the program, when students in seven courses tackled 10 separate projects. The final reports from these projects are now complete.
“The very first Livable City Year projects were a success due to the hard work of our students and faculty, along with crucial guidance from Auburn city staff. It’s been an exciting process of co-creation,” said Livable City Year faculty co-director Branden Born of the Department of Urban Design and Planning. “The student teams working on these projects have worked to provide real benefits for the residents of Auburn, while also gaining real-world experience and a connection to the community.”
Students in Livable City Year courses spend at least one quarter working on a specific project identified as a need by Auburn. The student teams work with Auburn staff and community stakeholders as they conduct research and work on the projects.
Fall projects included assessments of Auburn’s work in reducing homelessness among the community, educational strategies to reduce pet waste and improper household items in wastewater, cultural city mapping, city values outreach, work on community place-making, and more.
“The projects that these students have taken on are at the core of many of our city’s major initiatives,” Auburn mayor Nancy Backus said. “Their work and dedication through the Livable City Year program has helped us make major strides forward in areas that are critical to the health, safety and happiness of our residents.”
After the quarter’s research work is completed, a student or student team works with Livable City Year’s editor and graphic designer to prepare a final report for the city, including any recommendations or possible future steps. By having several coordinated student teams across disciplines working on various projects, the Livable City Year program provides the City of Auburn with ways to enhance sustainability and livability elements within existing and future projects and programs.
The UW’s Livable City Year program is led by faculty directors Branden Born with the Department of Urban Design and Planning and Jennifer Otten with the School of Public Health, in collaboration with UW Sustainability, Urban@UW and the Association of Washington Cities, and with foundational support from the College of Built Environments and Undergraduate Academic Affairs.
While the fall project teams have completed their reports, this winter students have been working on projects including reducing food waste in school cafeterias; researching the costs, challenges and benefits of low-impact development stormwater technology; and better connecting Auburn’s residents socially, culturally, and economically.
Senior Ariel Delos Santos was one of the students in Born’s fall class which looked at connectivity and community place-making in Auburn.
“Working with the LCY program brought a novel component to our educational experience. Instead of a standard classroom setting where our homework is only seen by the professor, our final products were intimately tied to the city and its community members - which greatly motivated us to do more work and be more attentive to those who will be affected,” said Delos Santos, a senior double major in Community, Environment & Planning and Aquatic Fishery & Sciences. “As a student, I loved how closely I was able to work with my peers regularly and the camaraderie that we built. I definitely learned how to maintain professional relationships, accountability, communication, and my natural role in team settings.”
For more information, contact Born at bborn@uw.edu or 206-543-4975; LCY program manager Jennifer Davison at jnfrdvsn@uw.edu or 206-240-6903; and Jenna Leonard, Auburn’s climate and sustainability practice leader, at jleonard@auburnwa.gov or 253-804-5092.
This story was written by UW Livable City Year
Livable City Year releases RFP, invites cities to partner for 2017-8 academic year
The University of Washington’s Livable City Year initiative is now accepting proposals from cities, counties, special districts and regional partnerships to partner with during the 2017-2018 academic year.
UW Livable City Year (UW LCY) connects University of Washington faculty and students with a municipal partner for a full academic year to work on projects fostering livability. The municipal partner will
identify a selection of projects in their community that could be addressed by UW LCY courses. Areas of focus include environmental sustainability, economic viability, population health, and social equity, inclusion and access.
The full details can be found in the Request for Proposals document. Proposals must be submitted by Feb. 15, 2017.
Read more in the Livable City Year’s announcement.
Urban@UW is a foundational supporter of Livable City Year. This article was originally shared on the Livable City Year website, written by Daimon Eklund.
PARK(ing) Day+ and Little Collective’s “Bees and Salmon”
Little Collective
Today you may notice some new public spaces in your neighborhood; but look fast, because they will be gone by Sunday. Now a global phenomenon, PARK(ing) day is a few hours per year when cities endeavor to convert city spaces into public places called parklets. The parklet’s origins are tied to ReBar, a San Francisco based studio, that converted a single parking space into a micro park. This first parklet lived for just a few hours in 2005. Since that day, cities around the globe have taken up this tradition of reassigning road space to the public domain by allowing designers and citizens to creatively remake their streetscapes.
Each city takes its own approach by introducing themes, changing the scale of interventions, or even introducing moveable parklets, similar to parade floats. Seattle’s PARK(ing) Day+ offers an extra day (September 16-17) to enjoy these designs. Parklets raise awareness about public space access, the politics of right-of-way policies, and are a great way to engage communities—and this year a group of former University of Washington landscape architecture students are extending that conversation. The group is called Little Collective and is comprised of: Stevie Koepp, Roxanne Lee, Hilary Ratliff, and Katy Scherrer. Three of the women have recently graduated from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Koepp is staying on to complete a concurrent degree in the Department of Architecture.
Scherrer explained that the Collective’s goal is to combine social infrastructure with green infrastructure by using rain-garden parklets as a point of conversation about how urban runoff connects land-based pollution to the Puget Sound, the protected waters between Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula, stretching up into the San Juan Islands. The group’s “Bees and Salmon” approach is a way to communicate how land-based interventions such as rain gardens can be multifunctional by creating urban habitat in the city that can also have an effect on our local waters. Bees and salmon become a way to talk about how polluted storm-water from impermeable urban surfaces has direct and indirect effects on fish in the Puget Sound.
A key element of ecosystem resilience is insuring that entire systems are connected, and in the rainy PNW water is our great unifier. Key factors in the health of the Puget Sound include insuring water movement, balanced chemistry, and appropriate temperatures. Green storm-water infrastructure addresses these issues by ensuring urban run-off has opportunities to infiltrate for groundwater recharge, slowing movement to deposit sediment, and enhancing filtration which removes toxins—all of which are essential for the health of migrating salmon. This is the connection that is guiding Little Collective’s storm-water parklet installation at Capitol Hill Arts.
Little Collective was inspired while studying landscape architecture in Seattle and Copenhagen, DK, where they gleaned insights into land-water systems:
• Storm-water management is not only an essential ecosystem service, but can be integrated into truly inviting and valuable public space.
• Green storm-water infrastructure can take a very long time to implement.
• Bicycles can be a vital part of urban transportation networks.
“We started with this idea, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could transport a rain garden on your bicycle?’ Rain gardens are a wonderful asset, but they can be cumbersome. From design, to review, to construction [it] can be a lengthy process,” explained Lee. Doing anything in Seattle streets can cause ire and the time dedicated to installing rain gardens can make the benefits feel intangible.
Often times public design forums or reviews involve time and labor-intensive graphics and extended conversation; but Little Collective is pursuing a different route, “by using easily assembled, acquired, and transportable materials as a way to expose people to rain gardens and their function in urban ecosystems as a vital component to clean water and mitigate runoff consequences,” explained Lee.
For Little Collective this modular system, and temporary approach to rain gardens is about “recognizing a potential gap in the system where we could capture people’s attention in order to educate and engage them to support productive permanent change in our storm-water systems. We like to think of it as an interactive micro-watershed.”
Ratliff acknowledged bringing people into the conversation about storm-water, streets, and the Puget Sound is a complex task. The group believes that small interventions at the human scale “can collectively generate larger social and environmental change.” Little Collective’s goal is to have “something tangible between thinking about and having a rain garden. Our modular, temporary approach is a way to expose and educate people, to get a jump-start on the ecological process before the actual installation.”
PARK(ing) Day offers an innovative, meaningful and human-centric way to embrace the complexity of urban water infrastructure. Storm-water and infrastructure are necessary for the health of both our city and the Sound, and Little Collective’s project aims to work towards that.
Check out Little Collective’s work, and many of the parklet designs popping up all over the city September 16-17. See the Seattle Department of Transportation Park(ing) Day website for more information.
Written by Andrew Prindle, Urban@UW Communications Coordinator
The library, the new happening place to be
Flickr and Peter Alfred Hess
Everywhere, people are deserting the public space.
They’re not standing in line at the bank: They’re banking online. They’re not shopping for clothes at the mall: They’re getting clothes mailed to them at home. The internet is enabling people to meet their needs without going out.
Librarians have seen this coming for years, and many worried the library could become another space devoid of humans. But the internet hasn’t been the death of the library. In fact, the web has become the revival of its mission. And the library buildings themselves are full.
Continue reading at KUOW.
(Originally published by KUOW and Carolyn Adolph.)
Unlikely Allies: Future of Cities Festival - Seattle, July 5-6th
Impact Hub
July 5 - 6, 2016 – Seattle, WA, USA
What happens when you bring a diverse group of global and local citizens, innovators and entrepreneurs from 80+ cities around the world into a city, inspire them to scale and improve their solutions for city challenges and connect them to make these changes lasting and transferable to other cities across the globe?
Unlikely Allies is a two-day festival that takes place in one new city each year, bringing together global and local thought leaders, changemakers, inspired citizens and their unlikely allies: the hackers, artists, policy makers, activists, corporate innovators and designers needed to make real change happen on key issues of our world today.
This year, Seattle will become a living laboratory during the Unlikely Allies festival exploring the theme of creating positive solutions for the Future of Cities. Check out the program for this year.
The Unlikely Allies festival departs from the conventional “I talk, you listen” conference by creating a living laboratory inside the city with activities based on live participation, creative exchange and lasting collaboration. Enjoy a multitude of inspiring experiences over the course of two days:
- A City Solutions Laboratory: hosting high-level discussions, engagement and networking by thought-leaders, innovators, experts, practitioners and change-makers from Seattle, from across the US and from all over the world, on-site;
- Learning Expeditions across the city of Seattle;
- and a neighborhood Unlikely Allies in the Park that will highlight the importance of local neighborhood innovation in the future of cities.
Register here for Unlikely Allies: Future of Cities Festival in Seattle.
Geology and Art Connect at UW Light Rail Station
Photo by Sound Transit
Tens of thousands of people will pass through the new University of
Washington light rail station that opened this week. While most riders
will focus on their destination, they may also learn something as they
pass through the station.
“Subterranium,” by UW alumnus Leo Saul Berk, lines the walls with 6,000 unique backlit panels inspired by the geology of the site that was excavated to create the station.
UW geologist Alison Duvall,
a UW assistant professor of Earth and space sciences, provided an
accompanying narration. She met with a Sound Transit employee in January
and talked about her research, the history of the station site, and her
impressions of the station’s geology-themed art installation.
“It
stretches from the ceiling all the way down, so as you go down the
escalator it captures what it’s like going into the deeper geologic
units,” Duvall said.
The narration played March 19 during opening
day, when riders had their first opportunity to travel down to the
station and on the new rail line. You can play the 15-minute clip
yourself as you walk through the station:
“If you went to most
places on Earth, the geology wouldn’t be very complex in such a small
little footprint,” Duvall said. “But what’s exciting about our area is
that, because of the ice cap coming in and out and depositing all these
different materials, we get diversity and nonconformity in just a small
window. So there’s quite a lot happening there.”
Duvall saw
evidence in the soil cores from the station site of at least two ice
sheets from British Columbia advancing and retreating and leaving
different materials in their wake. Studies show that the Pacific
Northwest has experienced six or seven glacial-interglacial cycles.
“I
think the artist did a really good job of capturing the nonconformity
and complexity of where one geologic unit stops and another starts,”
Duvall said. “This is very different from the traditional geological
layer cake, like you would see in the Grand Canyon.”
She was
interested that Berk’s piece includes some common geologic symbols, such
as small dots for finer sediment and open circles for large cobbles,
but that he invented some of his own, such as the horseshoes that appear
on some panels.
The station is now providing travel options that some predict could could transform Seattle.
Many people hope this new connection to the UW will shorten commutes
and relieve traffic congestion. For her part, Duvall hopes it prompts
new appreciation for what lies beneath.
“I hope that riders will
stop and think: ‘Wait a minute, yeah, there is a whole record under the
Earth’s surface that is an archive of all these things that have
happened in the past, ‘” Duvall said. “And hopefully they will learn a
little something about the place they live.”
Article by Hannah Hickey, courtesy of UW Today
Report By UW Labor Studies Student Details Music Industry’s $1.8 Billion Boon to Seattle’s Economy
A new study commissioned by Seattle musicians’ union and authored by Geography PhD student Megan Brown found that 16,607 people are directly employed in the city’s music industry, creating $1.8 billion annually in direct economic impact. Including jobs dependent on music, the industry creates $4.3 billion in economic output, supporting 30,660 jobs.
Yet despite a 50% increase in music-related jobs since the industry was last analyzed seven years ago, music payroll has risen only 12%, with payroll per employee actually decreasing by 25%. A survey of 124 working musicians found that while most earn the majority of their income through music, that music-related income averages only about $15,000 per year.
Part of the reason for this, the study found, is that freelance musicians often work without written agreements, and suffer from a variety of problems getting paid adequately for their work.
The study is entitled “Seattle’s Working Musicians: the economic impact of the music industry, working conditions of club musicians and how Seattle can support independent musicians.” The report was released Jan. 26 in a public meeting with the Seattle City Council’s Committee on Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development and Arts. It was authored by Megan Brown, a labor geographer and UAW Local 4121 member currently completing her PhD in geography at the University of Washington. Read the complete story on The Stand.
On January 29 Brown spoke with The Stranger newspaper’s podcast Blabbermouth about the findings of her report.
Brown has funding from the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies as well as an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant to study spatial strategies associated minimum wage policies in US cities. She is also involved in the Labor Studies Center’s Seattle Minimum Wage History Project, including building an interactive online digital archive.
2016 Urban Studies Forum: Alternative Visions of Livability Choices, Costs and Consequences
February 25, 2016
8:30am to 1:30pm
William W. Philip Hall
1918 Pacific Avenue
Tacoma Washington 98402
For a city or a suburb to be livable, we assume certain characteristics and experiences. What are these and how do we define a livable place? Is there an agreement on what defines livability? The 2016 Urban Studies Forum will focus on these questions and what they might mean to the South Sound. In two separate panel discussions, we will focus on both the built environment dimensions of livability, as well as cultural and sociopolitical processes that produce them. Our panelists will debate various aspects of urban form, governance, social equity, and cultural productions that shape our perceptions of ‘livability.’
New! Urban Map Gallery
We’ve created a new urban map gallery to explore how other people and organizations are studying and visualizing data. The gallery features seven cities facing different social, economic, and geographic issues. This curation is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather provide insight and inspiration. Maps included track everything from sound to subway pathogens.
Re-Imaging Urban Scholarship: Differencing the Data
Winter Quarter 2016 | HUM 597E | 1 credit, C/NC
Instructor:Thaisa Way (Landscape Architecture)
Meeting Dates:
- Friday, January 15, 12-1:20 pm (Startup Hall)
- Friday, January 29, 12-1:20 pm (Henry Art Gallery)
- Tuesday, February 2, and Wednesday, February 3 (Participation encouraged as feasible, Center for Urban Horticulture)
- Thursday, February 4, 9-10:20 am (eScience Institute, Physics/Astronomy Tower)
- Thursday, February 25, 6-7:30 pm (Communications 120)
- Friday, February 26, 12-1:20 pm (Communications 202)
This microseminar explores how we might re-read cities by acknowledging and differentiating the data upon which we build our knowledge. As Lisa Graumlich (Dean, College of the Environment) recently wrote, “To imagine desirable, novel futures, we need to get even better at working at the boundaries between science and society. Now more than ever we need to build bridges with thinkers, who are shifting the political and cultural dialog, and doers, who are leading innovation in technologies, policies, and practices.” This seminar seeks to catalyze thorny discussions across disciplines and their data. Our purpose is to build a thicker intellectual foundation for engaging multiple audiences in the challenges and opportunities of urbanism in the 21st century.
After an introductory discussion on cities and contemporary urban research, we will convene around the visits of a series of important leaders in a diversity of disciplines. Beginning with an exhibit by the architect Keller Easterling (Professor, Architecture, Yale University), we explore her work at the Henry Art Gallery that questions the gifts or exchanges made between city governments and corporations suggesting the urban landscape as an economic site and commodity to be negotiated. In discussion with data scientist Charlie Catlett (Senior Computer Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory and Visiting Artist, School of the Art Institute of Chicago), we will investigate big data as a framework for what we can know about cities and urban systems. Finally, Mario Luis Small (Grafstein Family Professor, Sociology, Harvard University) challenges us to reconsider the heterogeneity of American ghettos in the contemporary city.
Students will write a one-to-two-page reflection on each of the three urban discussion topics: Corporations & Government,
Big Data & Sensors, and Heterogeneity & Ghettos.
Questions? Contact Thaisa Way, tway@uw.edu.
UW initiative aims to tackle city, region’s most pressing urban issues
When Thaisa Way put a call out last spring to see if University of Washington faculty members working on urban issues wanted to join forces, she wasn’t sure what the response would be.
“There were a lot of people who said, ‘You’re not going to get anyone to show up,‘” said Way, a UW associate professor of landscape architecture.
But more than 80 people representing 12 of the UW’s colleges and schools turned up to the gathering, held on a Monday afternoon at the tail end of the quarter. The meeting launched the creation of Urban@UW, an interdisciplinary effort that has been incubating for more than three years to bring together UW researchers, Seattle officials and citizens to collaborate on the most pressing issues facing a rapidly growing city and region.
There are more than 200 UW faculty members working on urban topics, Way said, from geographers using GIS technology to address the complexities of homelessness to data scientists working on transportation challenges to teams of researchers working on food access and Seattle’s minimum wage.
Faculty members, particularly younger ones, are increasingly motivated by a desire for their work to have a real-world impact, Way said, and urban issues present a significant and compelling opportunity to make a difference in their own backyard, as well as around the globe.
“I think the generation of faculty who have come into the university in the past decade want to be part of a larger effort,” said Way, Urban@UW’s executive director. “Urban issues are a very visceral, very present challenge and a remarkable opportunity. That’s the fantastic thing about cities — they’re both our problem and our answer.”
Urban@UW will hold its kickoff event from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. this Thursday, Oct. 29, at theSamuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center. The keynote speaker is Nathan Connolly, an associate professor at New York University who studies race, housing and poverty.
UW President Ana Mari Cauce and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray will discuss the new MetroLab Network, a partnership between the city and university spearheaded by UW’s eScience Institute and Urban@UW. The collaboration, part of the White House’s new Smart Citiesinitiative, will focus on infrastructure, service delivery to citizens, democratic governance and increased civic participation and data-driven policymaking.
Following the presentations, more than 90 faculty members, city and county decision-makers and local stakeholders will brainstorm ideas for collaborative projects in six areas: disaster preparedness and response, food and economic disparity, housing and poverty, climate change and environmental justice, growth and transportation, and the MetroLab Network. Each topic will have a UW faculty lead and a designated community member going forward.
The goal, Urban@UW Program Manager Jen Davison said, is to develop pilot projects that will be launched over the coming year and supported by Urban@UW, anything from a series of conversations to a small-scale research project.
“We don’t want to be too prescriptive for what they come up with,” Davison said. “We want these projects to be driven by the needs of the community and the capacities of our researchers and teachers.”
Other universities have launched urban-focused initiatives, but Way said they tend to be more narrowly focused and involve fewer departments. Seattle is an ideal city for the effort, she said — small enough to be nimble but large enough to have big-city problems, a place where bold thinking and ambition thrive.
“We’ve got this creative, innovative community that can help us think about what it takes to do something differently,” Way said. “We have this wonderful opportunity to think across disciplines in a lot of different worlds and practices.”
The effort will take a holistic approach, Way said, with the goal of fostering well-being and opportunity for all Seattle residents.
“These problems are multifaceted, and that means cities can’t address housing without addressing where schools are, without addressing transportation, without addressing employment,” she said.
Urban@UW received funding for three years from the UW Office of Research and is working in partnership with CoMotion, the UW’s innovation incubator, as well as with UW’s eScience Institute. Its headquarters are in Startup Hall, just off campus, and Davison is its sole employee.
Way envisions Urban@UW becoming a hub that the mayor of Bellingham or an NGO in Bogota could tap into for expertise on a range of issues, and where urban scholars might come from around the world to build and gain knowledge that can be applied in other cities.
“We want to be able to show that we can be a resource for more than Seattle,” she said. “I hope we can continue to build these partnerships so that in ten years, we’re an internationally recognized center for innovative urban research and practice.”
UW students address urban issues, pitch innovative solutions at NextSeattle Workshop
How does a city grow? As more and more people are moving to urban centers throughout the world, what will the modern city look like? How will we ensure that all of its residents, rich or poor, are able to access public goods and services? And for all the creative energy that a city harnesses in one place, how will we make sure that no one is shunted to its margins, left to fall through the cracks?
These are just some of the questions students began to tackle at NextSeattle, an intensive four-day workshop sponsored by CoMotion, Urban@UW, Undergraduate Academic Affairs, and the UW eScience Institute. The workshop was at its core an academic course in which students “engaged a breadth of disciplines and practices as they explored how to work with diverse communities to foster a more inclusive, equitable and healthy city,” said Thaisa Way, the lead faculty and director of Urban@UW.