Seattle, the Emerald city, resides along the costs of Puget Sound, watched over by the snow-capped peaks of the famous Mount Rainier.1
Seattle is one of the many ports along the Salish Sea. This is a rich marine ecosystem of waterways and islands that extends from Desolation Sound in British Columbia to the southern tip of Puget Sound.2
Like a rare jewel, the city is protected from ocean currents by the Cascades and the Olympics ranges. To say more, Seattle is located in the PNW. That is a very atypical yet beautiful region of the United States.
At the bottom of this, there are two types of cities. On one hand, cities which submit themselves to the authority of a higher rational order. A strict architectural discipline, with its values of rigor and symmetry, rule over them. On the other side, there are rebel cities, growing spontaneously, like the moss on tree trunks. Cities of picturesque piers, where fishing is a way of living and not a lifestyle.
In conclusion, Seattle fits in the latter.
Officially, in 1851 a party of Pioneers from Illinois settled in Alki Point.
The area, however, was already inhabited by the Coast Salish People. The Duwamish and Suquamish, in fact, possessed at least 13 villages within the actual city limits. After years of clashes, often violent, the Point Elliot treaty marked their definite distancing.
At the time, the landscape was basically a strip of land surrounded by water on three sides. It was denoted by a sharpness and dramatic aspect, swampy coastal zones, and a wild evergreen vegetation stretching as far as the eye could see. A long series of remediation works permitted the development of a metropolis. On the other hand, however, they affected the natural ecosystem of the area irreversibly.
Furthermore, the access to the sea introduced the city to the relations with Asia, main overseas harbor. That made Seattle the “Gateway to Orient”.
As Sam Finfer states in “The Empty Emerald City” the Seattle area, “long considered one of the most beautiful places to live in the United States […] has seen its population increase exponentially, coinciding with the rise of tech boom as massive companies with roots here such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have become more prominent and expanded.”
We can say that these economic giants are leading a rapid urban transformation which, soon enough, could change the aspect of the city. Moreover, in the last 15 years, the city has already started to cope with the main issues of other metropolis. For instance, the homelessness epidemic, so evident in 3rd Avenue; the high population density; constant real estate prices increase; the crime rate growing faster.
Seattle has always lived the romantic opposition between ideal and real. Firstly, an opposition between an all-consuming globalization process and the preservation of a strong sense of identity. Secondly, the contrast between the action of cultural leveling promoted by urban boosters and the wary spirit of Seattleites. Finally the opposition between a pragmatic economy and a regional art perceived as a spiritual quest.
Murray Morgan declared that the only constant in Seattle is Change3. Bill Speidel, instead, talked of split personality4, that evident duality which does not escape a sharp eye.
Contrasts make the city fascinating, those points of friction created by the encounter from the bulwark of the capitalist system and the evergreen vegetation. The latter, peeping out of the frame, smooth out the edges of the artificial landscape. One of these frictions occurs on the terrace of Pike Place Market. You turn your back on the hectic Downtown, splendor and misery of the evolving city, and the majestic landscape of the Pacific Northwest opens up to your gaze.
Now we can understand the city’s structure and character quoting the analysis of Karp, Stone and Yoels:
“It is the sentiment attached to urban areas. It is the whole range of meanings attached to urban areas… that essentially determines the shape and social organization of cities.”5
The peculiar sentiment Seattleites feel towards their city depends on various factors. For instance, the cultural and geographical isolation, weather conditions, natural setting, and the cultural heritage linked to the Natives. It’s an attitude that we can define kind but diffident, accommodating but secretive, open but at times dark and mysterious.
As Knute Berger states, “Seattle likes to think of itself as a very nice place, and it is in a very sort of superficial way, but we’re actually not very nice. We’re very passive-aggressive.” In other words, that of Seattleites is a fundamentally romantic answer to modern life as rebel, sensitive, edgy, unconventional individuals. A series of peculiar characteristics that local art has expressed sublimely.
By Valentina Chiarello
Notes:
- S. Finfer, “The Empty Emerald City”, The Sports on Tap, 2018 https://thesportsontap.com/2018/10/08/the-empty-emerald-city/
- J. Kempson, N. Ross, T. Hatfield, Seattleness: A Cultural Atlas, 2018
- M. Morgan, Skid Road, 1951
- B. Speidel, Sons of the Profits, 1967
- Karp, Stone, Yoels, Being Urban, 1977
