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Ex-Official Says Seattle Stopped Listening

Posted by: Nate Berg

9 July 2007 - 6:00am

Seattle's public participation process has served as an example for cities across the globe, but the former city official who was instrumental in creating that reputation says the city's current leadership has moved away from that model.

"While other cities try to emulate Seattle by encouraging neighborhood involvement, the former director of Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods said last week that the Emerald City has moved away from the very strategies that made it a global model."

"'Neighbors getting involved with each other and with city processes is a movement everywhere, but it seems like Seattle is going backwards,' Jim Diers said, in town between international and domestic speaking gigs about improving city planning."

"'Cities all over the world want to do things the Seattle way. I wish our city did.'"

"Diers in the late 1990s oversaw the development and implementation of 38 neighborhood plans -- and as many parks, beautification, community, street improvement, and other civic projects as funding allowed."

Full Story: Cities copied 'Seattle Way' in planning
Source: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 5, 2007
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The areas where we have severe blight and indications of more blight to come are basically the same as they ever were. How in the world are we ever going to move our community development selves into an alternative future that thinks differently about the challenges we face in our cities and low-income suburban and rural communities?
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