Gentrification Concerns Ride Light Rail in Seattle

Daniel Person writes about the controversy embedded in a proposal by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray that would fund, among many other projects, a new light rail stop at Graham Street in Hillman City.

"The stop has been the subject of a Change.org petition—it has 1,088 signatures—and is framed by some as a tangible way to help Seattle’s poor and immigrant communities (the neighborhood around Graham Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way is home to strong Filipino and East Asian populations)," reports Person, who even cites the recent study by Harvard researchers citing transportation as a key factor in poverty.

But the proposition of improving transit access to alleviate poverty isn’t a simple proposition: "In a sign of just how much gentrification is on everyone’s mind in Seattle, even at a press conference called to promote Murray’s package, support for the new light rail station came with the caveat that gentrification would have to be addressed."

Person follows that concern with a question about what tools the city has to mitigate the impacts of gentrification and doesn't produce any good answers from the city's leaders and advocates. Councilmember Mike O'Brien, however, claims that one example of accidental success in preventing gentrification might have taken a page from the Houston model: "O’Brien says Seattle’s relative lack of planning around the initial Link line—such as zoning for high-density development around the stations—was pretty effective in preventing large-scale gentrification."

Seattle might consider the model provided by Somerville, Massachusetts, which has been working to address the challenge of gentrification along new transit lines for years.