Since I am clearly feeling some type of way I'm going to spill some tea around the concept of the Pike/Pine superblock, because why not.
Now a few months ago (pre-COVID) at the Pike/Pine Urban Nbhd Council we had an initial conversation around the idea of a superblock. This was spurred by me b/c as ambitious as the CM who proposed this is, as a PPUNC board member I wanted to ensure a process that included...
...the neighborhood and that we were able to self-determine the type of block we would like to see. A notable landlord and former board member (whose name you may know but I will not disclose) mentioned that a number of boutiques were concerned about street closures.
Now granted, there are a number of reasons to be concerned about street closures; the biggest reason being deliveries. (people order in bulk, things are heavy, etc.)
But that was not their concern. Their concern, of course, was parking.
Their concern was that they had a number of clients who lived in Magnolia who drove to Capitol Hill to come shop at their stores.
And I didn't ask this question, but I should have:
"If your clients are from Magnolia, what are you doing on Capitol Hill?"
Because if we're trying to get at the types of places that should be in the storefronts of our neighborhood, frankly they should be extremely queer and extremely accessible to the people who live in the neighborhood.
This is also why, when we talk about a "15 minute city"
Not "15 minute cities," not "15 minute neighborhoods," but
ONE 15 MINUTE CITY
that means every single people in the city lives within 15 minutes (***by means of walking, biking or rolling***) of all the things they need on a daily basis.
PERIOD.
So, with that said, we should be advocating for A 15 minute city so boutiques whose clientele lives in Magnolia can move to Magnolia so their patrons can easily get to their stores without furthering our climate crisis and continuing the displacement of our queer community.
/End
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And before I begin, still underemployed and would love to hit $40 for this thread.
venmo: houstonace
CashApp: $Archstar
Ok let's go!
So the first thing I want to do is get a few things out of the way. 1) even though a problem may exist in a similar city (let's say SF for example) it's important to remember that although the problems are similar, given the differences in laws the reasons could be different.
I'm predicting roughly an hour of testimony, if not longer. Then will will have discussion before deliberation on the three bills the mayor vetoed. If these three are not sustained, we will then have a final vote on a compromise bill. More details here:
You know if all these architecture firms spent half as much time complaining about the cost of Revit and used that time and energy to demand their clients pay them more, paying for Revit would not be a problem.
Median salary in the Pacific (per AIA survey) for a recent graduate is 56K/year. I must remind you that these are people who have gone through 5-7 years of training to attain a professional degree.
So if you divide that by working 40 hours a week (which as professionals, most architects work more than that without additional compensation as a salaried employee), and 50 weeks out of the year (PTO taken out), that is no more than $28 an hour in pay, on average.