Cities copied 'Seattle Way' in planning - P-I

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Former Seattle Neighborhoods chief Jim Diers got his start as a community activist in Rainier Valley, where he still lives.

Cities copied 'Seattle Way' in planning

By DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL
P-I REPORTER

Jim Diers isn't talking about beer when he uses the term bottom-up, though the easy-going former director of Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods wouldn't mind having one.

He's talking about what cities such as Melbourne, Australia, Beijing and Austin, Texas, are calling "The Seattle Way" -- a grass-roots, from-the-ground-up style of neighborhood planning and development as opposed to a city government-directed "top down" process.

The former works, the latter doesn't, as far as Diers is concerned.
But while other cities try to emulate Seattle by encouraging neighborhood involvement, he 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," he 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, author of "Neighbor Power: Building Community the Seattle Way," acknowledges his concern may sound like sour grapes. He was the first department head fired by Mayor Greg Nickels when Nickels took office, ending Diers' popular 14-year leadership in the department, which grew under three previous mayors.

Appointed by Charles Royer, re-hired by Norm Rice and significantly bolstered by Paul Schell, 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.

"It's the mayor's prerogative to make changes, and he wanted to go in a different direction," Tim Ceis, deputy mayor under Nickels, acknowledged Thursday.

"Jim created a fine model, but the mayor felt there needed to be a broadening of participation, that in 14 years the city had become much more diverse and there were people excluded from the (neighborhood) planning process."

Nickels created a race and social justice initiative to spur more diversity; those who replaced Jim Diers as department head -- Yvonne Sanchez, Bernie Matsuno (acting), and now Stella Chao -- are minorities.

"Mr. Diers disagreed with the decision and was pretty vocal at the time," Ceis said. "But he's moved on, we've moved on -- everybody has."

But Diers, a longtime neighborhood activist, who for over 30 years lived in the most culturally and socio-economically diverse area of the city -- Southeast Seattle -- considers himself and his neighborhood efforts broadly inclusive.

The mayor "wants more control" of what goes on in neighborhoods, Diers said recently. "I'm helping other cities set up programs that this mayor's (Nickels) walking away from."

The direction of the neighborhood movement in Seattle troubles Diers, who says he "was as shocked as everybody else" when then-Mayor Charles Royer appointed him as director of the new Department of Neighborhoods in 1988. Passionate about neighborhood issues, he said he admits he wasn't exactly Mr. Rogers.

He recalled in the 1980s being among activists who, in a push for a greater say in the city's then-booming development, "released a live chicken in Charley's (Royer's) office and picketed his house," Diers said.

"He (Royer) was concerned that the process of developing neighborhood plans would benefit the more affluent neighborhoods, who tend to be more organized," Diers recalls. "He also was concerned about NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) and the neighborhood matching fund rewarding richer communities at the expense of less privileged ones."

But that didn't happen. Instead, allowing neighborhoods to direct some of their own priorities "resulted in a whole different kind of planning," Diers said.

"Before, there had been an adversarial relationship between neighborhoods and the city; the focus was on problems, and neighborhoods depending on the city to solve the problems," Diers said. "I still hear this everywhere I go: city officials say, 'Why do we have to listen to them (neighborhood activists); they're a pain in the butt.' And residents would get distrustful of government."

Diers said while he is a strong believer in government responsibility, "it can't do everything alone."

"If you truly believe in democracy, the problem isn't neighborhood activists, the problem is too few neighborhood activists," he said. "The challenge then and now is ... how can the city better tap into the artists, planners, architects, youths, seniors, disabled, immigrants and all the others with something to contribute?"

That philosophy yielded a model of civic partnerships, hence global invitations to Diers to speak.

After Diers spoke to community leaders in Austin in May, Austin Chronicle columnist Katherine Gregor wrote, "While enlightenment is perfect on Puget Sound, of course, over the past decade Seattle has demonstrated an impressive commitment to real neighborhood empowerment. Our sister progressive city has developed many successful policies and practices that deserve close study -- as models that could accelerate improvements to neighborhood planning here in Austin."
P-I reporter Debera Carlton Harrell can be reached at 206-448-8326 or deberaharrell@seattlepi.com