Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to a rational, planned city in the twentieth century; this chapter focuses
on activities to protect and revitalize metropolitan nature and serves as
a response to the third phase of the Promethean Project and the crisis of
nature at the hands of humans. Some of these restoration activities are
part of the local government's commitment to environmental protection;
others are grassroots efforts of local residents aimed at reworking urban
nature to improve quality of life. As a whole, they entail different avenues
of intervention to recast the relations between humans and nonhumans
in the city.
Seattle and Urban Environmentalism in the 1970s
The economy in Seattle boomed in the World War II era due to military
contracts for Boeing, the local airplane manufacturer; the city would earn
the nickname “Jet City” in the postwar decades as Cold War military
spending and the new commercial airline business buoyed the local econ-
omy. 1 However, the economic boom was short-lived; crisis hit in the late
1960s when the national aerospace economy fl oundered and Boeing laid
off almost two-thirds of its one hundred thousand employees between
1968 and 1971. The unemployment rate in Seattle skyrocketed from 3
percent at the beginning of this period (well below the national average)
to 15 percent (double the national average), and the Seattle metropolitan
region spiraled into a deep economic recession. 2
It was during this low point in Seattle's history, the so-called Boeing
Bust years, when the laissez-faire business character of Seattle's municipal
government would be abandoned. In the municipal election of 1967, vot-
ers adopted a new strong mayor form of municipal governance, refl ecting
the infl uence of national social movements and antiestablishment politics,
while drawing on Seattle's history as a labor-friendly town. Labor strikes
and protests were common in Seattle in the 1910s and 1920s; in 1919,
the city was the fi rst in the United States to be shut down completely by a
strike. 3 This emphasis on “people power” would reemerge with the adop-
tion of the strong mayor form of governance and designation of a leader
who could stand up to the corrupting forces of the political machine,
where true municipal power was located. 4 The result was a participatory
form of urban governance emphasizing citizen advocacy and control of
municipal politics with the mayor championing the citizens' desire for
self-governance. 5
The new municipal structure would also serve as a counterpoint to the
antitax, anti-Seattle sentiment that emerged in the adjacent suburbs in
Search WWH ::




Custom Search