Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Furthermore, the NDS approach continues the evolution of techno-
managerial governance of urban nature that was established by Thom-
son and his colleagues in the late nineteenth century and evolved as the
municipality formed into a bureaucratic structure dominated by technical
experts, regulations and codes, and enforcement activities. The work on
SEA Street, High Point, and the other NDS projects demonstrates that
this approach can be supplemented with aims of sustainability by opening
up engineering practices to more nuanced forms of design that focus on
hydrology, ecological services, and even aesthetics. However, there is still
an explicit understanding that the expert knows best when reworking the
relationship between urban residents and their material surroundings.
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The political negotiations of the NDS approach were for the most part
internal, involving confl icts between the various municipal agencies over
different conceptions of the public good. Reworking of urban nature oc-
curred as the experts identifi ed mutually benefi cial ways of reinterpreting
their bureaucratic missions.
Controversy at Northgate Mall
Neighborhood restoration work and the NDS approach represent two
well-known success stories of urban runoff in Seattle. Their motivations
for change come from very different origins, but both alter the conven-
tional urban runoff approaches that emphasize conveyance and fl ood pro-
tection. However, not all collaborations between the municipality and
Seattleites are as positive as the examples described earlier. The contro-
versy over the redevelopment of Northgate Mall and neighborhood actions
to daylight Thornton Creek demonstrate how reworking urban runoff
can lead to contentious and highly public battles over the future vision of
the city.
Northgate Mall opened in 1950 just outside the Seattle city limits in
the heart of the then-burgeoning North End.
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With eighty stores on sixty-
six acres, it was one of the fi rst regional shopping centers in the United
States and a daring experiment in retail development at the time. The mall
developers wanted to create a one-stop shopping experience to transplant
retail from downtown to the suburbs with the lure of free parking. The
mall and surrounding area were annexed by the City of Seattle in 1952
and Interstate 5 was completed in 1965, completing the auto-centric retail
model as envisioned by the mall owners. Construction of the expansive
south parking of the mall involved the burial of about twelve hundred
feet of Thornton Creek, the largest in the Urban Creeks Legacy Program.
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