The Rambling Village That Wanted to Be a City
An 1876 editorial reflects on Seattle’s humble, sprawling aesthetic, arguing that the lack of architectural grandeur was not a failure of taste, but a deliberate, democratic strategy to avoid the 'unhealthy' wealth concentration of Eastern cities.
Stringers on their first arrival in our harbor often express a great disappointment in the appearance of our city, which they regard as disproportionate to its reputation as a commercial emporium. At first sight, it is a little incongruous that the metropolis of an independent American commonwealth, having its seat on one of the finest and most admirably situated ports of the Union, should present so plain and modest a front. Certainly, there are few or no towns on the Pacific coast that have attained a population of four thousand or more that exhibit so little pretension to grandeur of architecture, either in residence or commercial and public buildings. This fact evinces on the part of our pioneers both taste and policy. Good taste does not mean ill-judged or garish display, nor does it consist in an adaptation of art to circumstances. It is not good taste to live beyond one's means, even though no very extravagant degree of luxury is indulged in. Though perhaps open to the criticism of being rather a great rambling village than a city, on account of the wide area over which its cottage residences and modest homesteads are spread, there is both reason and policy to be urged. Through the niggardly policy of the government, Seattle has never been able to command any appreciable amount of support from any public patronage or appropriations. In the midst of an almost unbroken forest, and having to struggle for position on an inland sea where every landing place might be a competing point of commercial distribution, its road to wealth has of necessity been long and slow. Another circumstance attending this sporadic style of growth is that the ownership of city property is more widely distributed and a broader foundation laid for the future. When the scattered suburbs grow compactly together and become solidly built, we will have a truly dense city, with a host of equal and independent holders instead of real estate being concentrated unhealthily in the hands of a few millionaires.
“When the scattered suburbs grow compactly together and become solidly built, we will have a truly dense city, with a host of equal and independent holders instead of real estate being concentrated unhealthily in the hands of a few millionaires.”
In 1876, Seattle’s sprawl was framed as an anti-monopoly virtue; today, that same 'rambling' character is at the heart of our fierce zoning debates and the struggle for density. The editorial captures the eternal Seattle tension between the desire for big-city status and the local ethos of modest, decentralized living.
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