Imagine walking into a dank dark basement in a 110 year old building downtown and turning on the lights to find this eerie and surreal scene. That’s what happened to me recently while working on an interview for a Sun story. This is what I saw:

By Paul Sparks

Part One: Short, quircky, amateur commentaries on “Small Worlds Theory” and its relationship to the “Livable Community” of Downtown Tacoma.

What is “Small Worlds”?
Small worlds is a theory of maximum connectivity. It describes a real world phenomenon found in all types of effective communicative systems (the brain, the internet, viruses, etc). It happens when individual nodes engage in small clusters or “worlds” interacting tightly with one another (“strong links”). These nodes work together in Small Worlds while still maintaining the important connections to other nodes and clusters (“weak links”). This is illustrated in the connected clusters of the small diagram to the right. Small worlds and/or scale-free networks connect individual points with the least degree of separation between them.

What is the “Livable Community” of downtown Tacoma?
A livable community is defined by the quality of relationships shared within a particular geography. These relationships partner together for the economic, social, environmental, and civic life of the place they live. Tight-knit “small worlds” enjoy the potential benefits of proximity (context, relationality, collaboration, social capital etc.) without compromising the regional and global benefits of (transparency, knowledge, perspective, and resource sharing, etc.). They are big enough to live life in (clearly larger than a block) and small enough for a high level of spontaneous relational connectivity (clearly smaller than a region).

Short Premise
Throughout the ages most of the known world has lived with both the good and bad of life in primarily tight-knit community clusters (town, neighborhood, village, tribe, clan). Even in the few larger cities that existed, lack of mobility and primitive technology did not permit people to perceive themselves individually apart from community. With the industrial revolution and the current age of knowledge production, modern human society has worked hard to push the scale to the opposite extreme. Individuals can live as “free agent” monads without connection to local people and place. Living in what author Manuel Castells refers to as “the space of flows” we have lost the relational context that enables deep social transformation, the care of the created world, and the grounded identity of place.

The Paradigmatic Crux Of The Ages
We live at the paradigmatic crux of the ages: this is the first time in history that we have the capacity to live free from the destructive ignorance and tyrannies found in the isolated communities of old. It is also the first time since the history of the industrial revolution that we are coming to realize that there are crucial problems that can only be solved by a commitment to both worlds: that of local livable community and that of regional and global connectivity.

Downtown Tacoma
Downtown Tacoma is at a critical moment for shaping its future in an exemplary way. Three variables can make all the difference:

(1) A commitment to design and shape our built environment in ways that allow community members the freedom to live life (work, play, sleep, eat, relate) in one community.

(2) A commitment as members to develop more holistic patterns of life within the livable community context of downtown.

(3) A commitment to collaborate together with the other livable communities of Tacoma for the vitality and sustainability of all.

Want To Learn More?
Small Worlds theory is one of the many emerging scientific models that point us toward this local/global (glocal) model of life. (Part 2: Coming Soon)

Small World – Just for fun Learning Party Links
Link 1: Join the Grand Experiment (become the laboratory):
http://smallworld.columbia.edu/index.html
Link 2: Power Point Learning (watch the slides):
http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/smallworlds_files/frame.htm
Link 3: Amateur Learning Party (you play six degrees):
http://www.canyouhearmeyet.com/small_world_primer/small_world_entry.html
Charts and Graphs: (See the incredible work of John Cage)
http://www.sojamo.de/iv/index.php?n=10&ci=003-01

What would you do with a former railyard near the core downtown?

Over the past few decades, Half Moon Yard has been used less and less. I’m not sure why, I’m not a train guy. But I have heard rumors indicating that Burlington Northern, owner of the property, is considering selling it. It’s an interesting chunk of land, I’m not sure how you would access it if it were developed: an active freight line on one side, Schuster Parkway on the other. Still, I bet the views would be great!

Half Moon Yard through the Years -

Half Moon Yard, 2005:

Half Mood Yard, 1990:

Half Moon Yard, 1951:

Half Moon Yard, 1931:

Perhaps no other action by the City of Tacoma has caused so much long term damage to the downtown streetscape as much as the construction of the North and South Plaza Parking garages.

Touted as “urban renewal” and as a solution to Tacoma’s perceived lack of parking downtown, several blocks of Tacoma’s historical buildings on Pacific Avenue were razed in the 1960s with great fanfare. In their place, the city constructed brutish cement slab parking garages which Mayor Baarsma has accurately described as “tombstones.”
Where retail storefronts once invitingly greeted pedestrians, visitors are now faced with garage entrances and exits, frequent curb cuts, blank walls and empty caverns, all foreboding to street life. Worse, much of the North Park Plaza Parking garage is simply a foreboding darkened cavern of sorts and a frequent site of “unintended uses.” It is difficult to image a more repulsive visitors and residents alike are forced to endure who walk by the North Parking Garage. Not surprisingly, the area is avoided whenever possible.

The few retails spaces under the parking garages are recessed back under the garage itself resulting in dark storefronts. The escalators through the parking garage failed years ago leaving only a walkway and a tunnel with blind corners creating a dangerous environment which is perceived as such.

The north wall of the Northern Parking garage is presents a large blank cement wall against a small grass area on the corner of 9th and Commerce which facilitates that area to being haven for criminal activity, fights and bizarre behavior and consuming much of the resources of the police.
Not surprisingly, much of the retail underneath the parking garages has failed. The Tacoma Daily Index has labeled the area under the South Parking Garage “The Dead Zone.”

Perhaps one of the most prudent acts of the Tacoma City Council in recent memory has been to start the renovation and expansion of the South Parking Garage. The plans are to add an additional floor of parking and topped with 2 floors of Class A office space. The front of the retail spaces will be extended out so that they are appropriately flush with the building. Restoring the South Parking Garage will restore an entire block of the streetscape in downtown Tacoma.

Yet the North Park Plaza is even more foreboding and repugnant to any sort of street life than the South parking garage. The dark and cavernous garage covering half a block presents one of the most repellant streetscapes one could imagine. Understandably, most people avoid the area. The City of Tacoma should promptly work to replace or restore the North Park Plaza parking garage as soon as possible. Because the North Park Plaza parking garage is a public facility, it is incumbent on the city restore the building.
Tacoma’s elected leaders and citizens alike have expressed a desire to attract a large employer to Tacoma preferably locating in the downtown area. Tacoma’s success at doing so will be greatly related to how attractive of a city we have which would want an employer to move here.

Here’s what a streetscape should look like.