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was the cause of this foam in Factoria
condo parking lot puddle? The enormous clouds were not quite big enough
to fill the sky. Sarah's thesis concerns
pedestrian connectivity in the Seattle suburb Factoria. Aerial photographs
that are part of her research have become the subject of her
painting-in-progress. On it, a fleck
of black paint represents a single vehicle, which could have been us approaching
our field base in rented
Flexcar. The
flower in reused sugar shaker vase
was nice, but even the stay-in orders were given paper cups at
Factoria
Starbucks. As at any other U.S. restaurant, everybody had their own table.
The woman next to ours was surprised her
classmates were becoming grandparents
but proud to be putting together a high school reunion book exposing
the where-they-are-nows of the who-they-were-thens. The weather was nice
but no one sat outside. Why would they when the only thing to look at was
a parking lot--a field full of greasy beasts waiting to stampede. Behind
the stripmall was a pedestrian path,
but to get from the office complex
to the grammar school we had to scrabble
up a weedy slope and hop a fence.
It was either that or walk a mile around to get at what plus some
steps and minus the fence would have
been easy to access. In Factoria, curved streets end in cul de sacs, high
fences separate the almost identical housing complexes of competing developers,
and NO PEDESTRIAN ACCESS signs pop up where sidewalks abruptly end. All of
which makes walking inconvenient, if
not impossible.
People accept it because gas is cheap and parking is free. But what about
community? An army might travel on
its stomach, but a neighborhood thrives on its feet. |
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