Sometimes I feel like I’ve been writing the same blog post over and over again for the last 10 years, and you probably feel like you’ve been reading the same post for a decade too. What’s confounding about my work and writing over the years is the degree to which very little has changed except resistance to change. The other day I had dinner at Ba Bar, a Vietnamese restaurant in South Lake Union not far from my office. As I looked out the window, I remembered that I had written about this exact spot, the block of Terry Avenue between Republican and Harrison, almost exactly 6 years ago, in the spring of 2011. I talked about the long history of South Lake Union and how a “thereness” had yet to emerge. Well, the thereness of the neighborhood is now there. All that was needed was more people.

Here’s the windswept plaza I wrote about that is about halfway down the block on the east side of Terry.

And below, here is a mix of pictures of the area now, taken around the same time of the day, lunchtime.

Back then I said,

What I like about what’s going on in South Lake Union is an emerging “thereness” missing before. While construction was underway on many of the new buildings it was hard to find a sense of place. Now it feels a lot more like that oft touted miracle of redevelopment, the Pearl District in Portland. But there is something emerging that isn’t so great. Have you ever been to Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond?

I also commented on Seattle’s Napoleon complex; everything is about building height rather than what’s going on at street level. In another post I wrote way back when, I talked about the idea that planning is less important that people. I highlighted a hub of thriving human activity on the block of Summit on Capitol Hill where the original Top Pot can still be found today.

I wrote this back then about Summit:

Maybe it’s a pointless chicken and egg question, which came first, place or planning? But maybe place is not “build it and they will come,” but rather “let the people come, and they will make a place.” Why does it matter? We spend a lot of time in our land use code trying to out smart ourselves. What if we just opened the door and let the people in? Are we getting in the way with too many rules? Is lots of people in ugly buildings better than less people in highly designed buildings? Is population density enough, on it’s own to create a sense of place?

I still think most of the buildings in South Lake Union are pretty awful looking, mostly glass boxes. Who cares? After 6 years and lots of jobs we have lots of people. The area is more alive now than ever. And another interesting point is that there’s more saris than suits; the ethnic diversity of people walking around at lunch time is notable. It’s hardly a sea of awkward white brogrammers harassing women. On the contrary, the blocks in SLU have a international feel. The people are young, but they aren’t mostly bands of roving white men.

What I said then has been proven true; just add people and the rest will take care of itself. Place is not about “the place” it’s about the people in the place. Seattle’s demise will be counterproductive, self defeating policies like Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning (MIZ), but it will also happen because we’re fussbudgets, fretting and tweaking and sweating over height, bulk, scale, zones, and typology in stead of getting out of the way of what people want. Sometimes its important to look back, even just six years, to find out that what we’ve been saying over and over again is true: density is people.