report# 4

Site report #4

The first material “UD residential market analysis” was written by an analysis team called Heartland and city of Seattle department of planning and development. The material is the result of their analysis of residential potential of the UD(University District). First of all, this material indicates on the residential perspective that majority was the students who were paying relatively low rent price. Even though it is planned to offer the housing to a higher-income people, professors, who would be able to afford a house, but the market for them are not big enough. For this reason, there was no high-rise buildings, because of its high expense, and the major resident does not have a income high enough to afford those buildings. However, it was once planned that the high-rise buildings would some day replace the mid-rise buildings, even though it finally got the conclusion that it would be very hard to do so because the income level of the major resident were not high enough. They wanted the readers to understand that majority residents were the students by demonstrating the data of medium income, rent growth and etc. They just simply wrote an analysis about the potential of the resident in UD, so there was no plan implemented, and they did not focus on the historical background, but listing out the recent day to indicate the background in the UD.

Since my block has two houses surrounded by big apartments, according to the materials, the buildings in my block were very much as what the material says. The apartment were only mid-rise apartment for those relatively lower income group of students, and there was no high-rise offices. My block has two houses and three mid-rise apartment which targeted on students. As it predicted, there would possibly be no high-rise buildings in my block in a period of time because the market for middle class were not big enough around the UD.

The second material, however, is written by a group of people including University District Partnership,U District Square, Seattle Parks and Recreation, and Department of Planning and Development. They wrote a report of their process on the public spaces, and let the readers understand their ongoing, planned, and finished work and concerns about their construction on the public spaces around the UD. Their priority was to get open spaces around the UD and serve communities in different places. They have already constructed the connection with the UW for the open space which may provide more space for pedestrian and bikes. 

Also, as described by this material, they have planned to build more public spaces since 2005, and have not finished any one in the UD. For people who living in my block, they have to go very far if they want to chill in a public place, as indicated by the article when they start their plan, since the construction did not make any progress near my block

From the material that I have researched before, the neighborhood used to be a village, but as the UW moved here,the residents became students, who are not as rich as families. What they pursued are smaller and cheaper apartment comparing with houses.

For my block specifically, there was several houses for several families before the apartments were built. After a businessman brought it, he build his apartment on this land, and that’s how the residents changed from normal resident who live in houses to students who live in relatively cheap apartment.

However, just like the UD was once impacted by the UW(University of Washington), the UD may now be influenced by the nearby high-tech companies again in the future. The trend is that the apartment are becoming higher level in condition, and more and more expensive. Probably impacted by the nearby high-technology companies, the residents slightly changed to high income technology people, or those who are learning or researching high technology knowledge around UW, and thus makes the housing become more expensive, and may not be able to serve the same community as it did for the past. From the historical analysis, the UD may be influenced again, and the nearby housed may changed from the original cheap and small students’ dorm to higher-level condition apartment or houses. Thus, the two houses in my block maybe brought and transferred to a higher and expensive apartment in the future like what happened to the previous houses.

When we plan for the future, we should take “what type of residents living here” into count, and thus we can get the conclusion that the buildings around the UD will be higher level condition since the population changed from normal family to student in the past, and from student again to higher income people recently. However, the student-centered UD’s residential should be like in the previous period(decades before this year), which is merely for the student, when the building were in lower level condition, cheaper, and smaller, than the trend of the UD in the future. Therefore, the UD may not be as “student-centered” like day in the future, but it will have more expensive housings in the future.

(revising addition : as metioned in the lecture, "Multi-national corporations are city-builders", the residence around the UD are affected by the high-tech companies around Seattle : they make more richer employees or researchers showing up around the UD, and make the high level aparment in demand among those who have higher income. Thus they make the apartments around UD newer and more expensive. My block's apartments are relative new and they target on those who are able to pay higher rent. The interest of the apartment owners and city planners are served, since they are the people who want the city to develope, which also means newer and better-condition apartments)