SEATTLE WALK REPORT - SUSANNA RYAN

I’m in the middle of a project now where I’m reading through various Seattle Walk guides and, eventually, attempting to create a list of places I think deserve touristic repute. The main emphasis for this is another book called, SEATTLE WALKS, which I just finished. It took 2 years, since I went on all the walks in the book (55 miles) but I haven’t reviewed it yet because I wanted to write up my proposed stops first. So, keep your eyes open for all that. This book is a hot little number that, for whatever reason, got lots of play in local press when it came out. It’s also a library PeakPicks, a designation reserved for the most popular new titles. It’s more a sketch book than anything else. We don’t really get any history or geography or geology or any theories as to why a neighborhood might be the way it is. We just get drawings of doorways and coffee cups and cute dogs and so on. Even then major landmarks don’t really get anything but a quick sketch. My larger, more substantial complaint has to do with how North Seattle focused the book is. Seattle, not unlike many (most?) cities is divided racial on a North/South axis. To oversimplify, the more north you go, the whiter it is. This book has 16 walks, only one is in South Seattle. I sense a lot of cultural enthusiasm around new urbanism and seeing oneself as a Flâneur but cities aren’t neutral and the contours you walk and enjoy are fraught and, if you’re paying attention you can do more than count coffee cups, you can see large ideological forces, normally hidden, at work. Pay more attention when you’re walking. 23 Reports.