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High Point: The Inside Story of Seattle’s First Green Mixed-Income Neighborhood Kindle Edition

4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 14 ratings

The task: transform a 120-acre, run-down, high-crime, isolated, low-income housing project into a thriving, safe, healthy, mixed-income community with public and market rate housing, and shared green spaces and a street network linking the neighborhood together as well as to the surrounding community. Today, Seattle's High Point is an internationally acclaimed model of green, mixed-income development. In the beginning, however, it was a visionary and highly risky experiment that would require strong leadership, grit, and determination to make it a reality. Enter Tom Phillips, the urban planner who agreed to take on High Point. The story follows his team’s journey from inception to completion, navigating the myriad needs and expectations of a broad range of stakeholders, from government agencies to the design team, contractors, residents, and the broader community, all while keeping his eye on the greater vision and expanding it to include green building and design, at the time a new and fairly radical concept. Throw into the mix the 2008 housing crisis and the subsequent economic recession, and the result is a highly instructive and entertaining narrative filled with wisdom, insight, and lessons learned. It is also, most importantly, a critical, as well as celebratory, look back 18 years from the project's inception, to ponder what worked and what was learned to inform and inspire the next generation who are engaged with the transformation of communities.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0881C6CPX
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 9445 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 296 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0578626225
  • Customer reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 14 ratings

About the author

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Tom J Phillips
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Tom Phillips, a Seattle native, has enjoyed a decades-long career as a planner and manager, serving in local government as well as being a consultant to private developers specializing in citizen involvement, new urbanism, and affordable housing. The pinnacle of his career was leading an almost decade-long project for what would become the largest housing redevelopment in Seattle’s history, High Point. Tom’s background includes earning an MA in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis from the New School for Social Research in New York and a BA in Economics from Williams College in Massachusetts, as well as stints with both the Peace Corps in Liberia and as a Vista volunteer, where he worked with low-income families as a community organizer. He has spoken at conferences around the country on smart growth and green development. He lives with his wife Julie in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. They lived at High Point for four years.

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  • Laura
    5.0 out of 5 stars You don’t have to be a specialist in urban development to appreciate this engaging book
    Reviewed in the United States on 18 April 2020
    Tom Phillips, author and project director, described the redevelopment of a large parcel of low income housing in a plum track of land in Seattle. It was a behemoth project, involving myriad moving parts, de-construction, moving families, and “herding cats” among interest groups. This kind of project has stakeholders that get angry, attack, criticize, misunderstand, sabotage, blame and undermine (and sue!) But Tom never got a case of victimhood or ego-mania so common among leaders who take on large-scale urban renewal. He accepted the inevitable topsy-turvy course and just tackled problem after problem. But what large urban project doesn’t have large problems—“The Big Dig” in Boston and Bertha, the broken tunnel boring machine in Seattle come to mind. Tom Phillips developed advocates and friends at every level; he was part community organizer, part diplomat, and part boring machine himself to keep moving the High Point project to success.

    The book is engaging and moves smoothly through the developmental stages of building this new community of mixed housing with verve and heart. I actually found it to be a page turner. The book is well-organized and formatted, with section headers that keep you thinking, “And then what happened?!”

    Tom is humble in describing setbacks and disappointments. The story about Thaddeus is tragic, even while his tree love is endearing and inspirational. The green agenda is a North Star. The beauty and genius of the swales and road construction are gorgeous. I loved the “dot” voting and involvement of the community in choosing home design. And the goal of creating safe and healthy housing for children with asthma added a dimension of sheer vision.

    At the end of the book, Tom’s interviews of various residents of the community reads like a piece of anthropology. They all have unique contributions, but the element that stands out is the value placed on community. The yearning for more mixing between cultures, races, and classes is evident. Tom’s passion for building the community-connectedness of New Urbanism was clear throughout the book, but there are aspects of sociology that are not healed by even spectacular urban planning. Still, the efforts to address these issues should inspire any reader and person who cares about community.

    Most of us want to "do good" and help vulnerable populations, but rarely can we accomplish something that will leave a legacy like High Point.
  • Zev Siegl
    5.0 out of 5 stars Deep dive into a complex project
    Reviewed in the United States on 20 April 2020
    This is one case in which “The Inside Story” is an understatement. This is chance for every professional, every city councilperson and every masters degree candidate to get a sneak preview of the subtleties in a complicated project with goals that go beyond profit. The, roadblocks, the twists and the turns never end. Developers and community activists will particularly appreciate the insights; this author is unusually open about the tactics it took to achieve a result that’s worth writing about.

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