“My Story: Green Sprawl” by Kurt Harjo, Volunteer at Sustainable Seattle

I Dream of no Streets. No Streets in the traditional sense. Expanses of land connecting neighborhoods can be restored to natural landscape. The neighbor that was once across the street could instead be the neighbor across the creek, or the neighbor on the other side of forest or walking path. Traditional Transportation needs are facilitated by efficient community and regional public transportation. Delivery of goods and services traditionally using the common streets would use gravel alley ways, while those who are committed to owning a car would leave it in a community parking garage, freeing their own land for more purposeful uses.

From an aerial view, hot, impervious, car lined streets are replaced by verdant spaces home to streams, gardens, and nestled in their midst, with a small footprint is the light rail. It’s carrying community members to work, to their friends, to city centers. It seldom crosses streets, as these are becoming less and less, each one of them at risk of the lively, ever present and consuming Green Sprawl.