Seattle: City of the Year

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Photograph by Alessandra Petlin

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Photograph by Alessandra Petlin

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Fast Cities 2009

This city is also an eco-leader. In 2005, Mayor Greg Nickels adopted the Kyoto Protocol for the city after the Bush administration declined to do so for the country, and led the charge with the Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement. "The same creativity that led Seattle to be the home of Boeing, Starbucks, and Microsoft -- and made our municipal utility City Light the first carbon-neutral utility in the nation -- will help us restore our planet and boost our economy," Mayor Nickels tells me. He cites McKinstry, a firm that President Obama has hailed as exemplary. "Recently, I personally handed over new construction permits to McKinstry, a company that installs systems to make buildings more energy efficient, that will enable it to hire more than 500 new workers."

But we Seattleites don't flaunt our success. "The drive to succeed is there, make no mistake," says Joe Fugere, a Starbucks exec turned restaurateur who owns Tutta Bella, a local family of popular Neapolitan pizza joints. "[But] the Seattle style of innovation is humble innovation." Humility also means that we don't begrudge others their success. "You know one of the cool things about Seattle?" asks Jenn Risko, the energetic publisher of "Shelf Awareness," the book-publishing industry's leading daily-news source. "The person standing next to you doesn't hate your guts because of how successful you are."

Risko, a New Jersey transplant, came to Seattle, saved money, found a business partner, and launched an e-newsletter that has gained solid circulation and high industrywide regard in just four years. "The creative people who have transplanted to Seattle have sought out this place for a reason," she tells me. "Wherever they came from, they left because that place was stuck in tradition. And these people, these innovators, are not happy with that. They want to turn that idea of tradition on its head."

The question, of course, is why that happens here, not elsewhere. I ask Risko if it could possibly be the weather. (Not that we Seattleites are insecure about it.) She looks at me very seriously and then says: "I think it's the Mountain."

The Mountain. The affectionate term Seattleites use for Mount Rainier, which reaches its zenith 60 miles southeast of the city and is the tallest peak in the Cascades. On clear days, the snow-capped giant seems to sit up tall and watch over its kingdom, which includes our fair city.

"Always being able to look at something bigger than you, that's good for you," Risko says. "You think you're in control, but you see that mountain and you realize that at any minute, it could blow! It changes your priorities." (I laugh, but back at my office, I Google "Mount Rainier." Risko is right: U.S. Geological Survey scientists consider Mount Rainier to be one of the nation's most dangerous volcanoes. Perhaps I should reevaluate my priorities.)

"The natural environment -- the mountains, the lakes, the trees -- are such a huge part of this city," says architect Eric Cobb, who lived and worked in San Francisco and New York before returning to his hometown. Even in the city, green space has primacy. In 1903, city leaders hired the Olmsted brothers -- yes, those Olmsteds -- to develop a master park plan. The plan located a park or playground within one-half mile of every house.

The Olmsted legacy infiltrates every aspect of the Seattle landscape today, from pocket public beaches on Lake Washington to the 20-mile boulevard that links city parks and greenbelts. It also affects the built environment. Seattle happens to have one of America's most interesting collections of modern architecture; from the Frank Gehry -- designed Experience Music Project, to Rem Koolhaas's Seattle Public Library, and even to an icon such as the Space Needle -- which, while distinctive, is not the most beautiful objet d'architecture -- our structures have provided plenty of controversy. "There is a bit of libertarian attitude in Seattle," Cobb says. "You can pretty much do what you want to do on your property. But if you design a monstrosity, they will come after you. And while that's not fun, there's something about the tension of that dynamic. It's about balance. It's about restraint. But it's also about taking a stand if it's something you believe in. If you have passion, people will accept it." Eventually.