The Neighborhood Dialogue

On August 10, 2005 Sustainable Seattle convened a Neighborhood Dialogue with its 10 SUNI partner neighborhoods to identify top neighborhood priorities and suggest indicators to measure these concerns. One purpose of this event was to help Sustainable Seattle target some of our activities around a few key concerns that transcended all 10 neighborhoods.  

The Dialogue was a success, with more than 35 neighborhood leaders attending this half-day facilitated event. At the Dialogue, participants worked in cross-neighborhood teams to nominate 3-5 top priorities that transcended all 10 neighborhoods and recommended potential indicators that could help monitor these concerns.  To help inspire each group to think about neighborhood health and sustainability, Sustainable Seattle provided a list of potential themes.  Participants were also encouraged to suggest additional themes that may have not been reflected on the list.  

Key Learnings

The top priorities expressed by the cross-neighborhood teams included thriving neighborhood business districts, public safety, alternative transportation, citizen involvement and activism, responsive city government, pedestrian-oriented communities, affordable housing, the natural environment, and education.  Click on the graph to the left to view which of these issues were ranked highest among team participants.  You can also see the full list of priorities, along with suggested indicators and conversation points in the Neighborhood Dialogue Summary. 

Powerful conversations arose around the discussion of priorities and indicators.  Participants talked about the positive ways that parks, libraries, and some interaction with certain City departments were contributing to neighborhood health.  On the flipside, there were comments about the need to improve alternative transportation and walkability, increase local police presence, foster greater community involvement, educate the public about neighborhood design review and sustainable development, and improve the general communication between the City of Seattle and neighborhoods.

Community Interviews

In order to assess if these priorities resonated with a more diverse mix of community members, we used a grant from The Seattle Foundation to conduct one-on-one interviews with 92 additional community leaders from the 10 neighborhoods.  More information and the full report of findings of the Healthy Neighborhoods Survey can be found here.

For the most part, the broad set of priorities expressed at the Dialogue was echoed by the community interviews. However, community interview findings illustrate a difference in the relative importance of these priorities, depending on the neighborhood and particular frame of the interviewee.  To see the priorities from the community interviews, click on the graph to the left.

In particular there were several concerns voiced much more strongly through the community interviews than the Dialogue, such as affordable housing, diversity and open space.  Results from the community interviews show affordable housing to be the most pressing neighborhood concern. Diversity and adequate open space were two additional priorities voiced much more strongly in the 92 citizen interviews than at the Dialogue.  Many of the interviewees, especially in the south part of the city, viewed the availability of affordable housing as critical for sustaining a healthy and diverse mix of residents and businesses. One possible reason for differences between the findings of the Dialogue and the community interviews may be that the community interviews were designed to understand localized priorities, while the Neighborhood Dialogue was used to gather a more generic set of priorities that transcended all 10 neighborhoods.  Thus some of the more localized concerns may have been filtered out during the prioritization process of the Dialogue 

Resulting Activities

These findings are being shared with the general public through our website and with key representatives of our city government.  We are also working to more effectively target our neighborhood activities around two of the priorities – thriving business districts and responsive city government. Findings from these community conversations have helped Sustainable Seattle select two areas to focus additional neighborhood efforts around: Neighborhood Business Districts and City Responsiveness.  We hope to contribute in meaningful ways to these important citizen concerns by convening stakeholders, collecting and reporting information, and fostering dialogue and action.