Originally published October 7, 2007 at 12:00 AM | Page modified October 26, 2007 at 12:24 PM
Danny Westneat
3 worlds meet at High Point
"Where old Seattle meets new Seattle. In West Seattle. " That's the motto of the new High Point subdivision, on a bluff in the city's southwest...
![]() |
Seattle Times staff columnist
"Where old Seattle meets new Seattle. In West Seattle."
That's the motto of the new High Point subdivision, on a bluff in the city's southwest corner. It hints at this planned community's utopian goal: to be a mixing chamber, where poor and well-off not only meet but live on the same blocks. The city tore down a barracks-style low-income housing project in 2003 and put up the anti-gated community: rows of big homes with granite and hardwoods (top price: $609,000) intermingled with rental duplexes and apartments for the poor.
"It's like three worlds out here," says Ken Davis, 52, an underemployed computer tech who gave me a walking tour. "You've got old working-class Seattle — guys like me with too much junk in their yards. You've got the subsidized renters. Then you've got the new people, the ones buying these luxury homes."
Last week, worlds supposed to mix began to clash.
A man from "the yuppie side of High Point" unleashed an incendiary critique on his community blog (highpointblog.wordpress.com). Robert Hadley, who bought a townhouse on the border of the project in April, says loitering, crime and fear are on the rise.
He wrote that High Point feels like "Tangier and not West Seattle." He blamed the renters, many of whom are immigrants.
"Every once in a while I see glimpses of the diversity dream that's always talked about in the papers," he told me. "But I also see crime taking off, a lot of people loitering around up to no good. When you spend this much for a home, you expect better than this."
At least some High Point homeowners agreed. One wrote about a recent street brawl. Another said, ironically, that what High Point needs is a gate, with a guard, to ward off "unwanted guests."
Ken Davis, who was there in the old days when High Point was 100 percent renters, says it's all relative. It's much better now, he says.
"We knew this war on the poor was coming," he says. "A lot of people fought very hard to keep High Point for the poor. If a bunch of jerks like this buy up the pricey houses — people who have no clue what it means to live in a city — then there's going to be conflict.
"They're not going to push out the poor if I have anything to say about it."
I wandered around High Point last week. It's like no housing project I've ever seen. It shines with promise. It feels cut right out of the suburbs, with rows of bright town houses, community gardens and manicured pocket parks.
![]()
It's so egalitarian in feel that at one point I couldn't tell if I was standing amid low-income rentals or upscale condos.
It's the opposite of what's happening in downtown Seattle. Downtown, you have separate universes. The grit of the street and the glitter of the condo palaces. One is horizontal, the other vertical. By design they rarely meet.
High Point is at least striving for something else. It seems essential. If we can't get along when we live on the same blocks, where will we?
Last week showed that's not enough. It's going to take a lot more than architecture to bring old and new Seattle together.
Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.
Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
dwestneat@seattletimes.com | 206-464-2086
Seattle Times Fund For The Needy offers opportunity to give
Tugboat sinks in Seattle's waterfront
Child-support error costs nearly $21,000
Danny Westneat: Bonus for supe with a B minus?
Nicole Brodeur: You have more to spare than you think you do

LA Galaxy's David Beckham
Los Angeles Galaxy's David Beckham talks about the upcoming MLS Cup final during after a team practice.
nwjobs

Post a comment

Michelle Goodman blogs about work/life balance.
How to tell your office you're gravely ill
Post a comment
nwautos

Choosing a new sedan? Weigh the impact of your choice on your wallet and on the planet.
Post a comment
- Craigslist adoption ad: A plea by young mother-to-be? A scam?
- 'The Road' takes Viggo Mortensen to Mount St. Helen's and Astoria, Ore.
- Italian lead prosecutor argues Knox motive was hatred
- Italian prosecutors request life sentence for UW student
- Man shot in chest on E. Union Street in Capitol Hill
- Child-support error costs nearly $21,000
- Washington state wines make annual best-of list
- Tugboat sinks in Seattle's waterfront
- Mariners Blog | A Mariners-Tigers swap makes a whole lot of sense for both teams
- Lynnwood is reinventing itself — again
- Senate vote clears hurdle
234 - Mariners add six to 40-man roster
149 - Tight Senate vote launches health care over hurdle
119 - Child-support error costs nearly $21,000
113 - Palin excitement builds in Tri-Cities
107 - Vikings easily beat the Seahawks
102 - Prosecutor requests life in prison for Amanda Knox
86 - Cutting through breast-cancer confusion
82 - Game thread
68 - New York terror trials will restore faith in rule of law
48
- Washington state wines make annual best-of list
- Nonprofits get creative using Twitter and Facebook to make donation easier
- It's possible to recover a life lost to hoarding
- Lynnwood is reinventing itself — again
- Great places to cross-country ski for free (or almost) in the Methow
- Child-support error costs nearly $21,000
- 'The Road' takes Viggo Mortensen to Mount St. Helen's and Astoria, Ore.
- Recipes: Sesame Pork Roast, Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes, Gingerbread with Lemon Sauce and more
- Banff: powder, peaks & purity
- 175 foster kids in Washington get 'forever families'






