Talk:Seattle Voyage Tips and guide

This article was the Collaboration of the week between 12 June 2007 and 25 June 2007.

Contents

As a person who's lived in Seattle for 25 years: yes, the Pike Place Market is a cliche, after a fashion, but visiting Seattle and skipping the Market would be like visiting Washington, DC and skipping the government buildings. The market is touristy, but the locals still outnumber the tourists, and as a working public market it is almost unique in America at this point. - (WT-en) Jmabel 12:08, 27 Dec 2003 (PST)

You said "WRONG" to someone's earlier comment. The only way someone can figure out who said that is to search the history. Can you reword it so that it's not in first person? -(WT-en) phma 17:09, 30 Dec 2003 (PST)

Whatever you are referring to, someone must have deleted it by now, because I can't find it in the article. If you can be more specific, I'm sure I can address it. - (WT-en) Jmabel 13:34, 5 Jan 2004 (EST)

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I'm moving the big list of areas/disticts to Talk:Seattle/Districts until it's cleaned up and more usefull. (WT-en) Majnoona

Judging by recent edit in the article, I'm not the only one frustrated by the removal of the neighborhood info. Maybe we can do a map, to keep both Majnoona and the rest of us happy? -- (WT-en) Jmabel 16:08, 8 Feb 2004 (EST)

I think I'm the one who resurrected the neighborhoods, and probably went overboard in explaining why they're important. The map is a lot clearer than the old prose -- thanks! I also consolidated the neighborhood discussion into one place in the article. I think a bunch of the trouble might stem from the fact that the neighborhoods in Seattle are fuzzy and more for navigation than for somehow dividing up the City ala Philadelphia. This area seems to be a troublesome aspect of the style guide for lots of cities. -- (WT-en) DougEngland 03:03, 27 Feb 2004 (PST)

I have added a district map to help make sense out of it all. I have matched it to the guide as best as I could. Where I couldn't make sense of the guide I used the districts layed out here: http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~public/nmaps/fullcity.htm

I am not a local, so if something is wrong, or could be better feel free to change the map, or let me know and I will do it myself. SVG source is at: http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Image:Seattle_overview.svg. - (WT-en) bulliver 16:51, 14 March 2006 (EST)

The district map could be a little less vague, particularly for the Fremont/Greenlake/Wallingford/Phinney Ridge area. These are all distinct neighborhoods. Lake City, Northgate and Maple Leaf also could be more clear, but there's nothing for a tourist to see their anyway. 38.112.225.84 18:10, 19 June 2007 (EDT)

Yes, any chance of a more detailed map? I think the current one is misleading as to neighborhood names and locations. --Lukobe (talk) 19:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

I have been struggling with this district guide and finally got around to looking at the cities official version that this is meant to be be built off of, however it looks like the city only breaks it into three main districts with several sub neighborhood groups. The map that has been created for this article is a stretch of the imagination as some neighborhood have been broken into their own sub categories while others have been grouped into giant neighborhoods (i.e. West and South Seattle). I've been reading through the discussions here and still have no idea how this map evolved and why. Can someone please explain?!? Lumpytrout (talk) 17:04, 22 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

As you've noted, the discussions on this talk page are the best source of info about why districts were created as they were. If there are specific improvements to be made please suggest them - anything on a wiki is subject to change given new arguments/information. Unfortunately I know little or nothing of Seattle so I can't be of much help in discussing proposed changes, so hopefully those with more local knowledge can contribute. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:19, 22 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

At the very least I would suggest breaking out Georgetown from SODO, they are distinctly different neighborhoods with vastly different reasons why tourists would want to visit (one sports oriented the other is up and coming arts district). South Park is also the Red Headed Stepchild of West Seattle with its own vibe and separated from WS geographically (many West Seattleites have not even been there). If I HAD TO group neighborhoods together I would say that Georgetown and South Park would make a much better match than where they are now. --Lumpytrout (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I've been wanting for a while to start a wiki site about Seattle, WA -- a kind of "guide" aimed mostly for Seattle locals. I recently found WikiTravel and at first thought this would do it, but it seems WikiTravel is aimed more to travelers planning trips. Whereas here there is one page only on Seattle, the seattle wiki would be a whole site devoted to it, so I think it's worth pursuing.

That said, I was hoping to be able to "steal" a lot of ideas from WikiTravel, including pages on how the site works, user help, etc. I don't want to replicate effort, but there's a lot of good stuff here that I could use. And the Seattle page could be useful for stub articles to get things started.

I know I can probably do all this because of the CC license, but I wanted to see if Wikivoyagers had any input, ideas, or gripes about this idea.

-- (WT-en) Matiasp 21:53, 2 May 2004 (EDT)

Hi, Matias! Yes, Wikivoyage is more for travellers than for residents. Where a Wikivoyage article might have 20 restaurants for Seattle, a real city guide would have all the restaurants.

One good group that's doing city guides is http://openguides.org/. They've got good software and are probably more what you're looking for. See Cooperating with OpenGuides for Wikivoyage's relationship with OG. Good luck -- sounds like a good project! --(WT-en) Evan 01:01, 4 May 2004 (EDT)

Matias - Hi, Earle here, one of the OpenGuides team. Evan's right, that does sound exactly like what we're aiming for! Drop us a line at [email protected] and we can talk. --(WT-en) Earle 09:54, 4 May 2004 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the replies Evan and Earle. Earle, I'll take a look at OpenGuides and email you guys about it soon. -- (WT-en) Matiasp 00:54, 8 May 2004 (EDT)

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I don't think it's an improvement to move a bunch of stuff into a separate Capitol Hill district article if that's really the only one there is (the single sentence for the Fremont article doesn't count -- that too would be less complicated if it were in the main article). I think separate district articles would be a reasonable idea if there were, say, at least three of them, but can't we leave the article integrated until we get enough content to separate at one time? -- (WT-en) DougEngland 03:07, 1 Jun 2004 (PDT)

Check out Talk:Seattle/Districts. That's where we've started laying out how to do the districts.

Yes, the district articles will be small at first. Hopefully we can fill them with a little more info. Bit by bit, that's the WikiWiki way. --(WT-en) Evan 10:19, 1 Jun 2004 (EDT)

I'm fine with adding content bit by bit, and with splitting out districts when there really is enough content, but let's keep it usable UNTIL it really is too big for one article. It's useless to split out fewer than three good sized district articles. More in Talk:Seattle/Districts. -- (WT-en) DougEngland 00:17, 3 Jun 2004 (PST)

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I'm tempted to move the ferry riding back to "boating" from its current location under Get Out, since you basically just go down to the ferry dock and back, and since there is other boating already in the article. Any objections? -- (WT-en) DougEngland 20:09 3 Jun 2004 (PST)

I think it should stay in "Get out" for two reasons: A ferry trip isn't really a "Do" activity like biking or the other boating items, and day trips outside of the region belong in the "Get out" section. -- (WT-en) Paul Richter 03:49, 4 Jun 2004 (EDT)

Even as a resident I still find the information presented to travelers still useful to residents such as restaurants, attractions and bars that locals may not necessarily know obout. Even with the "get in" and "get out" parts would be useful to locals who is used to driving and seeking an alternative mode of transportation for a weekend trip out of town. How will your separate Wiki be different then what's already there? Anyone150 (talk) 04:29, 18 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

I made a minor edit to the openning paragraph. I just thought it sounded better. It is an opinion thing, but I felt justified, I am a Seattle native.

Thank you for improving the article -- you are always welcome to Plunge forward like that. That's what the edit button is for, after all. -- (WT-en) Colin 17:19, 2 Jan 2006 (EST)

I'm not sure, but maybe someone can set it up so South Park isn't confused with the TV show. (Does WikiTravel use the disambiguation stuff that wikipedia does?)

"On the plus side, this means the rain rarely presents a safety hazard other than the fact that local drivers seem to lose half their IQ points when so much as a drizzle hits." I have changed this sentence to... "On the plus side, this means the rain rarely presents a safety hazard, though local drivers are unlikely to reduce their speed or make any adjustments for wet driving conditions." I hope no one has any objections. (WT-en) Tzepish 18:23, 3 March 2006 (EST)

OK, in 3 months, Seattleites have gone from being maniacal drivers [1] to being overcautious ones [2]. Which is it? — (WT-en) Ravikiran 12:50, 13 May 2006 (EDT)

Actually, Seattle drivers are fine in our misty excuse for rain and there's rarely enough rain to create a hydroplanning hazard. Just keep in mind that the city falls apart after any snowfall greater than two inches due to too few snowplows and drivers who (wrongly) think 4WD means they can steer stop on snow and ice. (The local media has a lot of fun taking pictures of them sliding down hills, bouncing off other cars.) Where Seattle drivers loose their good sense is on the first sunny days in spring where, like moles coming out into the light, they're blinded by that strange yellow object in the sky.

Is there a standard for what a Budget, Mid-Range, etc. Hotel is? The W at $284/night doesn't seem all that Mid-Range, maybe an Up-Scale category is appropriate here? (Anonymous Visitor)

In the discussion of UW, there is a comment saying it is the largest single campus on the west coast. It seems impossible to me that it is larger than Stanford. The UW web site says 643 acres [3]. Stanford isn't as clear, the original grant is 8000+ acres of which 2/3 are in use but not certain whether it is continguous, considered all one campus and so on. Anyone have better info? If so please edit.

As an FYI, I have started a blog that shares tips, info, resources for enjoying Seattle on a budget: [4]

Wikivoyage has a very useful and user-friendly overview article on Seattle with lots and lots of info for visiting the city. ... I highly recommend this as a primer to the city. Full blog post here. --(WT-en) Evan 01:05, 11 December 2006 (EST)

As Wikivoyage is mainly meant for tourists, and as I've seen so many of them board a Metro express route by mistake and get inadvertently carried off into the Seattle hinterlands, I've added a brief entry to the Get around/By bus section advising against boarding express coaches. (WT-en) Motterj 10:18 05 Feb 2007 (PST)

I left http://www.cascadeloop.com/ as the link for "Cascade Loop". It's almost an official organization, but I'm not sure. Please feel free to remove it if it doesn't feel right to you. --(WT-en) Evan 15:43, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Probably the smart thing to do is to make a Cascade Loop itinerary. --(WT-en) Evan 15:44, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Someone who can edit this entry needs to fix the Green Lake information to make it more accurate. It seems to have written by someone whose mind was untroubled by any actual visit to the lake. Almost everything that's said is wrong or outdated and that reflects poorly on Wikivoyage.

1. The name is Green Lake not Greenlake, as you can out find at the city park website: http://www.seattle.gov/parks/parkspaces/greenlak.htm

2. The asphalt and gravel travels aren't "side by side." The asphalt trail circles the lake. The gravel one circles the park, making the two several hundred yards apart in places. If you visit, remember that on the asphalt trail all wheeled traffic except strollers is restricted to the outer half and to CCW travel only. That's to make rollerblading and biking relatively safe on the same trail with walkers. On foot, walking or jogging, you can travel in either direction, although it's best to stay out of the wheeled lane as much as possible. And the asphalt trail can get quite crowded on a sunny weekend. Also, both trails are poorly lite in most places, so a walk late at night can be a bit scary for those easily spooked.

3. Green Lake isn't "algae-infested." It was treated with alum several years ago and the algae blooms are gone. Swimming is fine and there are lifeguards on duty in the summer. You can also rent boats in the NE corner or participate in boating classes in the SW corner. Several crew boat teams practice on the lake.

4. Green Lake isn't "north of the University District." It's north of Wallingford and almost two miles west of the university. Any city map shows that.

5. This is semantics, but Green Lake is a small lake that's 2.8 miles around rather than a pond. It's big enough for a wide variety of boating competitions from water skiing to crew-boat racing.

Whoever did the posting did get the sports opportunities right, but most people go to Green Lake for a walk or jog around the lake. Dogs must be on leashes. Some people fish. If it can be carried or pulled along the grass to the water, you can bring your own small boat. I've also seen people with RC boats and seaplanes there.

If you need a free WiFi connection, there's one at the public library in the NE corner. There's a wide variety of places to eat and shop in a wide arc in the NE corner.

I'd like to merge the following content, moved out of the King County article, into the Seattle#See section. Unfortunately, the article says it's "locked so that only registered users can edit it" (I am a registered user!). I'm posting it here temporarily until I can figure out what's going on. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 20:27, 11 June 2007 (EDT)

I guess I was mistaken; I can edit the article after all. Starting the move. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 20:49, 11 June 2007 (EDT)

All done! (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 23:45, 11 June 2007 (EDT)

These already existed in the Seattle article itself, or in one of the district articles.

• Chittenden Locks and Ship Canal
• IMAX Dome
• Museum of Flight
• Paramount Theatre
• Pike Place Market
• Safeco Field
• Seattle Art Museum
• Seattle Center
• Seattle Monorail
• Underground Tour
• University of Washington
• Washington Park Arboretum
• Washington State Ferries
• Woodland Park Zoo

These were added to various district articles, or to the main Seattle article if appropriate.

• Bay Pavillion
• Benaroya Hall
• 5th Avenue Theatre
• Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
• Museum of History and Industry
• Nordic Heritage Museum
• Northwest Seaport/Maritime Heritage Center
• Odyssey Maritime Marine Center
• Qwest Field
• Seattle Aquarium
• Seattle Pacific University
• Seattle University
• Washington Convention and Trade Center

This article is blessed with so much good content that it needs district articles to hold it all. However, I notice that there are many listings in See, Do, Drink, Eat, and Sleep which would be better off in district articles. My experience with other huge cities, like Vancouver, is that these sections in the top-level article should just explain how eating or sleeping works in this city, and maybe point out only the 5-10 most notable examples. If the listings were moved out, the Seattle article would be more manageable, it would be smaller than its present 60kB size, and all the listings for a given area would be in one place (the appropriate district article). I've tagged all these sections with the "districtify" template to encourage this movement. (By the way, I also think there are a few too many districts here, but I won't re-open that three year old discussion.) (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 01:08, 12 June 2007 (EDT)

I think it's about time to reopen that discussion... There are 16 areas on this map, why don't we go with those 16 areas rather than the 34+ districts mentioned (not all of which have pages, or are even linked for that matter). I shall scout around and try and point a few Wikivoyagers who have lived here to this discussion. -- (WT-en) Tim (writeme!) 10:03, 12 June 2007 (EDT)

Definitely time. I've started a new proposal at Talk:Seattle/Districts, so if anyone is still reading this page, please join in! - (WT-en) Dguillaime 15:41, 4 May 2009 (EDT)

I have corrected contact info., trimmed the descriptions, and "districtified" ALL listings for Eat, Drink and Sleep. I'm very happy to see Seattle looking much better now--the city is beautiful but the site was not so. I have deleted the 9 or so restaurants listed and then district links following because this may be one of the reasons so many site visitors just simply added their favorite restaurant (or place of work) to the site, rather than in the district. I know some people may not think this is a good idea, but again, the idea is to give a general idea about the food/drink/hotel offerings and then get people to the district pages. I have have left some seemingly dry comments about the Drink section, and only added a bit more creative lang. I'd really like to see someone with more area experience give some more insight into the coffee and microbrew culture popular to the city. Also, for the Eat section, I decided to delete the 9 restaurants listed (even though they were just the names, and all the specific info. in the districts where it should be) because it's pretty hard to choose 9 standout restaurants in a huge city article. I looked to other huge cities as my inspiration for this. Again, I know there might be some standouts, but I think it's fair to say this info. can be easily viewed on the district page (and this will also hopefully discourage listings on the main article instead of the district). Shine your emerald green, Seattle!(WT-en) Zepppep 21:58, 20 November 2009 (EST)

I like what's been done so far, and I have a few ideas regarding the "districts" issue.

As a life-long Seattle resident, I agree that there are distinct neighborhoods and it can help a tourist to know what neighborhood they are in. At the same time, there are at least 34 neighborhoods, a distinction which is good to know if you're looking for a house to buy, but useless for most tourists since they are most of those neighborhoods are primarily residential areas.

So, I propose creating a list of the various neighborhoods, but then grouping them for the purposes of explaining what activities/restaurants/etc are available in that area.

Here's my suggestion:

I would give these areas their own page:

1. Downtown, including Belltown, the Waterfront, Seattle Center, Westlake, Eastlake, and South Lake Union -- this is where the majority of tourist activities happen.

2. International District & Pioneer Square -- for the international flavor and nightlife.

3. Capitol Hill, including Montlake -- because it's close to Downtown, but has a distinctly different vibe.

4. West Seattle, Delridge, & Georgetown -- because West Seattle is only 10 minutes from Downtown, has several historic sites, and Alki Beach (where the beautiful people sunbathe in the summer).

5. U District & Ravenna -- because they bleed into each other and there's a lot of fun to have there.

6. Wallingford & Freemont -- for the nightlife and restaurants.

7. Green Lake, including Phinny Ridge & Greenwood -- for the recreation, food and night life.

8. Ballard & Crown Hill -- for the locks, the Scandinavian heritage, and Golden Gardens & the marina.

These areas may or may not need their own page:

1. First Hill, the Central District, Maddison Park, Madrona, Leschi, Colombia City, Seward Park & Beacon Hill -- Whereas there are some cute shops and restaurants, none are probably big enough for their own page.

2. Laurelhurst, Sand Point, Wedgewood -- there's a beach and a few good restaurants, but not much else... unless you want to buy a condo

3. Northgate, Maple Leaf, and Lake City -- again, a few cute areas (I love Maple Leaf!), but mostly residential stuff. Also, if tourists want a mall, they will likely be closer to Westlake than Northgate.

I would be happy to start some sorting as well, but I was having a difficult time trying to do that...

Thanks!

Anna —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 64.122.106.154 (talk • contribs) 15:51, 2008 March 18

Anna, welcome to WikiTravel! I'm glad to have your contributions. I don't have strong feelings about where to draw the boundaries of Seattle districts, so I'll leave that debate to you and others who know the city well. To answer the question of your section heading, "To have districts or not": Yes, we should have districts. Anna, be aware that it's not just a question of what this page says; there should be an article for each district, so you need to think about those articles too. When you renamed the link "Seattle/Greenlake" to "Seattle/Green Lake", that broke the link to the district article. If the group decides to rename a district, rename the district article too. If the group decides to move the boundaries of a district, move the listings in the district article to other articles as appropriate. Finally, Anna, I recommend that you create a user account, because it will give your contributions more credibility. Also, read "Project:Tips for new contributors" if you haven't already. Again, welcome to Wikivoyage! (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 18:05, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

Are the U district and Seattle Center really best avoided at night? That sounds untrue and overkill to me. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 75.50.116.180 (talk • contribs) 15:38, 2008 April 30

Hi there, Whatever the final decision is regarding breaking down the article into subsections, I should point out a few things about the map you're using. 1) It's Capitol Hill, not Capital Hill. 2) It's Queen Anne, not Queen Anne Hill. 3) The City Clerk's map is notoriously INaccurate in that it was designed to be used as a legislative index. Problems in their map that yours has inherited include:

• The Central District does not extend to the Lake.
• Neither does Capitol Hill.

4) Other issues that may or may not derive from their map:

• Northgate, Maple Leaf, and Lake City are all east of I-5; your map makes it look like they extend from Sound to Lake.
• Fremont, Phinney, Wallingford, Green Lake -- yes, but it's confusing to someone who knows nothing about Seattle which label relates to which part of the block.
• Cascade doesn't extend that far north. You're missing out Eastlake.
• I'd change Rainier-Seward Park to two separate entries, Rainier Valley and Seward Park.

5) It's Wedgwood, not Wedgewood.

Good start though.

Thanks, --71.197.235.42 01:55, 23 June 2008 (EDT) (Lukobe on Wikipedia)

All too true. Rearranging the districts is a difficult issue (there are just so many tiny little neighborhoods), but the spelling was bugging me every time I saw "Capital Hill", so I've uploaded a slightly revised map with those fixes only. - (WT-en) Dguillaime 23:14, 6 January 2009 (EST)

The Shared Route bus service has stopped running as of July 2008. It may start again in November 2008, but with a different route. I've deleted the text of the listing from the Seattle article and I'm storing it here for future reference. Feel free to take this and reinsert it, with appropriate modifications, if and when the service starts up again. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:26, 8 October 2008 (EDT)

• Shared Route, [5]. Biodiesel bus runs between Seattle and Portland, with a stop in Olympia. One way fare between Seattle and Portland is $30, round-trip is $50. One-way from Olympia just $10. Currently not operating.

I was not sure if this violated the rules on External Links, but I found this site useful the last time I went to Seattle. It allows the visitors to estimate taxi fare and it also has the latest fare information. I will leave it up to you guys to link to the site. http://www.taxifarefinder.com/main.php?city=Seattle I found the fares to be accurate in multiple places I have been. Seattle, Portland, Chicago, NYC, and Boston. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) IppTak (talk • contribs) 08:27, 2008 October 16

Can we merge them with already articles that are districts? I mean it is pointless. Someone could direct me to which to merge that would be fine. (WT-en) edmontonenthusiast [ee] ^.T.A.L.K. 18:24, 8 December 2008 (EST).

Okay, the map and the information for districts is very confusing. I think we need a new map. I think we need a big facelift for the set up. The number of districts is overwhelming and the map is confusing a little for the regular person. I think it is waaaay too much, I mean Hong Kong doesn't have that much. I think we should fix it to the names of the headers before listing the districts. Seems easy and that way we won't have short articles. (WT-en) edmontonenthusiast [ee] ^.T.A.L.K. 18:53, 8 December 2008 (EST).

(A followup to the original discussion.)

Five years later, it's time to re-evaluate Seattle's districting.

As it stands, we're up to some 28 district articles in varying states of completion, and still significant portions of the city are not covered (perhaps most notably the popular tourist traps destinations around the Space Needle). For a visitor without preexisting knowledge of Seattle's numerous neighborhoods, I suspect it's well on its way to being totally unusable outside of downtown. It's also presenting an obstacle to moving hotels and restaurants out of the top-level Seattle article.

My suggestion is to set a small number of top-level districts (6-7) covering the entire area of Seattle with clearly defined boundaries, merge the existing articles as necessary, and only split off neighborhoods as subdistricts if they can truly support a good-sized article under all headings by themself. The merging process would also present an opportunity to prune out any and all incomplete listings.

Proposal:

• North. Everything north of the Ship Canal, merging some or all of the existing articles Ballard, Crown Hill, Fremont, Greenlake, Greenwood, Lake City, Laurelhurst, Northgate, Phinney Ridge, Ravenna, University District, Wallingford, and Wedgwood. Though a large area, it's mostly residential or uninteresting commercial - aside from some restaurants and maybe Carkeek Park, I can't think of anything touristy north of 85th St. There are some articles that could be worth splitting off as subdistricts - the U-District is highlighted on the map as one possibility, Ballard is another, and maybe a merged Fremont-Wallingford as a third. None of the others are there yet, nor are they likely to. Obviously, this would be the biggest task, but it's also the area most in need of cleanup.

• Magnolia - Queen Anne - South Lake Union. Bounded by the Ship Canal, I-5, and Denny Way. Could definitely use a snappier name! (I wasn't sure about "Northwest", because the northwest portion of the street grid is elsewhere.) Merges existing articles Eastlake, Queen Anne Hill and South Lake Union, and incorporates some areas not currently covered - Magnolia, Seattle Center, Lower Queen Anne.

• East, or Capitol Hill-Central District after its most important neighborhoods. Bounded by I-5 to the west, I-90 to the south. Incorporates Capitol Hill, Central District, First Hill, Madrona, Madison Valley and Montlake.

• Downtown - Belltown. Bounded by Denny Way, I-5, Yesler Way, and the waterfront. Takes the existing Downtown article and expands it to include Belltown. The article already has various Belltown bars under Drink, so this requires little more than formalizing the area covered.

• Pioneer Square - International District - SoDo. Bounded by Yesler to the north, the stadiums to the south (say, to Holgate St.). Merges International District and Pioneer Square. Looks like enough material to keep it separate from Downtown.

• South. Everything south of I-90, east of the Duwamish River. Expands the existing Rainier Valley article. Not much material for this area yet. (Not sure whether to put Georgetown here, or merge it into the previous article instead.)

• West. West Seattle, no changes.

— (WT-en) Dguillaime 15:41, 4 May 2009 (EDT) / updates 26 July 2009

I don't know anything about Seattle, but it seems reasonable, and something definitively has to be done about the current mess. Along with London (54 districts), Tokyo (38 Districts) and New York (24 districts). As much as I adore our Chicago guide, I think having it as a star, has created a dangerous precedent for other large cities to follow. The number of contributions to the above cities, are frighteningly few, and I suspect that it can only be attributed to the complexity of figuring out where to put stuff, since few other cities takes in as many visitors as those 3! --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 17:47, 26 July 2009 (EDT)

I would probably break it down similar to this;

• Ballard/Greenlake. (incorporating Magnolia, Phinney Ridge, Crown Hill & Greenwood)

• U-District.(incorporating Ravenna, Fremont, Wallingford & Montlake)

• Queen Anne.(incorporating Lower Queen Anne, Seattle Center & South Lake Union)

• Capitol Hill.(incorporating Madison Valley, Madrona & Leschi)

• Downtown.(incorporating Belltown)

• Rainier Valley/Central District.

• International District/Pioneer Square,

• West Seattle.

• Sodo/Georgetown.

I don't know about the specific geographic borders, but I feel this breaks down the city pretty well. I agree about North of 85th and the Lake City sections seems pretty snotty, not of much use to a tourist and probably should be deleted.(WT-en) Calibanxx27 23:53, 26 July 2009 (EDT)

Hmm. I'm not sure about extending single articles across the Ship Canal. It's one of the few absolute geographic boundaries the city has for neighborhoods. - (WT-en) Dguillaime 00:27, 27 July 2009 (EDT)

...and would you please not make major changes, like throwing all of Montlake into the U-District (?!), while discussion is underway? I'm also not sure merging Rainier Valley and the CD is a sensible choice, since they're almost entirely separated by I-90 (as well as several additional neighborhoods), while the CD's border with Capitol Hill is much more fluid. - (WT-en) Dguillaime 02:00, 27 July 2009 (EDT)

I-90 poses no barrier to the CD and Rainier Valley and they are more akin to each other than is Capitol Hill and the CD, despite proximity to each other. I would put Montlake with the U District because of its relationship to Husky Stadium. The inhabitants of this neighborhood identify more with the University than they do with Capitol Hill. (WT-en) Calibanxx27 19:38, 28 July 2009 (EDT)

An article called Belltown and the Seattle Center has now appeared — I don't see discussion for it above, nor is that a good article name. (WT-en) Gorilla Jones 19:15, 28 July 2009 (EDT)

Okay, the Heading for Belltown and the Seattle Center was here before I was. I just thought that nobody got around to writing the page; there are several Districts that have nothing written for them, I just thought it was one of them. I totally agree that Belltown and Seattle Center should not be linked together.(WT-en) Calibanxx27

For districting, clear geographic relationships and associated transportation are more interesting than most other considerations. No small number of Montlake residents may work at the UW, but for out-of-town visitors that are not familiar with Seattle's layout, that's of minimal relevance. - (WT-en) Dguillaime 20:14, 28 July 2009 (EDT)

Where are you guys going to put Seattle Center? I have a lot of ideas for an article, but apparently the listing I made a link to is inaccurate, so I have no place to write it. It seems a shame that such a big destination for tourists isn't represented. I don't really care if Montlake were in the U-district or in Capitol Hill, but putting the CD there would be a mistake. Even a tourist would know that they were in a different neighborhood. (WT-en) Calibanxx27 17:47, 29 July 2009 (EDT)

Well, deciding where to put it is part of the discussion.  :) (I'm in favor of attaching it to Queen Anne). As for the CD, the fact that it's a different neighborhood is entirely fine -- splitting up articles by distinct neighborhood is what got the article into its current mess to begin with, because there are just far too many of them. Larger districts necessarily include multiple neighborhoods, if they're to be kept to a workable and maintainable size. That's why I suggest drawing one line in the vicinity of I-90 -- the whole Capitol Hill/CD/First Hill/Madison Park/etc. area is nicely contiguous and reasonably sized, and shares similar transportation options, despite each subset of it having internal differences; similarly, though Mt. Baker/Rainier Valley/Columbia City/Holly Park/etc. have their own distinctions, they also cover a reasonable total area, but one that has some commonalities we can take advantage of (light rail and Rainier Ave. in Get In/Get Around, only a few useful I-5 exits, that sort of thing).

The boundaries we choose are arbitrary. I'd rather use ones that are clear to people who have never been to Seattle, but can read a map. - (WT-en) Dguillaime 14:47, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

I should add that I like your idea to separate SoDo/Georgetown as an article (and thanks for adding that content); also, the more I look at it, I wonder if it's not a bad plan to condense all of North Seattle into one article with no subdistricts. - (WT-en) Dguillaime 18:05, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

I think that your plan makes sense. I, too, feel that Queen Anne/Seattle Center is the way to go. In the long run, it probably doesn't matter where The CD is placed, since there aren't a whole lot of tourist destinations there anyways and of course, Mt. Baker/Rainier Valley/Columbia City/Holly Park makes prefect sense. too.(WT-en) Calibanxx27 18:42, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

Let's proceed on that, then. Regarding Seattle Center, I've renamed the Queen Anne Hill article to the somewhat more inclusive Seattle/Queen Anne-South Lake Union, which covers the major neighborhood names. (Sorry, Interbay, you're not interesting enough to get into the title.) I personally won't have time to work on the text much today, but we can start moving listings into there bit by bit. - (WT-en) Dguillaime 14:48, 3 August 2009 (EDT)

Eventually I'll have time to work on this. It'll be fun.

Meanwhile, I sorted the articles into what I think is the plan on the main page. From there, it should be easier to track articles as they're merged. The colors aren't permanent, I yanked them out of Europe for the time being - later we can make sure they match the map, once there is a new map. - (WT-en) Dguillaime 14:11, 7 August 2009 (EDT)

Nice new district map courtesy of (WT-en) PerryPlanet, thanks much! -- (WT-en) D. Guillaime 15:24, 14 March 2010 (EDT)

No sweat! :) (WT-en) PerryPlanet ^Talk 19:09, 15 March 2010 (EDT)

Thanks for cleaning up the Queen Anne and Seattle Center sections. Much nicer now!

(WT-en) Calibanxx27 13:16, 20 August 2009 (EDT)

I've been letting this languish too long, haven't I? Now it's trimmed down to 11 district articles from the starting 28 -- still a few more than I'd had in mind originally, but we've got a reasonable amount of content for all of them except South and West, and those qualify under the provision that it's geographically silly to assign them any other way. However, with the entire city now covered under clearly-defined districts, it should be MUCH easier to sort new listings going forward. Proceeding with some general formatting and style (and some maps!) should start nudging Seattle in the general direction of guide status... maybe we can swing a collaboration-of-the-month sometime. -- (WT-en) D. Guillaime 00:21, 2 March 2010 (EST)

I'm wondering if this layout could use just a little more merging. North and South Seattle both feel rather woefully lacking of content, probably due to the general lack of attractions in either of these areas. I'm thinking maybe North could be merged with Ballard (it seems the only major attraction there is the locks) and South could be merged with SoDo-Georgetown, as in D. Guillaime's original proposal. But it'd be nice if someone who actually knows this town offers their advice. (WT-en) PerryPlanet ^Talk 15:33, 4 July 2010 (EDT)

The San Juan Islands are very important travel destinations near Seattle and they should be listed in the get out section. However, I'm not sure if it should be put in the "Driving" section or the "Boating" section because you do need to drive to Anacortes and then take a ferry to the islands. Similar issue applies with Victoria, BC. Any opinions? —The preceding comment was added by 76.104.160.27 (talk • contribs)

I don't like those subsection headers much at all -- you can drive to Rainier, but the point of that isn't the drive itself! Maybe break it down into more geographically-oriented units — Puget Sound (which would pick up everywhere with a shoreline and a ferry), Mountains and Parks (Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, skiing), Other Towns and Cities (Vancouver, Portland, North Bend, etc.)? -- (WT-en) D. Guillaime 23:56, 7 February 2010 (EST)

Just for the hell of it and because a similar list appears on other talk pages:

District	Status
Front Page	Usable
Downtown	Usable
Pioneer Square-International District	Usable
Queen Anne-South Lake Union	Usable
Capitol Hill-Central District	Usable
Ballard	Usable
Fremont	Usable
University District	Guide
North	Usable
Sodo-Georgetown	Usable
South	Usable
West	Usable

The front page looks close to a guide (the buy, eat, and sleep sections could use more description), but those outline districts are holding it back. (WT-en) Eco84 11:31, 28 August 2010 (EDT)

Some of those will be easy to promote (Fremont can go straight to Guide in about ten minutes), but South is going to be the tricky one. — (WT-en) D. Guillaime 16:41, 28 August 2010 (EDT)

The crime section seems pretty glossy and certainly not based on facts or statistics. I'm thinking of editing to something more like this

According to the most recently FBI crime statistics in 2011 Seattle had 592.7 violent crimes per population of 100,000 ranking it near NY City (623.6) and Los Angeles (522.4) with the vast majority of violent crimes happening within 2 miles of the populous downtown core making neighborhoods such as Capitol Hill, Belltown, Lower Queen Anne and First Hill statistically more dangerous than other neighborhoods. There is some concern in the residential North Seattle districts with a few notable hotspots around Aurora Avenue and Lake City Way at night and areas around the University District which has some of the highest property crime rates in the city. Some South Seattle and Central District neighborhoods have had a history of gang and drug related violence; while violence related to the two still occur, it's not as frequent as portrayed and many of these neighborhoods are statistically safer than neighborhoods north of the ship canal. Common sense and smart thinking should be used in any neighborhood you are unfamiliar with, especially if traveling by foot or alone.

I'm basing this on the wikipedia article, which just quotes FBI data http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate

and SPD crime statistics map http://web6.seattle.gov/mnm/statistics.aspx?tabId=3

Lumpytrout (talk) 14:00, 5 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

I note that your first link mentions that "The FBI web site recommends against using its data for ranking", and the second "Many factors influence crime density. These maps should not be used to determine the general level of safety in a neighborhood", both of which make your first proposed sentence very dubious. I'd also dispute the "vast majority" - certainly there's a concentration where there's an equivalent concentration of people, but (as an example) the full west and east precincts combined, from Magnolia to Leschi, are well under half the city's total for violent crime in every reported month of 2013 [6]. The last line is obvious enough that it has no specific applicability. -- D. Guillaume (talk) 04:44, 6 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

If we don't base crime decisions on facts then what do we base them on? The current statement seems to be based random anecdotal accounts tinged with classist and racist assumptions, surely we can do better than that? I read through a few other cities crime data after writing the above statement and realized that pretty much every city has high crime rates around their cores generally based on density, so let me think about how to rephrase that. I agree that the last line is obvious and should be deleted, I just copied that over from the current article. How about this?

According to the most recently FBI crime statistics in 2011 Seattle had 592.7 violent crimes per population of 100,000 ranking it near NY City (623.6) and Los Angeles (522.4) with the majority of crimes unsurprisingly happening in the more densely populated areas. There are a few notable hotspots in north Seattle around Aurora Avenue and Lake City Way at night and areas around the University District which has some of the highest property crime rates in the city. Some South Seattle and Central District neighborhoods have had a history of gang and drug related violence; while violence related to the two still occur, it's not as frequent as portrayed and many of these neighborhoods are statistically safer than neighborhoods north of the ship canal. Lumpytrout (talk) 11:56, 6 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

I don't think the numeric statistics make for very interesting reading, and the comparisons to LA and NYC are probably a little misleading - they may have comparable crime rates relative to their overall populations, but those populations are ten or more times larger than Seattle, and they've got the same concentration effect going on except much more so. I can't think of anywhere in Seattle that comes close to the really bad neighborhoods of those other two. Maybe some comparisons, without numbers, to cities of similar size? Comparison to Portland and Vancouver (BC) might make sense, but I don't know where you'd find the corresponding info for Vancouver. Portland is comparable on violent crime (somewhat better) but has about a third fewer robberies.

The hotspots seem sensible enough, though I'd emphasize muggings over burglary, rather than property crime in general (I know that the U-District is bad for both, and I guess it's correlated throughout, but visitors aren't going to need to worry as much about house burglaries). South's crime rate overall has dropped an awful lot, maybe we don't even need to mention it as a whole any more? I would still add Rainier Beach into the hotspot list, it still shows up distinctly on the map for assaults and robberies.

I'm surprised to see that the auto theft rate is down so much from where it used to be! At least that doesn't need a specific mention. I would like to keep in the section about specifically sketchy areas downtown, as that's probably where many tourists will spend most of their time, although the bit about Second between Pike/Pine may no longer be relevant. I can think of far less welcoming blocks in the area. I'd also like to add that the U-District is especially notorious for smartphone thefts on the street - the UWPD blotter is just full of them.

Please don't think I'm being negative; I fully agree with you that the section as written is misleading. The existing claim that "Seattle is generally safer than other large cities" is definitely unsupported and needs to go. -- D. Guillaume (talk) 06:18, 9 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

yea, those are all good points. Let me dig at the data a little and see if I can come up with some better comparisons. Lumpytrout (talk) 20:52, 9 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Okay, how about this?

According to the most recently FBI crime statistics in 2011 Seattle had 592.7 violent crimes per population of 100,000 ranking it near Denver Colorado (607.3) and San Francisco California (659.6) with the majority of crimes unsurprisingly happening in the more densely populated areas. There are a few notable hotspots in north Seattle around Aurora Avenue and Lake City Way at night and areas around the University District which has some of the highest property crime rates in the city. Some South Seattle and Central District neighborhoods have had a history of gang and drug related violence; while violence related to the two still occur, it's not as frequent as portrayed and many of these neighborhoods are statistically safer than neighborhoods north of the ship canal however the south east Rainier Valley still has a higher rate than most of the city. Don't leave valuables in parked cars or at least keep them well hidden if necessary and be wary of the rising trend of smart phone theft.

The wording on this is awkward, but I think it gets the point across? Tourists are probably most likely to get their car broken into than any other crime so I think we need to need to keep in data about property crimes. Lumpytrout (talk) 13:41, 10 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'm a bit unsure about this edit comment "Revision as of 10:35, 11 August 2014 - Othello95 (→‎Places to Watch Your Back: User K7L, i have fixed your grammar for your contribution)". The user appears to be making good contributions to the article, but a change to factual claims really shouldn't be labelled as "fixed grammar" as it's nothing of the sort. K7L (talk) 14:51, 11 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

FWIW, the previous wording was much clearer. Powers ^(talk) 01:43, 13 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I've reworded a bit. The entire last paragraph of w:Motel#Crime and illicit activity seems to be about this one area but might be more than we need. K7L (talk) 15:55, 15 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

These two statements in the article are contradictory:

• "On the map, vertical roads (roughly North-South) are Streets, horizontal roads (roughly East-West) are Avenues"
• "One way to remember avenues: University Way NE, the main street through the city's University District (neighborhood) is called "The Ave" by the locals, and all avenues run north-south."

Which is it? K7L (talk) 02:14, 17 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi, user. Good catch. Thank you. It is my fault. The second one is correct Othello95 (talk) 16:27, 19 August 2014 (UTC).Reply

Seattle is a nice city. I'm a little surprised it's districted, as it's not that big a city (but then I'm a New Yorker), and that the districts are in good enough shape for it to be a Guide - good work, everyone! So maybe it's time to nominate it for a front-page feature. Do you think so? If not, what more work is needed beforehand? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:34, 20 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Ikan: I'll take a more in-depth look at this article later, but one thing that strikes me from skimming it briefly is that the article will need a good deal of copyediting. Perhaps the principal author speaks English as a second language or perhaps it's some other issue, but either way there are some really weird and off-putting turns of phrase in the prose (i.e. in Seattle#Eat: "If you want it cheap without the cost of taste, look for small, hole-in-the-wall establishments, especially the one that has people lining up"). Also, text bolding is employed in some pretty unorthodox and, again, off-putting ways (i.e. Seattle#Climate). -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:31, 27 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Wikivoyage_talk:Listings#Radio_and_TV_stations. Ground Zero (talk) 23:47, 27 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

I added some information about the 5th Avenue Theater, Benaroya Hall, and McCaw Hall to the Entertainment subsection of the Do section, but then I realized it probably belongs in the Downtown and Queen Anne district articles instead. Would it be appropriate to put links from Seattle/Do/Entertainment section to the District articles? It seems like travellers could be interested in these forms of entertainment, but not know exactly which district to look in. I expect to add some more information about a few venues in Pioneer Square and Capitol Hill (which are not even yet listed at all in Wikivoyage), as well.

Yumenotsuyoshi (talk) 01:33, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Sure, you can summarize here with links to the "Do" sections of the relevant district articles. Welcome to Wikivoyage, and thanks for jumping right in and improving things! I'll post an official welcome message to your user talk page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:38, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply