Mayor Nickels now wants to ensure that Seattle “industrial” areas remain preserved for industry, after previously appearing to support condo/offices/retail development on every tract of land not reserved for single-family homes.
Let’s hope the scheme succeeds. We could use living-wage jobs. And as a community we need the connection to physical-level reality we get when more of us are involved in making physical, tangible things. This is especially vital as more and more of America’s stuff-making capacity is transferred to low-wage countries.
Let’s just stay vigilant about the definition of zoning-official “industrial” activity.
Software offices are not industrial.
Biotech offices are not industrial.
(And for that matter, architectural offices are not “artist spaces.”)