Publisher's note: As Crosscut's major Membership drive of the year continues, here's another of our regular writers, architecture critic Mark Hinshaw, with his take on the website and its role in the civic debate. Mark is another writer I have known for many years, going back to the time in the 1980s when he and I helped launch a music program of putting on concerts in venues of architectural significance, called Seattle Camerata: Music in Historic Sites.
I hope you will use this campaign to become a Member or to renew your annual Membership. You'll help us to thrive and improve, and Members have real benefits: Members-come-free parties and forums, ticket discounts, and other social occasions to meet newsmakers and writers. As a further nudge, we have daily drawings during this campaign. The winner of Tuesday's drawing, winning two tickets to Seattle Art Museum's new show (opening Oct. 13) on the Art of Asia, "Luminous," is Raymond Dubuse. Today's drawing will be for a $25 gift card at Uwajimaya, the great international grocery story in Seattle's International District and in Bellevue. The weekly drawing is for a new Kindle, and the grand prize drawing is for an iPad2. All donations at $75 or above will get a spiffy Crosscut tote bag. It's easy to donate online, in monthly installments if you wish. More about Member benefits here. Please be generous.
The Puget Sound metropolitan area is a richly layered region with many things happening with respect to environmental economic and social change. We continue to be a culture of experimentation and open-mindedness that has long ago disappeared from other parts of the country. In many ways, we are still the “frontier.” While this has not always been a good thing, it at least allows us to be free of most entrenched institutions and social strictures.
Crosscut provides a lively and indispensable forum for discussing and debating ideas and events in way that eludes the mainstream media. It offers not just news, but keen observations about out time and our region. Readers don’t always agree with writers but the discourse is generally civil and civic-minded, rarely giving way to the unproductive rancor found elsewhere. Crosscut is an invaluable source of thoughtful and positive discussion.
In the last 30 years, I’ve worked with many cities and towns throughout the country and published books and articles on both this region and urban design nationally. For 12 years I wrote a regular column on architecture and city planning in the Seattle Times. Crosscut now offers a means by which I can highlight salient issues in this part of the world, as well as draw lessons of value from elsewhere.
I'm grateful for this outlet and for the useful feedback I get from such informed readers. I hope you are grateful to Crosscut, too, and will pitch in during this Membership drive by donating today.
