Blogger Profile — Mike Eliason
Mike Eliason, self-described as “Dad, Designer, and Writer,” focuses much of his writing on the urban form and promoting affordable housing. In his bio on medium, he also describes his interests for architecture and “not for profit housing.” I did some research and found that he has a pretty substantial twitter following — under the name “RIP safe streets” and under the handle @bruteforceblog , he decided to go a bit incognito for his social media.
He seems to be an activist for all things housing and livability. However, his definition of livability is entirely different than mine. Eliason’s view is that livability means affordability. This is definitely one angle to take; the city should be for everyone. However, he only focuses on the economics of living in a place, not experiential.
Eliason lives in Seattle, and has for his entire life. Many of his blogs are on the topic of the urban form in Seattle, which gives him the authority to write on this topic. Living in a place for this long helps to develop a deep understanding of the place, even if one may not have studied or even worked in something related to the city.
Mike Eliason writes about a variety of topics relating to the city and housing, such as housing policy of Seattle and Vienna, statistics of land use, zoning, affordable housing, and city density. Eliason used to blog about once a week, but hasn’t written a blog since the end of August. This is interesting because his voice is very passionate, yet formal. He uses many statistics, descriptions, and facts to write his posts, with very little personal anecdotes. One might think, “How could he have a passionate voice without using emotion or personal stories?” But, his passion is conveyed through his in-depth research about a place. He uses his research to support a point he is trying to make and does it very successfully. Eliason lays out his posts similarly to how I do; small paragraphs with photos and links in between. He comes to a culminating thought or point in the last paragraph to help his readers understand the main argument.
He has been blogging on Medium.com since February, and his articles can be found on other sites such as Sightline.org, a program dedicated to implementing sustainable policy decisions. Many of his posts don’t have comments yet, which show that he may be new to the blogging world and without a strong following at the moment.
The first article I am going to discuss is “Trees + Density = Livability”. In this article, Eliason discusses how “We must have abundant trees *and* abundant housing in order to solve the livability issue as well as the affordability issue.” He uses the example of Vienna; it is a city where 46% of the urban space is forest, green space, and parks, with no singly family zoning and a dense urban core. It is constantly ranked the most livable city in the world. He criticizes single-family homeowners and how they take away from the quality of life of low-income residents in the center of the city.
This post shows me that Mike Eliason is very much interested in making the city for everyone, not just high-income residents. It makes me wonder why he is so interested in affordable housing and if he has ever experienced the negative effects of housing policy. He uses many facts and statistics to support his view which makes it more credible and can give the reader a lot to think about.
The second article I am going to discuss is “In Praise of Dumb Boxes”. I really like this article for many reasons. First, he steps out of his normal voice for a second to create something that is slightly more relatable than his other posts. In the article, Eliason discusses the “boxy” building form that was constructed frequently before the zoning ordinance of 1923 was passed. He then lists reasons why these building forms deserve praise; they are less expensive, have the least carbon footprint, reduced operational costs, and are the most resilient.
His voice in this article is relatable and somewhat humorous. He ends the article with, “Let us give praise for dumb boxes.” I think this article shows that he can write in different styles and can be successful at both. Again, he uses his hometown of Seattle for reference, which further increases his credibility on the subject.
I am looking forward to looking more into Mike Eliason and his blogs.
