Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle

by Matthew Klingle

At the foot of the snow-capped Cascade Mountains on the forested shores of Puget Sound, Seattle is set in a location of spectacular natural beauty. Boosters of the city have long capitalized on this splendor, recently likening it to the fairytale capital of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, the Emerald City. But just as Dorothy, Toto, and their traveling companions discover a darker reality upon entering the green gates of the imaginary Emerald City, those who look more closely at Seattle’s landscape will find that it reveals a history marked by environmental degradation and urban inequality.

 

This book explores the role of nature in the development of the city of Seattle from the earliest days of its settlement to the present. Combining environmental history, urban history, and human geography, Matthew Klingle shows how attempts to reshape nature in and around Seattle have often ended not only in ecological disaster but also social inequality. The price of Seattle’s centuries of growth and progress has been paid by its wildlife, including the famous Pacific salmon, and its poorest residents. Klingle proposes a bold new way of understanding the interdependence between nature and culture, and he argues for what he calls an “ethic of place.” Using Seattle as a compelling case study, he offers important insights for every city seeking to live in harmony with its natural landscape.

 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Environment, Urban Studies, Geography, Grad School

400 pages, Paperback

First published November 27, 2007

Reviews

[Andrew]

I approached Emerald City as a sort of Northwest version of William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis. I suppose he’s good, then, at crafting an environmental history of the region, tracing the ways in which the city achieved the shape and environment it possesses today.

On the other hand, he seems to ignore the relationship between the city itself and its hinterlands, the relationship between vested business interests, and the effects of Seattle’s environmental situation on ordinary people (other than Native Americans). When he does address the relationship between environmental and inequity, it’s a generic “yeah, it sucked for the poor” without providing detail. And he glosses over the entire environmental history of the city post-WWII, a time encompassing the city’s ‘70s depression, its ‘80s and ‘90s boom years, increasing density and diversity, and the role of the environmental movement in the city’s history.

In other words, my feelings about Emerald City are roughly the same as my feelings about the actual Emerald City—nice enough, but anemically liberal without any real challenges to the status quo, and ultimately more than a little self-congratulatory.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't usually give up on books, but I really thought I was going to be into this and it just didn't happen. Maybe I should revisit it another time. Chapter two was just this endless parade of fights over where to put canals and railways in the late 19th century. I think my main problem though, was that Klingle starts the book by calling for a "new ethic of place" and then he spends the whole conclusion also writing about this "new ethic of place" and I have no idea what he is talking about. What does this mean? Does he just mean being an environmentalist while also thinking about history? It seems more complex than that but I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is essentially a series of case studies on how a variety of land-use issues and environmental modifications in Seattle’s history created winners and losers, unintentionally or intentionally, and reflected competing ideals of how humans should relate to place and the physical environment. It’s not quite so much an “environmental history” as it is a survey of environmental injustice, to which advocates of development and environmentalists both contributed. So the subtitle might be a bit misleading to a casual reader, but in Klingle’s defense, he’s pretty clear in the prologue about the questions he’s asking.

Generally speaking, each chapter covers an issue that was the subject of contentious debate: regrading projects, park creation, where to dump sewage, etc. This topical approach has strengths and weaknesses. It’s certainly interesting and thought-provoking to see Klingle apply his approach to so many different subjects, and he describes in rich detail the ideological background and practical unfolding of each debate. But because he tries to cover so much ground, the lasting significance of some of these debates and issues gets lost. Furthermore, the consequences of these decisions and actions on the people marginalized by them are, frankly, painted in rather broad strokes.

In the Epilogue, Klingle tries to set up an “ethic of place.” It’s not totally clear what he’s getting at - he aspires to an “ethical pragmatism,” but that still needs some underlying values or priorities, which he doesn’t do a very good job of defining. Even so, he sets up useful and thought-provoking questions to ask when considering environmental issues. Both modifications to the environment and environmental "restoration" are rooted in human history and values, and neither can be immune from the question of who they include in - or exclude from - a place.

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Matthew Klingle in his book Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle presents the history of Seattle through both the development of the land and the effects of the development on the people and environment. The book presents interesting insight of how changes effect different segments of the population. The early founders of Seattle determined that the development and expansion of the waterfront was the priority with land reclaimed from the ocean along with building on the coast and into the ocean. As “improvements” to the land continued rivers were made to change course, dams were built, hills were leveled, and undesirable people and structures were pushed out. As the landscape changed each change created new challenges to address. The environment was changed to meet the perceived needs of the city with every change providing positive and negative results. Often times the changes were engaged for specific segments of the population creating or exacerbating problems for those with less political or economic power. If the question of culture and power were removed from Emerald City the reader would be left with an incomplete picture. All environments on earth are effected by humans and even more so in urban environments. Seattle was significantly worked and reworked to meet perceived and real needs of the population causing both intended and unintended consequences.

[Ari · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book might have tried to accomplish too much with its broad focus. While yes, it is only about Seattle, the book starts with whole sections dedicated to what salmon are and how they arrived to the area then don't reappear until the end of the book in the mid-20th century. In between, it covers many important narratives leading to why there are issues with salmon fisheries, but overall the book felt disjointed. I only liked it because it did include a lot of random parts that really interested me.

[Anna Batie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a little pedantic at times, but overall I enjoyed it. Growing up in Seattle, one learns about how early Seattleites regraded the hills and built the Ship Canal. But I never learned about the impact these events had on shaping inequality in the city. Worth a read for sure.

[Lilya · Rating 3 out of 5]

uses some terms that I don't really agree with

[Samuel · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this book promises to do a lot in the beginning, it is in many ways unable to deliver everything. I guess I should have trusted the subtitle more than the opening line (thought the final sentence remains true for me): “This is a book about a particular place, but it is also about ideas that make and sustain all places. It is also a history with its own history. The ending did not turn out as I expected” (xi).

Having just visited Seattle for the first time last month, I was pretty excited to learn more about the city and its environment. In some ways I did, but according to the book, Seattle is mainly as it is branded--the "Emerald City": with the Space Needle and Mount Rainer—“a city that exemplified Americans’ long desire to harmonize city and countryside…a city that was urban by nature” (xi). The complexity of the situation, of course, is that city and nature are not reconciled. Muskrats, squatters, landslides, poor and minority populations (including the natives of Puget Sound), and rich people worrying about views, attest to the fact that the city has conflicted views on nature: who it belongs to and who belongs to it (xii).

Klingle follows in the footsteps of William Cronon: humans are a part of nature. Nature is a physical agent but not a human/moral one. “Nature thus permeates the city, co-evolving with humans who aspire and struggle to control it, blurring any clear sense of where the biological ends and the cultural begins.” This is particularly the case for salmon (9). While the salmon story itself is interesting, Klingle's insistence to use it as a metaphor that can be applied to all of Seattle's environmental problems is frustrating; it is ok to describe something unrelated to the salmon (if it really is related then explain how exactly rather than implicitly). I found sentences such as the following less clever than expected:

“…salmon traverse Seattle’s many geographies of inequality…” such as rich/poor, Indian/white, immigrant/native born (10).

“Understanding that dilemma begins by finding the human nature in salmon and the non-human nature in the all-too-human city. It begins by coming back to place, as salmon return to their home” (11).

Salmon as guide—parable of modern freight: leave with certain goods, return with other goods from East Asia. Also, if salmon are safe in the water, then it is more likely to be safe for humans (276).

The name of the book begs explanation, and it helps that Klingle comes back to it in the end (though only after tying in the salmon metaphor one more time).

The title has two sources:
(1) a 1982 marketing slogan—a “many-faceted city of space, elegance, magic” more fluid than solid
(2) L. Frank Baum’s 1900 The Wizard of Oz—it looks beautiful and pristine from afar, but upon a closer inspection it is built on conscript labor and ruled by a capricious wizard (6-7).

“Well-intentioned reformers now reversed the equation earlier espoused by both Thomson the engineer and Olmsted the landscape architect—that improving the natural world would improve human nature. They wanted instead to change their fellow citizens’ behavior in order to restore and protect the physical environment, or exclude those who did not fit with prevailing racial or political preferences. As with the city’s parks and playgrounds, outdoor recreation became another area in which combatants, with Seattle’s scenic backdrop behind them, fought over who had the right to define labor and leisure” (156).

“…the world we live in is a messy fusion of the natural and cultural, and Seattle’s boosters have capitalized on it relentlessly” (267). Metronatural—“one who respects nature and lives a balanced lifestyle of urban and natural experiences” = Seattle (267).

Duwamish corridor has 3 common characteristics: (i) the lowest household incomes, (ii) highest percentage of minority households, and (iii) largest number of federally designated toxic Superfund sites. But people “can’t afford to move” (268).

In environmental history there are victors and the defeated, “but no one was ever wholly virtuous and few were entirely corrupt” (270).

Salmon debates at the end of the 20th century—here history mattered most but was ignored completely. Many people spoke for “the common good” by speaking for the salmon, “all the while ignoring how the fish divided as much as united Seattleites.” Turning the salmon into a sacred communal object masked white and Indian contradictions, leading to more confusion and disputes (271).

According to Klingle, an ethic of place must begin in the city, and "ethical pragmatism" ought to replace contemporary environmentalism (276).

[Frank Stein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, like a lot of contemporary history books, this one has no organizing principle to tie the whole together, and the multiple stories told are convoluted in their own right.

The author seems to want to argue that the environmental sins of the city fathers are wreaking havoc with the modern city, but even in this book one gets the clear impression that things are improving for Seattle overall. For one, Klingle documents the success of the "Metro" sewer system (approved by voters in 1958) in improving the water quality in Lake Washington and in serving as a national model. Also, the earlier intercepting sewer lines (built in the 1910s) did pollute the Duwamish River as Klingle shows, but they also improved many of the local lakes and of course the lives of many homeowners.

Klingle also attacks City Engineer R.H. Thompson's early 20th century attempt to "regrade" Seattle's once omnipresent hills. Thompson wanted to lower transport costs, unite the city across class and neighborhood lines, and promote "municipal solidarity," and he thought only flat, level land could do all that. Although many of the regrades led to mudslides and polluted local rivers temporarily, Seattle would not be the city it is today if it was still dominated by its earlier hills and valleys.

Perhaps the most interesting part to me was the discussion of early tideland development. Apparently Seattle was once a mini-Venice (or perhaps, more appropriately, a mini-Lagos), with thousands of squatter houses built on stilts out in the Elliot Bay. These often caught fire and became the bane of respectable land-side developers. Still, the battle between the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern Railroads to use this land as a right-of-way was truly epic, and reminds one how important all that muck below high tide was for early urban development (just look at the battle over water grants in colonial New York or the fight over the privatization of New Orleans levee in the 1810s and 1820s).

I think the main problem here though is that the author bit off more than he could chew. The subject is just too big and too sprawling to handle in a 300 page book.

[Rachael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came into this book expecting a lurid tale of how the man utterly destroyed the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Klingle’s actual narrative is much more complex, as issues often tend to be when deeply analyzed. He attempts to tell the history of Seattleites’ changing relationship with nature: as something to be dominated by explorers, improved upon in the progressive era, and finally idealized and worshiped in the last half of the 20th century. The tone is very scholarly and my attention did wane at times. I also sensed some vague derision towards people of the past at times that I found off-putting, but that could just be me. Ultimately, this book made me feel optimistic that we can improve upon the urban ecosystem that we have created in order to mitigate the harm that has been done to other species, as well as the poorest humans. We have to let go of environmentalism as a nostalgic desire to return to a pristine utopian past, and embrace a future oriented view that works to nurture the resources we currently have.

It is also very cool to drive around Seattle and think about what these areas looked like in the past, and the factors that made them into what they are today.

[Jonathan]

I heard the author interviewed on KUOW this morning. Klingle notes the complexities in environmental policy, and raises some difficult questions.

Are salmon raised in captivity wild? Can a wild salmon live in a man-made river? Are modern environmentalists elitists? Is it ethical to create a protected national park by ejecting the people who previously lived there? How about cleaning up pollutants from the creek in an upscale urban neighborhood, and then moving the toxins to a poor, rural area?

On the radio, Klingle didn't advocate one particular position, but presented a balanced view and urged people to be mindful of history.

[Caro · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author covers Seattle's environmental history as it relates to social, economic, and racial issues in the City. The writing is engaging and tells the history of Seattle in a fresh way. It shows how seemingly technical or practical decisions are loaded with meaning and influenced by greed and prejudice. He proposes a different approach to environmentalism, to accept that humans have irreversibly modified the land, and recommends that we seek to remedy environmental inequity--not just create islands of healthy ecosystems that serve as a sort of playground or a source of self-satisfaction for environmentalists.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emerald City does for Seattle a little of what Nature's Metropolis does for Chicago, highlighting the history of a city with an understanding of its environment. But where Nature's Metropolis focuses its environmental eye on Chicago's rural trading partners, Emerald City focuses instead on the Seattle's less privileged and the hurt they have received as a result of environmental decisions.

Klingle's prose is clear, his details interesting and illustrative and his style focused -- this is history, but accessible to plebes like me.

[Josephine Ensign · Rating 4 out of 5]

My son introduced me to this book written from a University of Washington history dissertation but for more of a general audience. I especially liked the chapter Junk-Yard for Human Junk: The Unnatural Ecology of Urban Poverty. After decades of being steeped in the heavy history of the American South of my roots, it is a refreshing change to read some of the history of my adopted city.

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories of how Seattle was developed and how they trashed the place are really interesting. I didn't always have the patience for his sociological ideas but they don't get in the way of the stories and by the end I found it all pretty interesting.

[Rome Doherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the book club. Integrates social and environmental changes and shows the inevitability of unintended consequences. In addition Kemper Freeman's fortune is based on exploitation of Japanese Americans when they were interned.

[Dixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the best geographical biographies of place I've ever read. Reads almost as a textbook, but has a narrative quality that's captivating.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone interested in environmental issues should read this book. What is an ethic of place? Why does history matter?

[Chris]

I'm really looking forward to reading this. Matt is a beautiful writer and a good friend who dates back to junior high days.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look at Seattle's history from a man vs nature perspective. The Seattle we know today is hardly the Seattle that existed 150 years ago.

[Chad Blanchard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great ecological history of the city of Seattle.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

great 150 year history of seattle involving the land ethic and how this city came to be this way. everyone in cascadia should read this.