I don’t know what it’s like where you hang your hat but in Seattle we’re a pretty quiet bunch. For the most part, we Seattleites keep to ourselves, maintaining a careful balance between self-absorbed naval contemplation and cautiously friendly yet polite regular humanoid interaction. Where the live and let live while keeping to yourself lifestyle gets strange, however, is in the fervor we confusedly emote for our city’s inevitable growth. You see, we want to be a world class city, but we don’t want the pratfalls that go along with it. In other words, when it comes to vertical development, urban sprawl, overcrowding, and corporate tyranny that might put Ma and Pa out of business, we’d prefer the builders go back to Kuh-li-fornia where they belong. An E.M.P. or a new Sculpture Garden are great, but the condo explosion is a bit more than we’d hoped for with our worldly aspirations.

Despite our mixed emotions, take a gander anywhere in the city and you will notice construction abounds. And linked to every project’s site before a single sledgehammer hits the ground is a big sign with the words “Notice For Proposed Land Use Action” emblazoned across it. Each sign shows plans for the construction, notices on developments, and details on public hearings where anyone may raise their concerns about the project. It’s a curious bit of hoopla, and surely the hearings must exist in other states, but never before have I seen these signs required for nearly every project and displayed so prominently. What’s up with that?

It’s nice, I suppose, to consider the little people when big business gets involved in tearing up the earth but I wonder, who goes to these public hearings? Anyone? I remember watching similar affairs on Somerville Cable Access Television back in Massachusetts, and while there were sparse attendees, those attendees who did stand up and chatter were weird, and not very effective. Now call me a failure as a citizen but when it comes to soliciting public input on private projects isn’t this precisely why we vote public officials into office in the first place, so they can protect our fair city from greed gone wild while we watch Dancing with the Stars instead? Certainly it’s nice to have the option to attend a meeting or two, but do we need these signs for every project that comes down the pike? And more curiously, are my tax dollars funding these public notices?

OK. I understand the difficulties of urban expansion and frankly I hate to see my favorite little places swallowed up by big moneyed interests. It definitely stinks watching tiny craftsman style houses demolished only to give way to condominiums and town houses that occupy every ounce of vertical and horizontal land physically possible. It’s also heartbreaking to watch the poetry store that no one ever went to disappear only to be replaced by another Starbucks, but again, shouldn’t our city planners be standing in the way of this unwholesome squeeze rather than the unwieldy, bleeding heart tree hugger with the socks, sandals, and greasy ponytail?

All my huffing and puffing might make you think I’m merely an armchair philosopher, content to whine and complain, shoot down all sides, and simply stuff Hawaiian Lua BBQ potato chips down my gullet. And maybe I am, but I can also admit that it warms my heart to witness Seattleites rally ‘round the family (business) and try to save anything and everything that might be meaningful to someone. They may not always be right in tying themselves to a bulldozer or lying down next to a jackhammer, but their hearts are often in the right place.

My favorite heart warming ruckus of citizen revolt happened just a few months ago when Seattleites demanded the city give landmark status to an old, ratty, googie style Denny’s slated for condominium development. A Denny’s, you ask, saved!? Truly I must be joking? But no, it’s true, and justified. Truth be told, the building isn’t much, but because the building has an odd roof reminiscent of that space age 1960s look that sort of defined the 1962 World’s Fair and Anaheim’s Disney Land, The City of Seatle deemed it worthy of being saved. I say, “good for them and us, because as silly as it may seem there is something to the fact that a 60 year old building be spared due to a funny shaped roof.” No matter how much my mind tells me this sort of thing is completely ridiculous, and maybe it is, my heart tells me saving that roof is exactly what should have happened and I’m glad it did.

This brings me to the point of my essay, a slightly ironic plee: Save Sunset Bowl. That’s right, just up the street from the old Denny’s building is the last bastion of real bowling in Seattle, Sunset Bowl, and it too is in danger of destruction. Built in the late ‘50s and operating ever since, the business is slated to close its doors on April 13th at midnight making way for, you guessed it, another condominium complex. Now if that isn’t a bunch of shit I don’t know what might be. I can understand that the family who owns the bowling alley and the land it sits upon is looking for an out: they’re old, their kids don’t want it, etc. etc. But couldn’t say, Seattle billionaires Paul Allen or Bill Gates hear the call and keep this place alive? Hell, it surely means a lot more to the people of Seattle than The Supersonics, even if it doesn’t make even a fraction of the money of that particular NBA franchise. And when I write, “Save Sunset Bowl,” I don’t mean replace it with one of those Jillian’s style yuppie pseudo-bowl venues. Oh, hell no. I’m talkin’ karaoke lounge, fat guy league, pull tab degenerate, old-fashioned bowling, the kind that would make The Dude blush. I may only be thirty years old, but I’ve definitely seen a lot of good things already die. I just hope Sunset Bowl isn’t the next.

Rage Against the Machine once wondered, “is all the world jails and churches?” In Seattle, I’m beginning to wonder, “is all our world Honey Buckets and condominiums?” It doesn’t have to be. My advice: just read the sign and speak your mind. You never know: it just might change the world.