Spokane: From Waterfalls to Indoor Malls
Spokane, located near the Idaho-Washington boarder has been experiencing a fairly consistent population growing rate of 5-15% every decade. Originally settled for its proximity to the Spokane River which lead to an explosive growth of sawmills to process the abundance of lumber in the Pacific Northwest. It has gradually transitioned into of an information based economy focusing on high-tech and biotech markets while natural resource harvesting and processing still makeup a significant proportion of Spokane’s overall employment and GDP.
Through the city’s more recent development, there have been strong amounts of investment in the downtown region. With the opening of a 3 story mall near the heart of downtown, the Spokane’s CBD is now woven together through a series 2nd floor sky bridges which generate a new internal retain network within the city. With the median household income being just slightly above the national average at $56,548, the city has struggled some to support 2 floors of retail space throughout its city center, as can be shown through some commercial vacancy on both the street and skyway level.
Overall the city has displayed the ability to modify its market diversification throughout economic tansition’s while continuing to be a valuable place due to its access to natural resources. As was true with all the cities I visited throughout the pacific northwest, their proximity to raw building materials and offering shorter transportation routes to export to the growing Eastern Hemisphere, has placed them in a good position for economic expansion as Asian cities continue to develop.
In addition to Spokane’s market activity, there is another reason why this city continues to make itself relevant in a transitional world. I happened to visit during the weekend when the city hosts hoop-fest, an annual weekend long street basketball competition in which a wide variety of age ranges compete over different courts and attracts visitors from all around the nation. For this event Spokane shuts down over to 12 city blocks and modifies the street scape into rows of basketball courts fully supplied with street vendors and recorded music playing from speakers off modified street lamps.
Walking around rows and rows of basketball courts, became a surreal experience and a flury of activity, helping to take what would have been a dull empty series of streets and turning them into a place to experience the collective. While the cities of the West did not always embody the urban density of eastern cities, the series of festival and events clearly illustrate the citizens desire to experience public space, even if the sprawling built landscape does not always enable it.
