David Albright Media

McGinn

An Interview with Mike McGinn

I've always been both curious and frustrated about the way my hometown is so staunchly liberal in so many ways but so conservative and resistant to change in others.  We support sustainability, but we fight against density "taking over neighborhoods," against transit "stealing our car lanes," and against cyclists waging a "war on cars."    I figured our former mayor Mike McGinn would be the perfect person to talk to address the topic, so  I brought in former Stranger news-editor Dominic Holden to sit him down on my favorite couch and ask him about it. 

In the video Mike speaks candidly on the culture of “agreement” in Seattle politics that keep us from making progress.  He addresses the tunnel fiasco, and discusses why urbanist ideas are met with such resistance, even in a supposedly liberal city like Seattle. .

[Editors Note: this interview was originally supposed to be part of a larger project, which never came together so that's why it's being released on it's own now, a year later]

Here's a behind the scenes timelapse showing the process we went through in setting up the interview in my studio.

Thanks to Erik Dinnel for helping me make the interview look so purdy, and Donald Jensen for the timelapses.