Convention City Almanac#

A factual reference for convention center urbanism — placement, finance, governance, and the neighborhoods around these buildings.

This almanac supports two other sites:

• Convention City Dispatch — journalism about what’s happening now
• Seattle Commons — the argument for what we should do

The almanac is the reference layer underneath both. It describes. It sources. It doesn’t argue.

What’s Here#

Cities — Convention centers in 16 cities, compared. Walk score, placement pattern, neighborhood consequences, displacement history. Each entry is a profile: what was there before, what’s there now, what happened.

Tide Tables — The financial schedules that govern this story. Bond payment dates, lodging tax trajectories, contract expirations. Predictable like tides.

Theory — Urban planning theory applied to convention center placement. Jacobs, Oldenburg, Molotch, Alexander, Christaller. Diagnostic vs. prescriptive. What applies and what doesn’t.

How This Works#

Every factual claim in the almanac resolves to a source. PDFs, audited financial statements, bond documents from EMMA, public records, news articles with bylines and dates. If we can’t point to the document, it doesn’t go in.

The almanac is a living document. Entries are updated as new information arrives — with dates and changelogs. Old versions are preserved in git.

Want to contribute? See the contributor guide.