Visions of Wallingford

Abstract

Wallingford is like a small town in the big city. Residents love their Craftsman houses, the quirky local businesses, and the rosemary bushes lining the sidewalk. But things are changing. As Seattle housing prices soar, beloved landmarks are getting bulldozed and replaced with new apartment buildings. Residents in this predominantly white neighborhood are grappling with how to build a sense of community amidst a changing sense of place. This feature-length documentary follows these residents as they engage in a collaborative filmmaking project to make sense of their place within the housing crisis. They lead walking tours of their neighborhood, showcasing its beauty as well as its ugliness. Along the way, the residents come into dialogue with some unlikely characters, who call into question the meaning of gentrification and building community. This film was created as a component of a doctoral dissertation. The dissertation is archived at https://hdl.handle.net/1773/52481, and the accompanying website is archived at https://wayback.archive-it.org/4366/20240816143217/https://sites.google.com/view/neighborhoodlearning/home/.