A village is defined as bigger than a hamlet, usually smaller than a town. Urban is defined as characteristic of a city or town, or citified. But put together, what does urban village really mean? It is a term used in urban planning since the 1980's to describe a community that ideally offers medium population density, mixed use zoning, good public transit, access to public space and community institutions, and pedestrian only zones. For purposes of future growth targets and amenities Ballard is a designated Hub Urban Village by Seattle's Department of Planning and Development. What does the term mean for Ballard's future? In an urban village will the windows still open onto the street?

In my mind I've never lived in a city, although writing Seattle after my street address should be a clue. The word city suggests a Manhattan with sirens screaming, the sound of street traffic reaching as high as the 48th floor and buildings with lobbies and revolving doors, not windows. Where I spent my childhood was more like a village, even if it considered itself a town. My street was a tricycle gauntlet of front porches, where every person knew my business. Rather similar to my block in Ballard. Always the slap of screen doors, the sticky drops of blue Otter Pops, the smell of onions cooking.

Lately as I walk around sidewalks blocked by cement trucks and beneath the boom of the crane I wonder whether urban village is just a convenient term for growth or whether it will really come to mean a more vibrant, pedestrian-friendly community. Villages need to have their village green; Ballard does have its Commons now, a mix of water, concrete, and green space northwest of the new library. The parking lot level has been poured at the QFC project on Northwest 24th; it will rise quickly now. Sometimes I still fall for the project name - Ballard Park. I need to remind myself; it's a park in name only.

Listening to local poets read in the meeting room at the Ballard Library last week I became distracted by so much silent activity on the other side of the thick glass panes. The glass renders us into special exhibits like at the zoo; whether you are the display or the visitor depends on which side of the glass you are on. Sunset Hill writer Carol Levin read from her chapbook "Sea Lions Sing Scat." I could see a passing dog open its mouth to bark, but what I heard from her words was the bark of sea lions "from a high hill." Watching the outside world from the inside bubble, I wondered: do the windows open at Hjarta, at NoMa? If you stand on the balcony, can you hear the sea lions, smell your neighbor's dinner, see the skinned knees of the girl on the scooter? Can the village green be a rooftop garden?

I first remember feeling trapped by a lack of windows in a hospital room. I could watch the trees swaying but I couldn't hear the leaves rustle or feel the wind. Hospitals, skyscrapers, office buildings with keycard entries - they were defined by airtight glass, not some place I'd call home. When I first moved into this 1904 house there were wood windows too swollen to close, rectangular openings with no windows at all. Ballard was just a neighborhood, not yet a Hub Urban Village.

The land along the arterials and within a certain central Ballard radius has been zoned for the future for decades; it was just residents who were often ignorant that they were already part of the "past." Growth potential was there; it is still there. In 2004 the growth targets mandated by the State were approved; Ballard's target was to build an additional 1,000 housing units by 2024. But in just four years Ballard has added 1,452, putting its growth at 174 percent. In all of Seattle's Urban Centers, its Hub Urban Villages and its Residential Urban Villages, Ballard has the highest growth in the last four years. We won. Or did we lose?

I walked home from the poetry reading, thinking about that data from Department of Development and Planning Data, thinking about living in a city. Along side of the Ballard Community Center there was a sudden trill of woodwinds and flutes as the Seattle Civic Band launched into another song during their Thursday night rehearsal. The windows were open onto the street.

Peggy Sturdivant writes a series on neighborhoods for CrossCut.com and also writes additional pieces for the Seattle PI's Neighborhood Webtown: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard/ Her email is atlargeinballard@yahoo.com