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Sustainable Urban Development

News | February 1, 2024

History uncovered: UW research finds thousands of past racial restrictions in Kitsap

Reported in The Kitsap Sun By Peiyu Lin It’s not a secret that Kitsap County possesses a history of segregation, where some areas of the peninsula were only allowed to sell or rent to white people in the early and mid-20th century. But a specific geographic distribution of the over 2,300 properties that carry racial…


News | July 29, 2024

How Tiny Homes Could Help Solve America’s Homelessness Crisis

Reported by Giulia Carbonaro for Newsweek Shelter villages of tiny homes have popped up across the U.S. in recent years, as the small structures have started to be seen by many advocates as a promising solution to solve homelessness. Perhaps unsurprisingly at a time when mortgage rates are still hovering around the 7-percent mark and…


News | April 26, 2024

Leave the imported shrimp, take the local bivalves: sustainable seafood choices

Reported by Kim Malcolm and John O’Brien for KUOW, a NPR news station.  Seafood and the Pacific Northwest go hand in hand. Maybe you’re one of those people out fishing, clamming, and crabbing during the season. But if you’re more of a shopper, your options aren’t all local and sustainable. Jessica Gephart is an assistant professor…


News | February 1, 2024

New nonpartisan AI nonprofit TrueMedia, led by Oren Etzioni, is making a political deepfake detector

Published in GeekWire By Todd Bishop A new nonprofit, nonpartisan technology organization called TrueMedia is developing an AI-powered tool to detect deepfake videos, photos, and audio, aiming to combat political disinformation in the leadup to the 2024 elections. Founded and led by Oren Etzioni, University of Washington professor and former CEO of the Allen Institute…


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Should social media pay for addicting kids? Seattle schools lawsuit gains steam

Reported by KUOW Written by Sami West A year into Seattle Public Schools’ lawsuit against social media companies, the case is gaining traction. More than 50 school districts in Washington state — and dozens more across the country — have joined Seattle’s lawsuit. Seattle became the first district to sue social media platforms last January,…


News | February 16, 2024

Student Housing Has a New Mantra: Bigger Is Better

Written by Kevin Williams for The New York Times Off-campus complexes are getting larger, with some being home to more than 1,500 students, and being built on prime parcels of land as close to campus as possible. When the Standard, an off-campus student housing complex, opened in the fall in Bloomington, Ind., welcoming its first…


Course | T SUD 240

The City and Nature

Examines connections between urban and environmental conditions by investigating the social and material production of urban nature. Challenges conceptual barriers between nature and the city that have evolved over time and considers new strategies for achieving both environmental sustainability and social justice in the city.

News |

Transit workers fight drugs on buses and trains

Written by Joseph Gallivan for Axios Oregon Transit companies are pushing to make it a Class A misdemeanor to use drugs on buses and trains in Oregon. TriMet, the Oregon Transit Association, and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 testified yesterday to support amending Senate Bill 1553. The amendment would add the use of illicit drugs…


News | March 13, 2024

University of Washington study finds cities must prioritize youth mental health

Excerpted from KOIN/Channel Six in Portland Written by Michaela Bourgeois Researchers at the University of Washington conducted an international survey that found cities need to focus on youth mental health as younger generations flock to urban areas. Starting in April 2020, researchers worked with the nonprofit citiesRISE to survey over 500 people in 53 countries…


Course | T SUD 445

Urban Ecology

Multidisciplinary approach to the study of dynamic interactions among human and ecological systems in urban settings. Covers processes of urbanization and urbanization's impacts on the earth's ecology. Specific themes include how socioeconomic factors and human preferences drive urban patterns and how these patterns affect ecological processes and cause ecological change.

News | January 23, 2024

What Happened to Seattle’s Relationship with Boeing?

The aftermath of the Alaska blowout reveals that the connection is slowly unraveling. From Seattle Met Written by Benjamin Cassidy IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH of the fuselage blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight earlier this month, Margaret O’Mara noticed something that would’ve once been unthinkable in Seattle. The University of Washington history professor observed that locals…