News

In an attempt to curb what they describe as runaway housing prices statewide, Democrats in Washington’s legislature are debating whether to limit annual rent increases to no more than 7% for most residential buildings. Two proposals introduced Tuesday at the state Capitol both aim to cap rent increases so that landlords in Washington couldn’t raise…

Seattle’s waterfront renewal is one of the region’s most ambitious and innovative undertakings since the Seattle World’s Fair transformed the city in 1962. Finally reconnecting Seattle’s waterfront to its downtown, this $750 million renovation and restoration will create a network of public parks, cultural celebration spaces and an expanded aquarium — while building a sophisticated,…

How much money does a family of four need to live in Seattle without financial assistance? The cheeky answer: about $2,000 more than they have at the moment. The real answer: crucially dependent, especially for those who make the least, on who you ask. Statistical sticklers might point to the Department of Health and Human…

Urban@UW launches the Research to Action Collaboratory, with initial funding from the Bullitt Foundation, to help collaborations achieve greater impact The new accelerator program for research teams aims to build collective capacity to increase sustainability and resilience across urban areas and the Pacific Northwest. The Research to Action Collaboratory (RAC), seeded by a catalytic $500,000…

Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center has been a feature in Tim Lehman’s life since he was 9 years old, when his family moved to the Seattle area. “I’m Northern Arapaho. My tribe, my people, my reservation is in Wyoming, yet I reside in Seattle. So where do I go for that cultural connection?” He found…

The stainless-steel blob in an airport. The oversized, poured-concrete nothing in a plaza. The whimsically rendered, locally iconic animals — salmon for Seattle, pelicans for Pensacola — garnishing a park. It’s no secret: Most public art is depressingly perfunctory. Which is to say: If you care about getting it right, public art has to be…

To support tribal communities in the Pacific Northwest with a variety of technical transportation needs, from administering public transit to enhancing safety and infrastructure, a new center will be headquartered in UW Civil & Environmental Engineering. Funded by a $3.7 million U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) grant awarded over the course of five years, the…

Starting in 2023, the City of Tacoma and UW Tacoma will host community conversations on homelessness. The council approved $20,000 on Dec. 20 from its contingency fund to sponsor the conversations. The conversations will be focused on immediate actions to address homelessness and coming up with solutions to housing and supportive services. John Burkhardt, communications…

It is not news that there were racial covenants built into the foundations of Spokane’s neighborhood developments during the middle decades of the past century. But a new state-funded research project is in the process of identifying every such covenant in Eastern Washington — and the tally is significant. The man who initially opened the…

In their book, Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, the University of Washington professor Gregg Colburn and the data scientist Clayton Page Aldern demonstrate that “the homelessness crisis in coastal cities cannot be explained by disproportionate levels of drug use, mental illness, or poverty.” Rather, the most relevant factors in the homelessness crisis are rent prices…