News

Electric vehicles are getting more popular. Now they’re getting flashy too: new electric pickup trucks, new electric semis, new electric sports cars, a new electric G-Wagen. But all that zippy sexiness only matters to a small slice of the US. Seventy percent of the vehicles sold in the country last year were used, according to data from Edmunds. So when…

Amazon’s decision to allow many employees to work from home until next summer is having dramatically different effects on two Puget Sound cities – Seattle and Kent. Seattle’s South Lake Union, the heart of the Amazon campus, is much quieter now than it was before the pandemic with so many employees working from home. “We’re seeing…

On a chilly Monday afternoon, case manager Richard Gibson walked through the courtyard at Martin Court in the southwest corner of Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood. The weather in the days before had taken a cold turn, and the colorful children’s playground he strode past sat vacant. Lining either side of the courtyard and parking lot were…

The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating a growing trend of out-of-area buyers and remote workers moving to Spokane in search of a better quality of life and affordable housing, real estate experts said at the Association of Washington Business Housing Forum Virtual Series earlier this week. Part of the housing demand is coming from retirees, who…

Urban@UW is a proud partner in The Doorway Project, a cross-campus and community-engaged project under the Homelessness Research Initiative. Below we share their quarterly update: Last month, The Doorway Project, in collaboration with University District Youth Center, hosted a community dialogue (Real Talk Thursday) on the topic of ‘voter apathy.’ That conversation feels even more relevant…

Never in recent history have more Washingtonians needed a strong social safety net. In April, as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down whole industries, over half a million workers in our state lost their jobs. Suddenly, they and their dependents needed help to cover life’s basic expenses, from rent and utilities to food and medical care. No doubt…

While the weather might be a bit gusty and chilly, Seattleites have a quaint new waterfront park to explore this weekend for fall colors and launch their kayaks next spring. Fritz Hedges Waterway Park officially opened Wednesday and includes a kayak launch point, pier, small beach and picnic area. The 3.5-acre park sits adjacent to the Sakuma Viewpoint and…

It isn’t just supply and demand. We look at the complicated history and skewed incentives that make “affordable housing” more punch line than reality in cities from New York and San Francisco to Flint, Michigan. New York City’s problems are not unique to New York. Thousands of cities in the U.S. are looking at big budget shortfalls; 1.5…

A sink is nestled in the University District alley between 15th Avenue Northeast and The Ave. It’s bolted to a trough of plants. It appeared in May. Another sink just like it is up The Ave on 47th Avenue Northeast. One was also placed at the University Heights community center along 50th Avenue Northeast. The…

So much has changed since the start of the pandemic, and University of Washington researchers are hoping to keep track of all of those changes by driving around and capturing snapshots of Seattle. “It’s a really unique dataset that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world,” said Joe Wartman, co-researcher and UW professor of civil…