News

During the 2019 legislative session, affordable housing and housing supply issues became a primary issue of concern. Inward population migration, economic growth and shortage of new housing supply had led to rapidly rising house prices and rents for the past few years. In that context, local governments were required to develop Housing Action Plans to…

A $400 million proposal to house 2,000 people who have been chronically homeless in King County through a new sales tax is losing millions of potential dollars as suburban cities adopt their own version of the tax instead. So far, Issaquah, Renton, Kent, Snoqualmie and Covington have voted to adopt their own .01% sales tax, a mechanism authorized…

On average, extreme heat over the past 30 years has killed more people in the United States than any other weather event, according to the U.S. Natural Hazard Statistics. That means more lives have been lost to heat over the past three decades than to hurricanes, floods, or tornadoes — and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data shows that…

The Tukwila Food Pantry has been a lifeline for many South King County residents who have lost their jobs during the pandemic. Like many local food banks, it saw a surge in demand. It went from serving 50 households a day, pre-Covid, to 500. The pantry is at Riverton Park Methodist Church. It started out…

King County neighborhoods that are poorer and have higher levels of air pollution also tend to have higher rates of COVID-19 cases, according to new research by the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS) and collaborators. These neighborhoods—mainly clustered in South King County—also have lower COVID-19 testing rates than the county average,…

You bet they have the stories. Decades of them. They’re a group with at least 4,400 combined years of memories. They’re the 163 older King County Metro bus drivers who this summer applied and were approved for a “voluntary separation” package, although that number might increase a bit. It meant saving the jobs of younger…

A King County initiative that moved people out of homeless shelters and into hotel rooms earlier this year helped slow the transmission of coronavirus, according to early findings from a study of the intervention. The study, part of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative, is co-authored by Rachel Fyall and Gregg Colburn, HRI faculty co-leads. Their research is…

Fed up with porch pirates snatching your packages? Missed yet another delivery that requires a signature because you couldn’t hear the delivery person knock over your umpteenth video meeting of the day? Property manager at your apartment or condo building sending yet another nagging note to pick up packages because the mailroom is full? The…

As the city of Seattle shut down in March 2020 to try to slow the spread of COVID-19, a group of University of Washington researchers got to work. The team developed a project that scans the streets every few weeks to document what’s happening around the city — answering questions such as: Are people outside?…

Collisions are violent. The greater the mass or velocity of objects, the greater the energy released. The crises of the pandemic, economic crash, and social justice outcries are massive and still accelerating. In the wake of their collision, they will reveal new questions for our profession—and newfound energy to address them. Previously, architects pondering whether…