Policy & Law

News | August 5, 2019

‘I’d drink my jacuzzi’: how earthquake scientists prepare for the ‘big one’

Two back-to-back earthquakes, of magnitude 6.4 and 7.1, hit southern California in less than 24 hours last month, and seismologists have warned of an increased chance of more shaking in the near future. We spoke with four earthquake scientists living in high-risk areas to see what the people who think about earthquakes the most plan to do…

News | August 26, 2019

‘The lack of affordable housing is actually costing us’: Cantwell promotes affordable housing bill in Spokane

Had U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell stood at 1 S. Madelia St. just a few years ago, she would have been in a used car lot. But on Tuesday, she was in the the lobby of an affordable housing complex now home to more than 100 residents. Cantwell was joined by Spokane leaders on Tuesday as…

News | August 14, 2019

‘Vehicle ranching’ in Seattle: Inside the underground market of renting RVs to homeless people

Richard Winn considered himself a decent landlord, particularly in a cutthroat rental market like Seattle’s. Sometimes his tenants did not pay their $75 weekly rent, and weren’t required to sign a lease or put down a deposit. But there were trade-offs. Winn never gave residents keys to their units. Tenants were not to use the…

News | February 10, 2022

‘We have to adapt’: US Pacific north-west weighs plans to cope with extreme weather

First came the heavy snow in late December that blanketed Seattle and the surrounding area. Then the torrential rain and flooding hit in early January. One by one, four of the region’s main mountain passes were deemed impassable, and a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 5 south of Seattle was closed. It was the first time…

News | April 4, 2024

‘Work of passion:’ How Catalina Velasquez’s life led her to immigrant rights advocacy

Originally reported in The Washington State Standard by Grace Deng. Ask Catalina Velasquez anything about queer, feminist immigrant rights. She’ll have an answer. Velasquez heads Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, which is the largest immigrant-led coalition in Washington, alongside Brenda Rodriguez Lopez. A refugee from Colombia herself, Velasquez was the first transgender Latina appointed as a…

News | July 24, 2015

1st International Workshop on Smart Cities & Urban Analytics (UrbanGIS)

Now Taking Submissions! CALL FOR PAPERS: The 1st International Workshop on Smart Cities and Urban Analytics (UrbanGIS) 2015 in conjunction with ACM SIGSPATIAL 2015 Seattle, WA, USA – November 3, 2015 http://engineering.nyu.edu/urbangis2015/ IMPORTANT DATES: Paper Submission: September 1, 2015 (midnight PT) Notification of Acceptance: September 19, 2015 Workshop date: November 3, 2015 Paper Submission Site:…

News | September 7, 2021

2021 Urban@UW Spark Grants awardees announced

Urban@UW is excited to announce awardees for the second round of funding through our Spark Grants program. The two projects selected address critical urban challenges, with a focus on transdisciplinary scholarship and engagement with vulnerable populations.    Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Among Vehicle Residents: A Case Study of the Seattle Public Utilities’ Recreational Vehicle Wastewater…

News | April 19, 2022

2022 PhD Symposium explores the digital dimensions of urban dynamics

Pathways toward the future: Assessing the digital dimensions of urban dynamics Who is building the cities of the future? For whom are they being built? Can big data, smart cities, and other emerging technologies contribute to a sustainable and equitable world? As we move deeper into the information age, technology has gained renewed relevance as…

News | February 7, 2023

582,462 and Counting

Last year, the Biden administration laid out a goal to reduce homelessness by 25 percent by 2025. The problem increasingly animates local politics, with ambitious programs to build affordable housing getting opposition from homeowners who say they want encampments gone but for the solution to be far from their communities. Across the country, homelessness is…

News | June 26, 2024

A Biochar Solution for Urban Runoff

Written by Julia Davis for the University of Washington In cities around the globe, stormwater runoff remains largely untreated, collecting everything from heavy metals to pesticides before flowing into our waterways. This environmental challenge requires innovative solutions, and biochar may just be the key. CEE Assistant Professor Jessica Ray and graduate student Amy Quintanilla are…

News | March 10, 2018

A Homeless Camp in Our Back Yard? Please, a University Says

For months, 65 homeless people lived in tents they set up in a parking lot behind the Seattle Pacific University bookstore, with a row of portable toilets and layers of clothes to guard against the damp chill of winter. It was a homeless camp like so many that crop up along roads and ramshackle lots…

News | March 19, 2024

A New ‘Holy Grail’ in the Housing Crisis: Statewide Rent Caps

Reported in The New York Times by David W. Chen As housing costs soar, Washington State wants to limit annual rent increases to 7 percent. Oregon and California have passed similar measures.   With her husband struggling at times to find work, Ms. Horn has maxed out her credit cards to keep pace with the…

News | November 1, 2022

A new approach, not currently described by the Clean Air Act, could eliminate air pollution disparities

While air quality has improved dramatically over the past 50 years thanks in part to the Clean Air Act, people of color at every income level in the United States are still exposed to higher-than-average levels of air pollution. A team led by researchers at the University of Washington wanted to know if the Clean…

News | August 26, 2021

A new book chronicles the history of homelessness in Seattle

Josephine Ensign is a professor at the University of Washington School of Nursing and the author of a new book called “Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City.” The book digs through layers of Seattle history to reveal the stories of overlooked and long-silenced people who live on the…

News | August 17, 2021

A triple whammy has left many U.S. city neighborhoods highly vulnerable to soaring temperatures

In New York City, several Hunts Point residents have lists of neighbors they’re checking on to help keep the most vulnerable alive during heat waves. The city has also subsidized 74,000 air conditioners for low-income, elderly residents and is spending tens of millions to plant trees, as part of a “cool neighborhoods” program that also…

News | July 22, 2024

A week of nonstop breaking political news stumps AI chatbots

Reported by Heather Kelly For The Washington Post In the hour after President Biden announced he would withdraw from the 2024 campaign on Sunday, most popular AI chatbots seemed oblivious to the news. Asked directly whether he had dropped out, almost all said no or declined to give an answer. Asked who was running for…

News | April 5, 2022

A1 Revisited: The Seattle Times’ coverage of the 1942 removal of 227 Bainbridge residents left a harmful legacy

Sometimes the only way forward is to look back. This week marks the 80th anniversary of the first removals of Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast. Starting with 227 residents of Bainbridge Island on March 30, 1942, women, men and children were forced to leave their jobs, schools, homes and the lives they knew…

Research Beyond UW | University of Pennsylvania

Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy

The principal aim of Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP) is to improve the quality of education, health and human service agencies’ policies and practices through the use of integrated data systems. Quality integrated data systems are designed to help executive leaders in municipal, county, and state government evaluate and establish effective programs for the…

Research Beyond UW | University of Cape Town

African Centre for Cities

The African Centre for Cities (ACC) is an interdisciplinary research and teaching programme focused on quality scholarship regarding the dynamics of unsustainable urbanisation processes in Africa, with an eye on identifying systemic responses. Rapid and poorly governed urbanization in Africa points to a profound developmental and philosophical crisis. Most scholarship focuses on the development challenges…

News | August 4, 2020

After two months of protests, Seattle activists say work not done

The mass protests against police brutality and for racial equity that have dominated Seattle and the nation for the past two months are like few others in American history — a sustained, daily movement, in major cities, sleepy suburbs and rural towns, with no central organizing hub, driven by social media and word-of-mouth. Locally, the…

Scholar

Al Levine

Center & Lab

Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute

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Alexandra Harmon

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Alexes Harris

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Ali Modarres

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Alison C. Cullen

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Alma Khasawnih

Funding

Amazon Catalyst Grant

Amazon Catalyst’s goal is to help people develop solutions to key problems faced in the world today. Problems can be diverse, from computer security, to immigration, to climate change. Because issues like these are complex, solutions will come from many different fields and many different perspectives. Therefore, the grants are open to all disciplines, including…

Scholar

Amelia C Regan

News | October 3, 2019

American poverty is moving from the cities to the suburbs

For many, the stereotypical image of American poverty still resembles the infamous Cabrini-Green Homes, a housing estate completed in 1962 near the heart of Chicago. It became overrun by gangs, drugs and violence. City police, in effect, ceded control. This popular conception of poverty remains largely urban, black and ghettoised. But the stereotype is outdated….

News | August 16, 2018

An Unfair Share: Exploring the disproportionate risks from climate change facing Washington State communities

Everyone in Washington state will be affected by climate change, but race, income and occupation influences how much risk Washington state residents and workers face from climate-related hazards like wildfires, floods and extreme heat. A new report finds that the state’s most vulnerable people are often communities of color, indigenous people and lower-income communities. “Climate…

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Angelina Godoy

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Anjum Hajat

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Ann Bostrom

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Ann Frost

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Anne Taufen

News | September 26, 2022

Annual letter recaps urban efforts across UW, beyond

As we all head into another autumn and academic year under the COVID-19 pandemic, Urban@UW wishes to acknowledge the ongoing impacts of this and so many other acute and chronic drivers of struggle, inequality and injustice. Along with the uncertainty, loss, and weariness, we also acknowledge this community’s perseverance and commitment to co-creating cities that…

Degree Program

Anthropology of Globalization

Anthropology of Globalization is a new and exciting option in the Anthropology Major that explores several aspects of today’s interconnected world, including, economic exchanges, new media, human migration, and circulating knowledge. Unique to our program is a focus not only on contemporary multicultural and global exchanges, but also the deep history of such processes over…

News | September 29, 2020

Applied Research Fellows develop tool to explore population changes in King County

The 2020 Population Health Applied Research Fellows concluded their 10-week program to produce small area population forecasts at the Census tract and Health Reporting Area levels by sex, race, ethnicity and five-year age groups for King County from 2020 to 2045. Their findings, which were presented to staff from a variety of King County departments,…

News | August 9, 2024

Are we on the brink of a tax revolt in Washington state?

Reported by Joshua McNichols for KUOW/NPR News Cities all over the region have big property tax levies on the ballot this year. There’s a transportation levy in Seattle, a levy to modernize the fire department in Tacoma, and a levy to pay for public safety and libraries in Everett. Increasingly, elected officials rely on these…

Funding

Arnold Ventures

Arnold Ventures funds efforts to understand problems and identify policy solutions. Our giving centers on issues in Criminal Justice, Health, Education, and Public Finance, and is guided by Evidence-Based Policy, Research, and Advocacy. We have supported more than 1,000 projects since we began in 2010.

Scholar

Arthur Acolin

News | April 3, 2017

As Central District gets whiter, new barriers to health care

Last week while lawmakers in Washington, D.C., were gnashing their teeth over what health insurance in the U.S. should look like, patients and providers in King County were wrestling with some of the same challenges they faced before the Affordable Care Act was in place.   In 2014, students in King County who are black,…

News | July 28, 2020

As districts seek revenue due to pandemic, Black homeowners may feel the biggest hit

New research bolsters the case that Black homeowners bear a disproportionate tax burden for underfunded public schools. Now those same homeowners are likely to see their property tax rates climb even higher due to the coronavirus pandemic’s economic devastation. That’s because cash-strapped school boards that oversee majority-Black school districts are expected to ask their residents…

News | December 3, 2019

As more people use RVs as homes, should cities find a place for them?

Graham Pruss is familiar with the trials and tribulations of living out of an RV. As part of his research for his anthropology PhD at the University of Washington in Seattle, Pruss bought and lived in an RV for five months. Within the first 12 hours of doing so, he says, police issued him tickets and former…

News | September 14, 2020

At center of police defunding debate, King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle reimagine public safety

Thousands of activists and community leaders gathered June 5 in front of the decommissioned Fire Station 6 to discuss the future of Seattle. The 1930s building represented a juncture in the Central District’s past and present: Its art deco façade stood at the corner of a once-thriving Black neighborhood dating back to the 1800s that, largely due…

Scholar

Athan Tramountanas

News | September 2, 2016

August Sees New Grants, Project Launches, and Original Research and Writing

August was a busy month at the University of Washington and the Seattle region when it comes to urban research, writing, and project launches. Take a look at what’s been happening. Urban@UW will be running a half-day workshop as part of the Eighth International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2016.) Our workshop seeks to bring…

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Ben Packard

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Benjamin Brunjes

News | October 23, 2017

Best answer to Seattle affordability may win the race for mayor

The rising cost of housing is a dominant issue in Seattle’s mayoral election, but political messaging – on trust, results and leadership – could also move voters in the race between Jenny Durkan and Cary Moon.It’s a race away from a scandal and a race to become Seattle’s first woman mayor in about 90 years,…

News | November 25, 2020

Biden’s COVID-19 strategy should prioritize low-income communities like Philly’s

As America focused on the presidential election, COVID-19 cases surged. This alarming trend underscores the task now before President-elect Joe Biden and his COVID-19 task force: to “listen to science” and implement strategies that minimize pandemic-related suffering for Americans — particularly those living in poverty. The pandemic has hit poor communities like much of Philadelphia…

News | January 9, 2017

Big Data and Human Services: A Brief Annotated Reading List

On January 17-18th 2017, the Metrolab workshop on Big Data and Human Services hosted by City of Seattle, MetroLab Network, and the University of Washington will convene experts from local government and universities to discuss common challenges and propose collaborative, data-driven solutions to human service issues. Urban@UW has compiled a brief reading list to help…

News | June 11, 2024

Bird Flu Tests Are Hard To Get. So How Will We Know When To Sound The Pandemic Alarm?

Reported by Kaiser Health News for  Patch PALO ALTO, CA — Stanford University infectious disease doctor Abraar Karan has seen a lot of patients with runny noses, fevers, and irritated eyes lately. Such symptoms could signal allergies, covid, or a cold. This year, there’s another suspect, bird flu — but there’s no way for most…

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Branden Born

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Brian J. Harvey

Funding

Bridge Funding Program

The University of Washington Provost’s Office provides bridge funding to support faculty to span the gap in critical research programs. Applications from faculty should be submitted to the applicant’s department chair, who should prioritize requests before forwarding them to the dean of the college/school. In non-departmentalized colleges/schools, applications should be submitted to the dean or…

News | July 8, 2021

Bring back corner stores to create a connected, equitable city

Originally written by Sam Kraft, principal of D3 Architects and instructor of architecture at the University of Washington.  I used to live in Ravenna in a fourplex that looked like a large single-family house. I could walk to what was then Boulevard Grocery and buy lunch. In this small one-story gabled market, originally a garage…

News | January 23, 2024

Building community resilience: A $2 million NSF grant will transform disaster response

Amy Sprague January 16, 2024 “Our advantage of being an interdisciplinary project at the University of Washington is that we are drawing from an excellent corps of researchers with complementary expertise at a University whose mission includes working for the greater good across the state of Washington and has excellent ties into our communities.” Professor…

News | August 1, 2019

Burien takes a new, compassionate approach to criminal justice

At a time when angst about homelessness, drugs and other causes of arrests seems to have reached a breaking point in the region, King County officials are expanding a number of key programs meant to tackle some of society’s stickiest problems. Instead of delving further into the urban core, though, these new programs are being launched in…

News | October 18, 2016

Cars vs health: UW’s Moudon, Dannenberg contribute to Lancet series on urban planning, public health

Automobiles — and the planning and infrastructure to support them — are making our cities sick, says an international group of researchers now publishing a three-part series in the British medical journal The Lancet. University of Washington professors Anne Vernez Moudon and Andrew Dannenberg are co-authors of the first of this series that explores these…

Research Beyond UW | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Center for Advanced Urbanism

The Center for Advanced Urbanism is committed to fostering a rigorous design culture for the large scale; by focusing our disciplinary conversations about architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, and systems thinking, not about the problems of yesterday, but of tomorrow. We are motivated by the radical changes in our environment, and the role that design…

Center & Lab

Center for American Politics and Public Policy (CAPPP)

The Center for American Politics and Public Policy, established at the University of Washington in 1996 and directed by Professor John Wilkerson, is a focal point for the study of politics and public policy processes in the United States. The primary intellectual objectives of CAPPP include: (1) fostering internationally recognized research by faculty and students…

Center & Lab

Center for Asian Urbanism

The Center for Asian Urbanism is established to promote and undertake interdisciplinary and collaborative research of urban conditions and processes in Asia and the “Global Pacific” – i.e. the relevancies of cities and city-regions in Asia to each other, to the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., and to the world at large. Specifically, the Center…

Center & Lab

Center for Education Data and Research

The Center for Education Data and Research focuses on the relationship between education and social service policies and practices. Founded in 2010, CEDR examines questions of educational opportunity, access and success, examining them through a quantitative lens. Its researchers are particularly interested in examining policies and interventions that help disadvantaged groups. One of CEDR’s strengths…

Center & Lab

Center for Environmental Politics

Our mission is to play a leadership role in producing and disseminating empirical social science research on new modes of environmental politics and governance at local, regional, national, and global levels. Within the University of Washington, we facilitate faculty and graduate students to build connections, establish networks, and initiate truly multi‐disciplinary conversations about the political…

Center & Lab

Center for Global Studies

The Center for Global Studies (CGS) is dedicated to fostering language excellence, international studies expertise, and global literacy in the Pacific Northwest and throughout the nation with the overall objective of enhancing the nation’s capacity to address contemporary global challenges. The Center is especially focused on increasing the diversity of students engaged in international studies…

Center & Lab

Center for Human Rights

The University of Washington Center for Human Rights is committed to interdisciplinary excellence in the education of undergraduate and graduate students in the field of human rights; promoting human rights as a core area of faculty and graduate research; and engaging productively with local, regional, national, and international organizations and policymakers to advance respect for…

Center & Lab

Center for Journalism Media & Democracy

The Center for Journalism, Media and Democracy (formerly The Center for Communication and Civic Engagement) is dedicated to understanding communication processes and media technologies that facilitate democracy. CJMD is located in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. Students and faculty at the center work together on original research, educational programs, and public…

Center & Lab

Center for Livable Communities

The mission of the Center for Livable Communities is to enhance the livability of communities in the Pacific Northwest through applied research and outreach in the areas of land use planning, policy, and design; healthy communities; food security; and public participation and democracy. The Center is a research and policy center focused on issues of…

Center & Lab

Center for Public Health Nutrition

The Center for Public Health Nutrition’s mission is to: Advance public health approaches to improve nutrition and physical activity through environmental and policy change Build partnerships and collaborations with practitioners, government agencies and communities Provide technical assistance in the translation of research into policy and practice Shape obesity and chronic disease prevention and reduction efforts

Center & Lab

Center for Southeast Asia and Its Diasporas (CSEAD)

The University of Washington Center for Southeast Asia & its Diasporas (CSEAD) is a National Resource Center for Southeast Asian Studies funded by the U.S. Department of Education pursuant to Title VI of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Established in 1986, the Center and the Southeast Asia Studies Program are a source of information on…

Center & Lab

Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences

The Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences started in 1999, with funding from the University Initiatives Fund. It was the first center in the nation devoted to this interface, with the triple mission of galvanizing collaborative research between social scientists and statisticians, developing a menu of new graduate courses for social science students, and…

Center & Lab

Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE)

The Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) supports population research and training at the University of Washington. It also functions as a regional center that gives population scientists at affiliated institutions in the Pacific Northwest access to cutting-edge demographic infrastructure and services. The core of CSDE consists of a large group of productive…

Center & Lab

Center for West European Studies | EU Center

The Center for West European Studies (CWES) was founded in 1994. Our mission is to enhance the quality of teaching and research on West European politics, society, and culture through outreach to universities, community colleges, business, the general public, and the K-12 community. The Center’s programs are uniquely interdisciplinary, fostering collaboration between Europeanists from twenty…

News | May 1, 2019

Central District, other Seattle legacy communities are at risk — and we all need to help save them

In a new documentary about gentrification in the Central District, “On the Brink,” an advocate of Seattle’s historically African American neighborhood talks about recent construction projects in the area digging the soul out of that community. … The CD became a nearly 80% black neighborhood in the late 1960s and early ’70s because African Americans,…

Research Beyond UW | University of York

Centre for Housing Policy

The Centre for Housing Policy (CHP) is one of Europe's leading centres for interdisciplinary housing and social policy research, with interests centring on housing and social justice, housing and later life and the operation of housing markets. CHP has a twenty-five year record of academically excellent and policy-relevant research. We were ranked joint first in…

Research Beyond UW | University of Toronto

Centre for Urban & Community Studies

The Centre for Urban and Community Studies (CUCS) was established in 1964 to promote and disseminate multidisciplinary research and policy analysis on urban issues. The Centre's activities contributed to scholarship on questions relating to the social, economic and physical well-being of people who live and work in urban areas large and small, in Canada and…

Research Beyond UW | University of Nairobi

Centre for Urban Research and Innovations

Centre for Urban Research and Innovations (CURI), formerly Urban Innovations Program (UIP), is a think tank based at the University of Nairobi's Department of Urban and Regional Planning. The Centre seeks to create a forum for exploring innovative methodologies for enabling planners and professionals in the built environment to be more responsive and effective in…

Research Beyond UW | University of York

Centre for Urban Research and Innovations

The Centre for Urban Research seeks to be a critical observatory, tracking important changes and developments in urban and regional economies, societies and environments in order to identify and examine the issues likely to become key challenges in the near future. A program of frequent events provide forums for diverse communities, policy-makers and academic colleagues…

Research Beyond UW | University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Centre for Urbanism & Built Environment Studies (CUBES)

The Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) is a platform for urban research, learning and civic engagement located in the School of Architecture and Planning. CUBES’s research focuses on material built-environment issues affecting the poor in cities and towns in South Africa. CUBES leads a variety of research programmes that consider how urban…

News | April 11, 2017

Challenging the whiteness of American architecture, in the 1960s and today

“This book tells the story of how I got a free Ivy League education.” That’s the arresting opening sentence of Sharon Egretta Sutton‘s “When Ivory Towers Were Black,” an unusual hybrid of memoir, institutional history and broadside against the entrenched whiteness of the architecture profession in this country. The institution in question is Columbia University…

Research Beyond UW | University of Chicago

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago has, since its inception in 1985 as a research and policy center, focused on a mission of improving the well-being of children and youth, families, and their communities. We do this through policy research—by developing and testing new ideas, generating and analyzing information, and examining policies, programs, and…

Scholar

Charles H. Lea III

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Charles Wolfe

Research Beyond UW | Lesley University

Child Homelessness Initiative

The mission of the CHI is to prepare Lesley University graduates---next-generation teachers, policy advocates, therapists and child care providers--with a trauma-informed asset model that enables practices and policies consistent with maximizing infant and toddler health, happiness and well-being, securing their protection from injury and insult, and advancing their educational opportunities and citizenship.

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Christian Anderson

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Christopher Beasley

News | August 25, 2023

Cities Aren’t Supposed to Burn Like This Anymore—Especially Lahaina

Rescue crews are still searching Lahaina, Hawaii, for survivors of the catastrophic wildfire that obliterated the town last week on the island of Maui. It’s the deadliest blaze in modern American history, with 99 people confirmed dead, surpassing the 85 that perished in 2018’s Camp Fire in Paradise, California. Crews have only searched a quarter…

News | October 15, 2020

Cities dropping out of King County sales tax could strip more than $18M from homeless housing plan

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…

News | March 9, 2018

Cities, scientists unite in battle against climate change at U.N. summit

Climate scientists and city planners are to start charting a global roadmap on how cities can best battle climate change, when they gather at a U.N.-backed summit in Canada’s Edmonton on Monday. The three day gathering marks the first time cities rather than nations are offered a seat at the table of the Intergovernmental Panel…

News | July 15, 2021

City heat is worse if you’re not rich or white. The world’s first heat officer wants to change that

As the climate changes, everyone is feeling the heat. A historical heatwave continues to rage across the western U.S., while in Miami, the heat index—which accounts for heat and humidity—was higher in June than in any month since August 2015. It’s not just a nuisance. Extreme heat contributed to the deaths of around 12,000 people in…

Research Beyond UW | York University

City Institute at York University (CITY)

The City Institute at York University (CITY) brings together over 60 of the university’s urban scholars and scores of graduate students from fields as diverse as planning, geography, environmental studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, education, law, transportation and the humanities. This interdisciplinary institute facilitates critical and collaborative research, providing new knowledge and innovative approaches to…

News | March 23, 2018

City of Bellevue selected as 2018-2019 UW Livable City Year partner

The University of Washington Livable City Year program has selected the City of Bellevue to be the community partner for the 2018-2019 academic year. The year-long partnership connects city staff with students and faculty who will collaborate on projects to advance the Bellevue City Council Vision Priorities, specifically around livability and sustainability. In the upcoming…

News | April 23, 2020

City of Kent on the brink of ‘unprecedented’ layoffs and budget cuts

Dana Ralph, the mayor of Kent, is warning residents that state coronavirus restrictions and closures will soon result in massive layoffs and budget cuts far beyond anything the city experienced during the Great Recession. “This is significantly larger than what we’ve seen during the recession,” she said. “This is unprecedented in what we’re talking about…

News | March 23, 2020

City of Seattle Adapting Streets to Support Small Businesses During Coronavirus Shut Down

Mayor Jenny A. Durkan announced today that starting this afternoon the Seattle Department of Transportation is converting on-street parking spaces near restaurants to temporary loading zones to facilitate curbside meal pickup.The first locations to receive temporary loading zones are areas with high concentrations of restaurants on blocks that do not otherwise have enough loading options….

News | December 29, 2022

City of Tacoma and UW Tacoma want to start community conversations on homelessness next year

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…

Funding

Civic Innovation Challenge

The Civic Innovation Challenge, funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Homeland Security, supports partnerships between communities and universities that address mobility and resilience priorities. Teams will compete for awards of up to $1 million to support ready-to-implement, research-based pilot projects that have the potential for scalable, sustainable,…

Scholar

Clare Ryan

News | April 18, 2019

Climate change as a social justice issue in Seattle

This story was written by Urban@UW communications assistant Shahd Al Baz, as part of her research with our program. Social justice paradigms hold that structural barriers to economic development drive, and are driven by, environmental and spatial conditions. We need look no further than Seattle to see this, where patterns of environmental degradation intersect with…

News | October 24, 2019

Climate change could make borrowing costlier for states and cities

Someday soon, analysts will determine that a city or county, or maybe a school district or utility, is so vulnerable to sea level rise, flooding, drought or wildfire that it is an investment risk. As ratings firms begin to focus on climate change, and investors increasingly talk about the issue, those involved in the market…

News | May 13, 2024

Cloud Brightening Study in California Is Halted by Local Officials

Researchers had been testing a sprayer that could one day be used to push a salty mist skyward, cooling the Earth. Officials stopped the work, citing health questions. Written by Christopher Flavelle for The New York Times. Officials in Alameda, Calif., have told scientists to stop testing a device that might one day be used…

News | June 5, 2024

Community broadband provides a local solution for a global problem

Written by Esther Jang, Postdoctoral Fellow, Computer Science, University of Washington; Katherine Gillieson, Associate Dean, Master of Design, Emily Carr University; and Michael Lithgow, Associate Professor, Media and Communication Studies, Athabasca University Published in The Conversation. According to a 2023 study by the International Telecommunications Union, approximately 2.6 billion people are unconnected to the internet….

Degree Program

Community, Environment & Planning (BA)

Community, Environment, and Planning is a self-directed, diverse undergraduate major comprised of students, faculty, and staff engaged in holistic growth and a collaborative process of experiential and interdisciplinary learning. In our major, we develop skills, techniques, and knowledge necessary to be active leaders and conscientious planners in our communities and environments. Our values are presented…

News | March 30, 2020

Coronavirus pandemic highlights economic inequality in the US

Jennie Romich, associate professor at the University of Washington School of Social Work and director of the West Coast Poverty Center, discusses how different economic classes are able to respond to the coronavirus pandemic: For a lot of low and moderate income families, the primary economic concerns of this pandemic are keeping enough food in the…

News | April 3, 2020

Coronavirus: Homeless families lose key support as schools close

In a typical year, homeless shelters experience the biggest surge in demand not during the cold winter months, but rather during the summer. In the summer, schools close and parents lose the usual daily eight hours of childcare and meals. With the additional burden of sleeping on the streets, parents seek out shelter more often, research…

News | July 11, 2019

Could court fines and fees be keeping people homeless?

A new University of Washington School of Public Health study sustains a long-held argument that court-imposed fees and fines may keep the most vulnerable people ensnared in a vicious cycle of poverty and incarceration. The researchers found that, among a group of adults experiencing homelessness in the Seattle area, people with outstanding legal debt spent…

News | December 22, 2022

Covenant project unearths the threads of historical housing discrimination in Washington

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…

Scholar

Craig W. Thomas

Scholar

Cristina Lacomba

Scholar

Crystal C. Hall

News | May 2, 2018

CSDE Affiliates Examine Equity Issues Associated with Tolled Roads

Last week, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan proposed instituting a toll on downtown roads to curb congestion. The Seattle Times examined the potential benefits and implications of the toll. In unpacking the possible equity issues, the Times turned to a 2009 study conducted by Affiliate Jennifer Romich, Associate Professor at the School of Social Work; Affiliate Robert Plotnick, Professor Emeritus at the Evans School of…

News | March 31, 2020

CUAC releases program report highlighting collaborative research across Cascadia

The Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative (CUAC) has released a comprehensive program report detailing collaborative research and training activities between the University of Washington (UW) and the University of British Columbia (UBC) over the last three years. CUAC supports interdisciplinary studies of large urban data sets that use the latest data science techniques to address policy-relevant issues affecting…

Scholar

Cynthia Chen

News | December 3, 2019

Dads in prison can bring poverty, instability for families on the outside

Studies of the societal effects of prison often focus on the imprisoned: their physical and mental health, job prospects after release, their likelihood of returning to jail. A new study from the University of Washington looks instead at families of men who are, or were recently, incarcerated — specifically, at where these families live, how…

Scholar

Dafeng Xu

Scholar

Danae Dotolo

News | July 7, 2016

Data Science for Social Good 2016

This summer we are thrilled to be supporting the eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) program. Modeled after similar programs at the University of Chicago and Georgia Tech, with elements from eScience’s own Data Science Incubator, sixteen DSSG Student Fellows have been working with academic researchers, data scientists, and public stakeholder groups on…

News | September 3, 2020

Data Science for Social Good fellows present their project results

This year, two interdisciplinary teams at the eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) program tackled timely issues, conducting projects to identify disinformation articles about the coronavirus and detect minority vote dilution resulting from geographic boundary setting in state, city, county and school board districts. On August 19th, the DSSG student fellows presented the results of their projects, conducted with…

News | October 12, 2018

Data Science for Social Good shares its fourth year of partnership-based projects

The fourth annual Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) program at the eScience Institute culminated on August 17th with final presentations from three interdisciplinary teams. The 15 DSSG Student Fellows – representing fields from public policy and sociology to biology, statistics and electrical engineering – presented their findings based on 10 weeks of full-time work with in-house data scientists…

Scholar

David Boe

Scholar

Davon Woodard

News | December 5, 2019

Denver mayor signs minimum wage increase into law

Before Mayor Michael Hancock signed the minimum wage ordinance into law on November 27, there was pushback from small-business owners and restaurants who don’t agree with the increase. “Nothing’s easy,” Hancock said. “This is not an easy ordinance.” But before controversy in Denver, Seattle had the same worries in 2015. “We got involved initially by…

Scholar

Diana Pearce

Degree Program

Disability Studies (Minor, Major, and Graduate Certificate)

Disability Studies is a multi-disciplinary field that investigates, critiques, and enhances Western society’s understandings of disability. The Disability Studies Program's Minor, Major, and Graduate Certificate will introduce you to a critical framework for recognizing how people with disabilities have experienced disadvantages and exclusion because of personal and societal responses to impairment, and for exploring how…

News | February 23, 2018

Do you have questions about transportation in Seattle? Here are a few answers

Since The Seattle Times Traffic Lab launched a year ago, they’ve heard from scores of readers about getting around Here are a few: Q: Do Uber and Lyft worsen Seattle’s traffic congestion? A: A study in New York City said the growth of the app-based ride services could work against cities’ goals of unclogging streets…

News | July 13, 2017

Does commercial zoning increase neighborhood crime?

In the run-up to the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump told The New York Times that America’s urban centers are some of the “most dangerous,” crime-filled places in the world. Even though experts were quick to point out that violent crime has actually declined in all but a handful of America’s largest cities and urban…

News | January 31, 2018

Does the big boss really matter in big-city school districts?

School district superintendents are often nice people, but boring. They rarely have much effect on what happens in classrooms, where the most interesting and productive changes occur. But because the nation’s two largest districts, New York and Los Angeles, are looking for new superintendents, I forced myself to read a trenchant new guide for superintendent…

News | July 2, 2020

Don’t be fooled by Seattle’s police-free zone

Seattle’s police-free “autonomous zone” is coming to an end. After two largely peaceful weeks, shootings over the last several days near the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area, CHOP for short, left a 19-year-old man dead and three others wounded. Mayor Jenny Durkan announced on June 22 that the city would retake the abandoned police precinct at the heart of…

News | December 5, 2019

Don’t blame tech bros for the housing crisis

Can Big Tech solve the housing crisis? That’s the hope behind recent announcements by Apple, Facebook and Google, which together total $4.5 billion in grants and loans to remedy the affordable-housing crunch in California and the Bay Area. Microsoft last year pledged $500 million to relieve Seattle’s similarly stressed market. While Amazon’s opposition torpedoed Seattle’s attempt in 2018 to raise revenue for homelessness services,…

News | December 16, 2019

Doorway Project Winter Update: Building at the Speed of Trust

The Doorway Project, a cross-campus and community-engaged project under Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative, has been busy! Check out their activities and plans for the future in their latest blog post:   With the end of the year and the end of the decade approaching in the next few weeks, this moment feels like a perfect time to…

News | September 10, 2021

Doorway Project: 2020-2021 Year End Report

The Doorway Project is an initiative co-led by the University of Washington and YouthCare, an agency offering individualized services to young people experiencing homelessness in Seattle/King County. The Doorway Project works to address youth and young adult homelessness in the University District through centering youth wellbeing and agency in the development of emancipatory and creative…

News | February 24, 2023

Downtown Dreams: Leaders Share 10 Ideas to Make Seattle’s Core More Vibrant

In his “State of the City” address on Tuesday, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said the word “downtown” more than 30 times and dedicated a quarter of his annual speech to revitalizing the city’s core. There are some examples of success. New York City transformed lower Manhattan into a 24-7 community with more residents and a…

News | July 2, 2018

Driving? Your phone is a distraction even if you aren’t looking at it

I was in the car with a friend recently when she pulled up to a stoplight, picked up her phone and replied to a text. I gave her the side eye. What? she glared back. “I only use my phone when we’re stopped.” “OK, fine,” I said. But, I wondered, is it? We all know that…

News | April 17, 2024

E-bike fires are sparking trouble in Seattle. Here’s how to use them safely.

Written by Gustavo Sagrero Álvarez for KUOW. Seattle’s streets have become home to hundreds of electronic bikes and scooters in recent years, with a growing number of commuters and hobbyists relying on them to get around. As usage of these lithium-ion battery powered devices grows, so has the number of fires in connection with them….

News | May 20, 2020

EarthLab announces Innovation Grant recipients for 2020

Research projects funded for 2020 by EarthLab’s Innovation Grants Program will study how vegetation might reduce pollution, help an Alaskan village achieve safety and resilience amid climate change, organize a California river’s restoration with tribal involvement, compare practices in self-managed indigenous immigrant communities and more. EarthLab is a University of Washington-wide institute connecting scholars with community…

News | April 8, 2024

Earthquake showed Taiwan was well prepared for a big one — more so than parts of U.S.

Originally reported by Evan Bush  for NBC News. The powerful earthquake in Taiwan on Wednesday shook an island that was well prepared for a seismic catastrophe — likely more so than some regions of the U.S., several experts said. Nine people have been reported dead, though Taiwanese officials said the death toll could rise in…

Degree Program

Education, Communities and Organizations (BA)

The University of Washington's Education, Communities and Organizations (ECO) degree believes teaching and learning happens not only within the formal classroom, but also across a host of professions such as youth development, policy reform, business, healthcare and in a variety of other organizations serving communities.

Center & Lab

Education, Equity, & Society (EES)

Education, Equity, & Society is an intellectual community within the College of Education that encourages students to explore the meaning, purpose, and significance of education in diverse community contexts with the aim of contributing to local and global educational equity and social change. We are an interdisciplinary group that draws on expertise in several traditions…

News | August 20, 2020

Educational inequities didn’t begin with COVID-19, but they’re far from over

As schools across the country are starting to resume instruction, which schools – and which students – remain online, while others push for in-person learning? The divide between parents and families who have the time, money, and resources to support a remote learning environment for their children and those who don’t is largely split along…

Scholar

Emily Hovis

Scholar

Esther Min

Degree Program

Evans School Master of Public Administration (MPA)

The Evans School Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree is a nationally ranked program designed to equip students with essential skills needed to enter careers in government and the nonprofit sector. Students acquire the knowledge, technical skills, and political acumen required for effective leadership in public service through a curriculum that equally emphasizes policy analysis,…

Center & Lab

Evans School Policy Analysis & Research Group (EPAR)

Established in 2008, the Evans School Policy Analysis and Research Group (EPAR) uses an innovative student-faculty team model to provide rigorous, applied research and analysis to international development stakeholders. EPAR has prepared more than 300 technical reports and briefs including: statistical data analysis and research, literature reviews and analysis, and portfolio analysis and strategy support.…

News | May 24, 2019

Event looks at past efforts to integrate schools in Seattle and what can be done now

May 17 was the 65th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision that said segregating public schools by race was unconstitutional. Many public schools in Seattle remain segregated in spite of past efforts to address that, including several decades of busing. A national nonprofit group, Integrated Schools, hosted an event on Thursday,…

News | November 18, 2021

Event: Insights of a once reluctant academic working on urban climate change in Southern Africa

On Monday, December 6th, 2021, Gina Ziervogel Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, joins Urban@UW and CBE to discuss the route she has taken over the last 20 years as a geographer working on climate change vulnerability and adaptation, urban governance, and social…

Degree Program

Executive Master of Public Administration (EMPA)

Gain the skills and knowledge needed to excel as a leader dedicated to serving the public good with the Executive Master of Public Administration at the University of Washington. Offered by the nationally ranked Evans School, this 18-month accelerated program combines theory with practice, allowing you to apply coursework directly to the organizational challenges you…

News | September 19, 2016

Expand the frontiers of urban sustainability

Manhattan skyscrapers, rather than rustic rural towns, are quickly becoming the picture of sustainable living in the twenty-first century. San Francisco, Copenhagen and Singapore each top their regions in the Green City Index. As sites of innovation and economic dynamism, these places exemplify a blend of density and livability that large, prosperous cities in the…

News | October 29, 2019

Facebook commits $1 billion to ease Bay Area housing crisis

Facebook Inc. is following other tech titans like Microsoft Corp. and Google, pledging to use its deep pockets to ease the affordable housing shortage in West Coast cities. The social media giant said Tuesday that it would commit $1 billion over the next decade to address the crisis in the San Francisco Bay Area, building as many as…

News | July 2, 2020

Fearful commuters on trains, buses hold one key to U.S. recovery

Masks are mandatory on subways and buses in Washington. San Francisco is betting longer trains will help riders social distance. Crews disinfect New York’s trains daily — stations twice a day — and are testing ultraviolet light devices to see if they kill Covid-19 on surfaces. As states gradually reopen, transit agencies are taking steps…

News | July 31, 2018

FEMA-style tents as homeless shelters? Maybe, say some King County officials

Three health officials on the King County Board of Health are urging the panel to declare homelessness a “public health disaster” and advise local jurisdictions to respond accordingly — including potentially deploying large scale FEMA-style tents as emergency shelter before winter. Two and a half years after both Seattle and King County declared a state of…

News | June 22, 2020

Fighting climate change means fighting racial injustice

“You can’t let one segment of society become a sacrifice.” Michael Méndez, an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, was on the phone talking about the protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd beneath a white police officer’s knee. But he was also talking about environmental justice and climate change. And he could…

News | December 4, 2020

Final Report: Impact of Hotels as Non-Congregate Emergency Shelters

A King County initiative that moved people out of homeless shelters and into hotel rooms earlier this year helped slow the transmission of the coronavirus SARS-CoV2, according to the final report from a study of the intervention. The study is co-authored by Gregg Colburn and Rachel Fyall, faculty co-leads of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative, and the…

News | March 16, 2017

First UW Livable City Year project reports delivered to the City of Auburn

Teams of University of Washington students have been working throughout this academic year on livability and sustainability projects in the City of Auburn. The yearlong Livable City Year partnership has given students a chance to work on real-world challenges identified by Auburn, while providing Auburn with tens of thousands of hours of study and student…

News | April 23, 2020

For many Seattle-area small businesses, coronavirus aid comes with major risks

To understand just how hard it could be to recover from a COVID-19 recession, consider the case of Jim Harrer. Last week, the owner of kickboxing gyms in Kent and Federal Way learned he’d qualified for a $107,000 loan under the Payroll Protection Program — one of the last to do so before the U.S. Small…

Funding

Ford Foundation

We believe in the inherent dignity of all people. Yet around the world, billions of people are excluded from full participation in the political, economic, and cultural systems that shape their lives. We view this fundamental inequality as the defining challenge of our time, one that limits the potential of all people, everywhere. Addressing inequality…

News | August 11, 2023

Forget Banning Books — A Rural WA County May Close Its Library

As libraries throughout the country face increasing calls to ban young adult books that cover race and LGBTQ+ issues, one in a rural district east of Walla Walla faces a challenge to its very existence. The Columbia County Rural Library District could be dissolved by voters after a community member filed a petition to close…

News | July 28, 2020

Gentrification and changing foodscapes in Seattle

Seattle is the third most quickly gentrifying city in the US, after Washington, DC and Portland, OR (The Seattle Times [web]). Gentrification is often the outcome of decades of segregation, redlining, and urban renewal policies that exploit the large gap between existing and potential property values, which in turn encourages an influx of wealthier residents….

Degree Program

Geospatial Technologies (MS)

The Urban Studies Program offers a Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies degree. Admission is open during autumn quarter only and will be comprised of a 20 student cohort. The degree will provide advanced training in GIS, training students to use and apply geospatial hardware, software, and data in urban and environmental planning scenarios. It…

News | May 20, 2024

Global life expectancy is projected to increase by 5 years by 2050

Reported by Rodielon Putol for Earth A recent study from the prestigious Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2021 reveals an encouraging trend: global life expectancy is expected to rise by nearly five years by 2050, despite various global challenges. According to the findings published in The Lancet, life expectancy for males is projected to…

Degree Program

Global Master of Public Administration (MPA)

The Evans School’s Global Master of Public Administration will prepare you to thrive in public sector organizations that work across borders. With theory and a practical skillset unique to two cultural contexts, you will be equipped with the skills you need to improve public policy, pursue powerful ideas and advance your capacity to lead internationally.…

Research Beyond UW | Newcastle University

Global Research Urban Research Unit (GURU)

The Global Urban Research Unit combines traditional and innovative approaches to the analysis of cities and towns, to better understand place and its potential creative and sustainable transformation. Our work is theoretically informed but often deeply related to the experiences of citizens, policy-makers and other stakeholders. GURU thus prides itself on the ways its work…

Degree Program

Graduate Certificate in Housing Studies

Quality, affordable, and well-connected housing is an essential component of strong and healthy communities. Housing markets are constantly evolving and there is an increasing collaboration among public, private and nonprofit actors in addressing various housing issues. The Graduate Certificate in Housing Studies (GCHS) offers graduate students an opportunity to learn the fundamental concepts and tools…

Scholar

Grant Blume

News | September 27, 2022

Green Buildings Get a Boost in WA, but Policy and Demand Still Lag

Two decades ago, Washington became a foothold for a global movement to decarbonize buildings. But since then momentum has sputtered. Embodied carbon is still an emerging field. Since the U.S. Department of Ecology began collecting and cataloguing data on building energy use, carbon emissions have slowly but surely become a bigger part of the equation….

Scholar

Gregg Colburn

Scholar

Gregory Hicks

News | March 7, 2023

Groundbreaking Study Shows Suburban Tenants are Facing More Evictions across the US

The number of families evicted from their homes in suburbs across the country has been on the rise for years, according to a report from Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. Researchers compiled eviction judgment records from 74 U.S. metropolitan areas and found that as the number of evictions in city centers held steady from 2000 to 2016, the…

News | February 3, 2023

Group’s lawsuit seeks to void Washington transportation law

A conservative legal advocacy organization is suing to halt the nearly $17 billion transportation funding bill passed by the Washington Legislature and signed by Gov. Jay Inslee last year. Senate Bill 5974, known as Move Ahead Washington, passed last session despite opposition from most Republicans. The legislation pays for finishing massive highway projects and pays…

News | April 9, 2017

Growing Up in the University District

Vikram Jandhyala sees Seattle’s University District evolving into an “innovation district” — a place where public and private sectors work together to develop socially beneficial technologies. Think Silicon Valley, where Stanford University faculty and students launch new companies or work on their new technologies with existing tech giants. As the University of Washington’s vice president…

Scholar

Gunnar Almgren

News | April 22, 2024

Has the US finally figured out how to do high-speed rail?

Written by Jeremy Hsu for NewScientist. Construction began today on the first true high-speed rail line in the US, which will connect Los Angeles suburbanites to the bright lights of Las Vegas, Nevada. Not only should the project enable people in the US to finally experience European and Asian standards of speedy passenger trains, it…

Scholar

Heather D. Hill

News | June 17, 2024

Here’s what homeowners can do to prevent one of the leading causes of death for birds

Originally reported by for King 5 by Erica Zucco. SEATTLE — U.S. Fish and Wildlife and other agencies say one of the leading causes of death in birds is colliding with buildings. Birds fly at a high rate of speed and don’t recognize glass as a barrier, often ending in mortality. University of Washington researcher…

News | June 11, 2024

Here’s why an Arizona medical examiner is working to track heat-related deaths

Written by Alejandra Borunda for NPR News Greg Hess deals with death day in, day out. Hess is the medical examiner for Pima County, Ariz., a region along the United States-Mexico border. His office handles some 3,000 deaths each year — quiet deaths, overdoses, gruesome deaths, tragic ones. From April through October every year, Hess…

News | December 21, 2020

Hidden in plain sight: The ghosts of segregation

Originally written by Richard Frishman for the New York Times‘ series World Through a Lens.   The six faded letters are all that remain, and few people notice them. I would never have seen them if a friend hadn’t pointed them out to me while we walked through New Orleans’s French Quarter. I certainly wouldn’t have…

Scholar

Himanshu Grover

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…

Research Beyond UW | University of Denver

Homeless Advocacy Policy Project

The Homeless Advocacy Policy Project (HAPP) at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law is a student-driven project focused on researching the laws criminalizing homelessness and advocating for the rights of homeless individuals.

Research Beyond UW | Seattle University

Homeless Rights Advocacy Project

The Homeless Rights Advocacy Project (HRAP) engages Seattle University School of Law students in effective legal and policy research, analysis, and advocacy work to advance the rights of homeless adults, youth, and children.

News | June 26, 2017

How a rising minimum wage affects jobs in Seattle

Three years ago, Seattle became one of the first jurisdictions in the nation to embrace a $15-an-hour minimum wage, to be phased in over several years. Over the past week, two studies have purported to demonstrate the effects of the first stages of that increase — but with diverging results. Mark C. Long, professor in…

News | March 2, 2016

How a rising minimum wage may impact the nonprofit sector

As the income inequality discussion continues to simmer across the country, municipal minimum wage ordinances have become hot topics of conversation in many cities. In January 2016, Seattle will implement its second step-up in the local minimum wage in 9 months, reaching $13 for many employers in the city and edging closer to a $15…

News | January 9, 2021

How a year of protests changed Seattle

It took the ripples of outrage over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last May about three days to reach Seattle, driving thousands of protesters into the streets in solidarity with demands to end police violence against people of color and address, finally, the institutional racism that feeds it. Seven months later, those tear…

News | March 25, 2024

How e-bikes are helping ease package delivery clogs

Originally reported by Kristin Schwab for Marketplace. It’s a rainy evening in New York City, as in flash flood warning kind of rain. But it’s nothing Michael Singh hasn’t seen. “Yes, rain, snow, high winds, all of it,” said Singh, who’s been a bike messenger for seven years and started with Amazon a few months ago….

News | July 7, 2022

How many homeless people are in King County? Depends who you ask

Since the data-driven Marc Dones was hired to lead the new King County Regional Homelessness Authority, one of their main priorities has been to get an accurate count of the homeless population. Now, Dones and the Authority have two different counts: 13,368 and 40,800. Both are larger than the previous estimate of the homeless population conducted…

News | January 16, 2021

How much will homelessness rise? Grim study shows possible ‘impact of doing nothing,’ researchers say

A recession following the coronavirus pandemic could cause twice as much homelessness nationwide as the Great Recession did more than a decade ago, says a grim study released Tuesday by Economic Roundtable, an L.A. research group. Using detailed data on unemployment and homelessness from L.A. County social services, authors of the study project that people at the…

News | October 26, 2020

How poverty hurts Washington state’s democracy

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…

News | August 30, 2018

How racism kept black Tacomans from buying houses for decades

Honorably discharged after serving in the Korean War, the young man looked to settle down in Tacoma with his wife. If only they could convince someone to show them a home. If they got to a house first, the real estate agent would leave upon seeing them. They learned to park down the street and…

News | June 11, 2020

How Seattle’s unemployed survived the Great Depression

When the stock market crashed in fall of 1929, the road from joblessness to homelessness was short. Meager local relief programs and private charity weren’t up to the challenge of mass unemployment. As the Depression deepened and President Herbert Hoover resolutely opposed federal involvement in relief efforts, “Hoovervilles” sprang up around the country. Seattle’s largest shanty…

News | February 15, 2019

How Seattle’s 1919 General Strike Ignited America’s Labor Movement

On February 6, 1919, 65,000 union workers in Seattle walked off the job. On that Wednesday morning, barbers, newsboys, ice wagon drivers, stereotypers, electrical utility workers, and bill posters didn’t show up for work, a demonstration of solidarity with shipyard workers who had already been striking for two weeks in pursuit of higher wages. The…

News | April 10, 2018

How Texas is ‘building back better’ from Hurricane Harvey

For most Americans, the one-two punch of last fall’s hurricanes is ancient history. But hard-hit communities in Texas, Florida and the Caribbean are still rebuilding. Nicole Errett, lecturer in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, recently traveled with public health students from the University of Washington to southeast Texas, where the impacts of…

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 | October 18, 2024

How to avoid sharing election misinformation

Reported by Audrey Nguyen for NPR The 2024 election season is upon us. While Election Day is November 5, early voting started in September in some states. As we wait for the final results to be declared, chances are, you’re going to come across false or misleading information. To avoid spreading misinformation this election season,…

News | April 12, 2024

How Washington’s local governments have moved to allow for denser housing

Originally reported by Laurel Demkovich in the Washington State Standard. Washington lawmakers in recent years have passed laws to require local governments to allow for more housing density with duplexes, triplexes or attached dwelling units. But before lawmakers required these changes, they looked at ways to incentivize local governments to do this on their own….

Scholar

Howard Frumkin

Funding

Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment (HDBE)

The Humans, Disasters and the Built Environment (HDBE) program supports fundamental, multidisciplinary research on the interactions between humans and the built environment within and among communities exposed to natural, technological and other types of hazards and disasters. The program's context is provided by ongoing and emerging changes in three interwoven elements of a community: its…

Funding

IBM Center for the Business of Government – Connecting Research to Practice

The aim of the IBM Center for The Business of Government is to tap into the best minds in academe and the nonprofit sector who can use rigorous public management research and analytic techniques to help public sector executives and managers improve the effectiveness of government. We are looking for very practical findings and actionable…

News | October 17, 2019

Immigrants often revive struggling cities through housing, population growth

President Trump has turned repeatedly throughout his tenure and his re-election campaign to two targets: immigrants whom he has described as “invading” the country, and American cities he has called out of control. But to the extent that each presents real policy challenges — how to integrate foreigners, what to do about struggling places —…

News | May 2, 2024

Immunocompromised and at-risk Americans feel left behind as COVID restrictions disappear

Written by Clayton Sandell for Scripps News Four years after the COVID pandemic swept across the U.S., mask mandates are no more. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no longer recommends a five-day isolation after a positive test, and travel restrictions have been lifted. But for millions of Americans like Jessica Spangler’s 9-year-old daughter,…

News | December 5, 2019

Impact of WTO protests in Seattle still felt 2 decades later

An array of issues brought tens of thousands of protesters to Seattle 20 years ago Saturday, with one unifying theme: concern that the World Trade Organization, a then-little-known body charged with regulating international trade, threatened them all. With their message amplified not just by their numbers, but by the response of overwhelmed police who fired…

News | February 5, 2018

In orlando, america’s theme park capital, low income black residents can’t breathe the air

The struggle for environmental justice in low-income and Black communities continues. This is most certainly the case in Orlando, Florida. In the heart of one of the premier tourist destinations in the United States, the theme park capital of America, the residents of a historically Black community are having trouble breathing due to air pollution…

News | September 9, 2024

In Washington’s closest elections, volunteers go door-to-door to ‘rehab’ faulty ballots

Reported by Scott Greenstone for KUOW/NPR On a mid-August afternoon in Seattle, Lisa McCrummen walked around Phinney Ridge knocking on doors — but her neighbors were not home. “‘Your neighbor stopped by to make sure your primary election ballot is being counted,’” McCrummen wrote on a note. McCrummen left notes like this all afternoon at…

Scholar

Ines Jurcevic

News | July 11, 2019

Informal housing, poverty, and legacies of apartheid in South Africa

“Ten percent of all South Africans — the majority white — owns more than 90 percent of national wealth… Some 80 percent of the population — overwhelmingly black — owns nothing at all.” — New York Times On April 27, 1994, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) won the first multiracial democratic election…

Degree Program

Infrastructure Planning & Management

Well-planned infrastructure strengthens the sustainability and livability of our cities and communities. University of Washington's online Master of Infrastructure Planning & Management degree prepares you to lead the development of the next generation of critical infrastructure systems ­­— resilient, secure and accessible.

Research Beyond UW | University of California, Berkeley

Institute of Urban and Regional Development

Through collaborative, interdisciplinary research and practice, Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) supports students, faculty, and visiting scholars to critically investigate and help improve processes and outcomes that shape urban equity around the world. "The future of IURD will be to position itself as a global leader in research and policy that aims to…

News | July 19, 2021

Integrating solutions to adapt cities for climate change

A new article explores how record climate extremes are reducing urban livability, compounding inequality, and threatening infrastructure. Co-authored by Marina Alberti, Professor of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington; Brenda B Lin, Alessandro Ossola, Erik Andersson, Xuemei Bai, Cynnamon Dobbs, Thomas Elmqvist, Karl L Evans, Niki Frantzeskaki, Richard A Fuller, Kevin J Gaston,…

News | September 21, 2021

Interdisciplinary course helps empower the local community

Professors in the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments have created an interdisciplinary, graduate-level course, the McKinley Futures Nehemiah Studio, that combines architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and design, and real estate principles into a groundbreaking opportunity for the local African American community as well as the students who participate in it. The studio…

Degree Program

Interdisciplinary Urban Design & Planning (PhD)

This program brings together faculty from disciplines ranging from Architecture to Sociology to focus on the interdisciplinary study of urban problems and interventions. Covering scales from neighborhoods to metropolitan areas, the program addresses interrelationships between the physical environment, the built environment, and the social, economic, and political institutions and processes that shape urban areas. The…

Degree Program

International Development Policy and Management Certificate

Offers students a foundation for addressing complex questions of poverty and development. The IDCP “transcriptable” certificate has been earned by 225 UW graduate students from 14 departments and Schools, and allows students to study current topics in international policy, management and economics in a disciplinarily diverse classroom.

Center & Lab

International Policy Institute

The International Policy Institute is funded by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York aimed at improving the transfer of research and expertise between higher education and the policy world in the area of global affairs. We leverage the research and expertise of Jackson School faculty and host a platform for collaboration between the…

Degree Program

International Studies (BA, minor, MA, MA in Applied International Studies, PhD)

The International Studies Program combines social sciences and humanities to examine international problems and change. Using a diverse, multidisciplinary approach, the Program encourages students to look at our increasingly interdependent world in order to learn how to study it and understand its politics, societies, economies, and cultures.

News | May 13, 2024

Is Seattle a walkable city? Pedestrian death rates show otherwise

Written by Jadenne Radoc Cabahug for Crosscut. Washington was the first state to commit to zero traffic fatalities. But 24 years later, deaths are at an all-time high and officials are reevaluating. Twenty-four years after Washington became the first state to commit to decreasing pedestrian traffic deaths to zero, the numbers continue to move in…

News | June 7, 2019

It’s going to get harder to evict people in WA. Will that reduce homelessness?

As the number of homeless residents soars in King County and across the state, housing and homelessness advocates have turned their attention to eviction reform as a piece of the solution. One prominent study, from the Seattle Women’s Commission, found that the vast majority of people evicted end up on the street, in shelters or…

News | August 30, 2022

J-PAL North America Launches Two Partnership Opportunities to Research Social Programs

J-PAL North America, a research center in the MIT Department of Economics, has opened two Evaluation Incubators: the Housing Stability Evaluation Incubator and State and Local Evaluation Incubator. J-PAL North America’s Evaluation Incubators equip partners to use randomized evaluations — the most scientifically rigorous method used to study program impact — in order to generate…

Scholar

J. Mark Pendras

Scholar

Jacob L. Vigdor

Scholar

James Gregory

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Jan Newton

Scholar

Jan Whittington

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Jason Vogel

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Jennifer Romich

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Jill Sterrett

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Jin-Kyu Jung

Scholar

Joaquín Herranz Jr.

News | April 14, 2020

Jobless benefits for some will exceed their wages, thanks to boost from coronavirus relief package

Washington’s overloaded unemployment system has been a vexation for many of the hundreds of thousands of newly jobless workers trying to file claims. But those frustrations may be forgotten when the benefit checks start coming. Thanks to an infusion of federal emergency funds, weekly unemployment benefits for many lower-income workers in Washington will equal — or…

Scholar

Jodi Sandfort

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Joe Casola

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Joe Lott

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Joel Kaufman

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Josephine Ensign

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Julian Marshall

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Julie Parrett

News | May 5, 2021

Just Sustainabilities in a Post-Pandemic World: Virtual Symposium on May 27th

The COVID-19 pandemic has tested our cities’ adaptability and resilience and dug deeper holes in cities’ social, environmental and physical fabric. As we come out of the pandemic, we need to re-think how the city fabric functions. Planning for the post-pandemic city requires a careful understanding of the implications of the COVID19 pandemic on pre-existing…

Funding

Just Tech COVID-19 Rapid-Response Grants

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC), as part of its Just Tech program, seeks proposals from across the social sciences and related fields that address the risks, opportunities, and challenges posed by public health surveillance stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic. We specifically encourage proposals that interrogate the role the public and private sectors may play…

News | August 1, 2017

Justice Dept. rules intensify crackdown on sanctuary cities

The Justice Department escalated its promised crackdown on so called sanctuary cities in late July, saying it will no longer award coveted grant money to cities unless they give federal immigration authorities access to jails and provide advance notice when someone in the country illegally is about to be released. Under old rules, cities seeking…

Scholar

Kam Wing Chan

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Katherine Beckett

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Katie Wilson

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Kessie Alexandre

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Kim England

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Kimberly Ambrose

Map | Berlin

King County iMap

iMap is an application that allows you to view King County spatial information (GIS data and images) in an interactive map display. You can customize your map display to show just the information you want to see at the best scale for your chosen purpose. iMap is your window to a wealth of geographic information…

News | October 29, 2020

King County wants to buy motels for emergency, affordable housing

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…

News | August 14, 2018

Kyle Crowder examines renter/landlord perspective on seattle rental ordinances

In a recent interview with KOMO Radio, CSDE Affiliate and Professor of Sociology Kyle Crowder explains the results of a recent study of Seattle’s rental housing market. In that research, Crowder finds that neither renters nor landlords strongly support the city’s rental ordinances, noting: “Renters were often skeptical that the ordinances would have much effectiveness because the general perception is that landlords…

Scholar

Larry Knopp

Scholar

LaShawnDa Pittman

Scholar

Laura Evans

Center & Lab

Law, Societies and Justice

LSJ courses analyze the meaning of justice, the methods used in efforts to realize it, the politics of rights, and the complex roles that law and legal institutions play in structuring social life. Many courses analyze these issues in comparative perspective. Coursework emphasizes close reading of key texts, active classroom engagement with complex ideas, and…

Degree Program

Law, Societies and Justice (BA, minor)

The Law, Societies and Justice Department offers students an opportunity to understand the complex roles of law in society. Law takes multiple forms and performs a wide array of important functions. At the same time, the work of law is shaped by numerous political, economic, social, cultural and geographic factors. Because of this, law “on…

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…

Scholar

Leigh Anderson

News | May 28, 2020

Less traffic means 40% drop in car pollution in Seattle but will it last?

Experts say our good air quality this spring is partially due to people driving less. However, they warn that unless big, long-term changes are made, these cleaner skies are not here to stay. From late March through the end of April, car pollution in Seattle dropped by roughly 40 percent compared to the same time…

News | June 6, 2023

Lewis County’s Centralia Bets on Clean Energy as Coal Economy Fades

The dense, white cloud of steam coming out of a dark green building in Centralia has been a constant part of the landscape for more than half a century. Now, the Lewis County town of about 19,000 is getting ready to bid farewell to the cloud source: Washington’s last coal-fired power plant, overlooked by Mount…

News | June 12, 2019

Limiting climate change would prevent thousands of heat-related deaths in U.S.

Deadly summer heat will get worse as the globe warms, so putting the brakes on climate change by reducing carbon emissions will literally be a lifesaver for thousands of Americans, a new study co-authored by UW Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences professor Kristie Ebi suggests. In fact, researchers report that limiting global warming could drastically lower deaths in most…

News | August 16, 2021

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy honors UW College of Built Environments faculty, Nehemiah Studio for curriculum on mitigating gentrification

The Nehemiah Studio, a UW class on mitigating gentrification in Seattle’s Central District designed by Rachel Berney, Donald King and Al Levine with support from College of Built Environments Dean Renée Cheng, has been honored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The course supports joint efforts by the college and the Nehemiah Initiative Seattle to train graduate students to help mitigate displacement in…

Scholar

Lisa Hoffman

Scholar

Lisa Kelly

News | December 13, 2016

Livable City Year releases RFP, invites cities to partner for 2017-8 academic year

The University of Washington’s Livable City Year initiative is now accepting proposals from cities, counties, special districts and regional partnerships to partner with during the 2017-2018 academic year. UW Livable City Year (UW LCY) connects University of Washington faculty and students with a municipal partner for a full academic year to work on projects fostering…

Funding

MacArthur Foundation

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and…

News | March 1, 2018

Many homeless people take better care of their pets than themselves; this clinic helps them

Homeless people with pets are usually criticized and sometimes turned away from shelters. But that’s starting to change. His name is Bud the Amazing Wonder Dog, but the huge German shepherd-rottweiler mix was not feeling amazing or wonderful during his clinic visit, as he whimpered and tried to steady himself on an examination table too…

Map | New York Seattle

Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America

The University of RIchmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab compiled historic maps and data of redlining practice in 150+ cities across the country in an interactive format.

News | January 9, 2020

Mapping the segregation of Minneapolis

Before it was torn apart by freeway construction in the middle of the 20th century, the Near North neighborhood in Minneapolis was home to the city’s largest concentration of African American families. That wasn’t by accident: As far back as the early 1900s, racially restrictive covenants on property deeds prevented African Americans and other minorities…

Scholar

Marcia Meyers

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Margaret O’Mara

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Marge Plecki

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Maria Busch

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Marieka M. Klawitter

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Mark Purcell

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Mary Kay Gugerty

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Mary Larimer

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Matt Steuerwalt

Research Beyond UW | New York University

McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research

The McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University Silver School of Social Work is committed to creating new knowledge about the root causes of poverty, developing evidence-based interventions to address its consequences, and rapidly translating research findings into action through policy and practice.

Scholar

Meade Krosby

News | May 21, 2020

Measuring traffic performance during COVID-19

It’s not a surprise that traffic, like many things, has been impacted by COVID-19. But by how much? Researchers in UW CEE’s STAR Lab now have an answer to that question after employing a new scoring algorithm they developed to measure fluctuations in traffic. “We felt a strong need and thus started to develop an…

Scholar

Megan Ming Francis

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Melanie Malone

Scholar

Melissa Best

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Meredith I. Honig

Research Beyond UW | Virginia Tech

Metropolitan Institute

The Metropolitan Institute conducts basic and applied research on the dynamics of metropolitan complexities, such as demographics, environment, technology, design, transportation, and governance. With most of the globe’s population moving to urbanized areas, the major public policy challenges of this century will require a deeper understanding of how metropolitan complexities play out across multiple jurisdictions,…

Scholar

Michael Brown

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Michael Knapp

Scholar

Michelle Garner

News | September 11, 2018

Minimum wage increases in six cities working as intended, Berkeley study of food-service jobs finds

The minimum wage increases that started four years ago in SeaTac are spreading across the country, but economists continue to study – and disagree about – the impact of the new policies on pay and jobs. The latest look at increased wage floors in six U.S. cities, including Seattle, finds that food-service workers saw increases…

News | July 28, 2016

Minimum Wage Study: Effects of Seattle wage hike modest, may be overshadowed by strong economy

The lot of Seattle’s lowest-paid workers improved following the city’s minimum wage increase to $11 in 2015, but that was more due to the robust regional economy than the wage hike itself, according to a research team at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. Although the ordinance appears to have…

Degree Program

Minor in Public Policy

The Evans School’s Minor in Public Policy offers a relevant and exciting introduction to the field of public policy and the frameworks leaders use to address complex 21st century public challenges. Through this minor, you will learn how to use data and evidence to make sound public decisions, design effective public policy that is responsive…

Research Beyond UW | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT CoLab

The Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) is a center for planning and development within the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP). CoLab supports the development and use of knowledge from excluded communities to deepen civic engagement, improve community practice, inform policy, mobilize community assets, and generate shared wealth. We believe that community knowledge can…

News | July 2, 2020

Monsanto will pay $95 million in PCB settlement with Washington state

The state of Washington will receive tens of millions of dollars in a settlement against Monsanto over its manufacture of toxic chemicals that were deposited decades ago in Washington soil and water and continue to wreak environmental damage today. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office in 2016 sued the company over its production of polychlorinated…

News | July 19, 2024

More Than 1 Trillion Microbes Live Inside the Average Tree Trunk

Reported by Erik Stokstad for Science  The wood inside the average tree might seem barren, but it’s home to an incredibly diverse array of life. More than 1 trillion fungi, bacteria, and other microbes live inside the average trunk, according to the most comprehensive survey yet conducted, comprising unique communities specialized to various tree species….

Scholar

Nancy Rivenburgh

Research Beyond UW | University of Albany

National Center for Excellence in Homeless Services

Launched in 2013, the National Center for Excellence in Homeless Services, located at the UAlbany School of Social Welfare, partners with social work programs, providers, and policymakers to strengthen services that transform the lives of all homeless children and adults. We emphasize: increasing homelessness content within our social work curriculum, expanding field placements in homeless…

News | January 20, 2022

Nearly half a million Washingtonians live in pharmacy deserts

University of Washington researchers recently completed an analysis of pharmacy deserts. While the publication is in the review process, Rachel Wittenauer, a Ph.D. student with the university’s CHOICE Institute, said roughly 450,000 adults statewide in both urban and rural areas are living in pharmacy deserts. Pharmacy desert communities are defined as being both low-income and…

News | August 20, 2024

Need anti-withdrawal meds? In King County, call this 24/7 hotline

Reported by Eilis O’Neil for KUOW and NPR News People addicted to opioids in King County can call a new hotline and get a prescription right away for a drug that can help. Buprenorphine reduces symptoms of withdrawal and can help people stay off fentanyl and other opioids. Buprenorphine “does cut overdose risk by 50%,…

News | March 15, 2024

Neighborhood Poverty May Impact Women’s Ovarian Reserves

Reported by Lori Solomon at Health Day News FRIDAY, March 15, 2024 — Living in a neighborhood with greater poverty in adulthood is tied to lower ovarian reserve, according to a study published online March 5 in Menopause. Anwesha Pan, from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues aimed to examine the association between…

News | August 15, 2016

New book ‘Cities that Think Like Planets’ imagines urban regions resilient to change

Marina Alberti is a professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning, which is part of the University of Washington College of Built Environments. Alberti directs the college’s Urban Ecology Research Laboratory and the Graduate School’s interdisciplinary doctoral program in urban design and planning. She answered some questions about her new book, “Cities that…

News | June 17, 2021

New Bridges Center report revisits lessons of Puget Sound’s $15 minimum wage

As the administration of President Joe Biden moves to establish a $15 minimum wage for federal contractors, and advocates call to raise the federal minimum wage nationwide, a new report revisits the lessons of Puget Sound’s ground-breaking success in raising the minimum wage to $15. Puget Sound’s Fight for $15: Family Experiences and Policy Impacts…

News | May 18, 2023

New Fee, Loans Aim to Right ‘Historic Wrong’ of Racist Covenants in Washington State

Members of communities once prohibited from buying homes under racist homeowner agreements, will soon get state homebuying assistance. The law signed last week by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee establishes a new $100 processing fee for homebuyers. The funds raised will help some first-time homebuyers cover down payments and closing costs. Tens of thousands of racially…

News | March 9, 2017

New report on driverless cars highlights potential challenges, solutions for Seattle’s roads

Over the next decade, driverless vehicles will make their way along Seattle roadways, possibly bringing relief to one of the most congested cities in the United States. Or, according to a new report out of the University of Washington, they could make things worse. UW’s Tech Policy Lab has partnered with Challenge Seattle to develop…

News | April 20, 2023

New UW Center for Environmental Health Equity to Launch with a $12 Million Grant from the US EPA

The University of Washington will lead a new center to help address longstanding environmental and energy justice issues—from legacy pollution to energy security—in Pacific Northwest and Alaska Native communities with funding announced today by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The $12 million, five-year EPA cooperative agreement will create the new UW Center for Environmental…

News | August 11, 2021

New UW collaboratory to support equitable and just climate action

An interdisciplinary group of University of Washington researchers has teamed with Front and Centered to create an innovative Collaboratory to promote just and equitable climate action. The Collaboratory aims to respond to climate change impacts with attention to equitable mitigation and adaptation solutions. It will feature three linked platforms to achieve this goal through a…

News | February 12, 2016

New! Urban Map Gallery

We’ve created a new urban map gallery to explore how other people and organizations are studying and visualizing data. The gallery features seven cities facing different social, economic, and geographic issues. This curation is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather provide insight and inspiration. Maps included track everything from sound to subway…

Scholar

Nicole DeNamur

Scholar

Nives Dolšak

Degree Program

Nonprofit Management Certificate

Gives you the tools and framework needed to meet the increasing challenges facing the nonprofit sector today.

News | January 3, 2023

Northwestern tribal transportation program center headquartered at UW

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…

News | November 16, 2016

NYC, Chicago mayors join Seattle’s Ed Murray is support of “sanctuary cities” for immigrants

SEATTLE — Democratic mayors of major U.S. cities that have long had cool relationships with federal immigration officials say they’ll do all they can to protect residents from deportation, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s vows to withhold potentially millions of dollars in taxpayer money if they don’t cooperate. New York’s Bill de Blasio, Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel…

News | March 29, 2024

Office-to-residential conversion is a trendy idea for downtown resurgence — but has big challenges

Originally published in Geekwire Written by Chuck Wolfe, longtime affiliate associate professor in College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. Office-to-residential conversions are frequent fodder in discussions of the post-pandemic city, downtown regeneration, and hopes to contain rising housing costs. Remote work is here to stay, especially in hybrid form in the tech-centric…

News | July 14, 2020

On re-centering the poor in poverty politics

A conversation between LaShawnDa Pittman, American Ethnic Studies, and Jayna Milan, UW Marketing graduate, for the Relational Poverty Network. Jayna Milan: What are priority research topics on impoverishment in this moment? LaShawnDa Pittman: The first thing that I thought about when I saw this question was getting poor people access to the political system and…

News | September 17, 2021

On the 20th anniversary of its Superfund listing, the Duwamish River faces a triple threat

This opinion article was originally written by Paulina López, James Rasmussen, and BJ Cummings, manager of community engagement programs at the University of Washington. This Monday will mark 20 years since Seattle’s hometown river was declared a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Duwamish River’s history is a case study of environmental injustices. The vibrant, marginalized, low-income and…

News | July 1, 2022

Once enslaved, this man helped build Tacoma; his great-granddaughter wants you to know him

He soldiered in the Civil War, helped build Tacoma, became a force in Washington politics and chased the Alaska Gold Rush. John N. Conna, a Black man who was enslaved for the first part of his life, did all of that once he gained his freedom — and more. But his story has mostly vanished…

News | November 21, 2022

Over 40,000 households have racist restrictions, UW researchers estimate

State funding approved last year provided $250,000 for researchers at Eastern Washington University and the University of Washington to look for racist or restrictive covenants. The language has not been enforceable since the 1960s, but lead researcher UW Professor James Gregory said doing the work is worthwhile. ”We owe it to our fellow citizens not…

Scholar

P. Joshua Griffin

News | May 28, 2020

Pandemic lays bare the everyday stressors, inequities of marginalized communities

On March 14, two weeks after the first U.S. coronavirus death was announced here in King County and as an onslaught of social distancing policies descended on our communities, we began a research study to understand how 500 King County residents were coping with all of it. Every evening, study participants have been generously sharing with us…

Degree Program

PCE Certificate in Commercial Real Estate

Commercial real estate is the raw material of a region’s economy. The Seattle market is experiencing huge growth, which means both increased opportunity and heightened competition. Staying current and getting an insider’s perspective on the industry can give you the edge you need to succeed. In this three-course program, we’ll explore commercial real estate as…

Research Beyond UW | University of Pennsylvania

Penn Institute for Urban Research

The Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) is a university-wide, interdisciplinary institute at the University of Pennsylvania dedicated to urban research, education, and civic engagement. Affiliated with all 12 schools of the University of Pennsylvania and with the world of practice, Penn IUR fosters collaboration among scholars and policymakers across disciplines to address the…

Scholar

Peter Rabinowitz

Degree Program

Ph.D. Concentration in Public Policy & Management

The Concentration in Public Policy and Management offers University of Washington Ph.D. students in the social sciences and related applied fields an opportunity to broaden their backgrounds and credentials for the job market. This is valuable for students seeking positions in which public policy and management perspectives are pertinent, whether in the academic, government, or…

Degree Program

PhD in Public Policy and Management

Solutions to society's greatest challenges require an interdisciplinary approach and broad and deep understanding of the many factors that shape and drive policy decisions. The Evans School Ph.D. program is a rigorous and rewarding educational experience for those who believe in the necessity of evidence-based, values-driven solutions.

News | May 23, 2023

Population Health Initiative Announces 12 Climate Change Planning Grant Awards

Earlier this month, the Population Health Initiative announced the award of a dozen planning grants to University of Washington researchers to support the launch of new climate-focused collaborations. Each of the $10,000 awards will support the funded teams to complete their planning projects during summer quarter 2023, which will be followed by a special autumn…

News | February 19, 2021

Preliminary Report: Homeshare Study Policy Recommendations

Housing instability is a national crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Washington state has some of the highest levels of homelessness in the nation. In both rural and urban parts of the state, too few people can afford to rent or own a home on the wages they earn. The 2019-2021 Washington state biennial…

News | June 22, 2020

Protestors want Seattle de-gentrified – This is how it could happen

For more than a week, protesters against police brutality and racial injustice have occupied a six-block stretch of a Seattle neighborhood and turned it into a festive hub for their demonstrations. They named it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ, since renamed the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), after police withdrew from a police…

News | September 21, 2022

Q&A: Exploring How the Design of the Built Environment Affects Our Health and Well-Being

How does the design of the built environment – such as houses, schools, workplaces, streets, parks, transportation systems, and urban form – affect our health and well-being? To explore these issues, editors Nisha D. Botchwey, Andrew Dannenberg, and Howard Frumkin, recently published the second edition of “Making Healthy Places: Designing and Building for Well-being, Equity,…

News | May 4, 2016

Quick Recap: A Busy April!

April saw a lot of wonderful developments here at the University of Washington, here’s a quick recap: Our first Office Hours interview with John Vidale (more coming of these soon!) UW researchers continued to explore the effects of a $15/hr minimum wage. PBS premiered their 10 Parks that Changed America program featuring our own Thaisa…

News | April 17, 2024

Quiet! Our Loud World Is Making Us Sick

Written by Joanne Silberner for Scientific America. Ten years ago Jamie Banks started working from her home in the town of ­Lincoln, Mass. After a couple of months, the continuing racket from landscaping machines began to feel unendurable, even when she was inside her home. “This horrible noise was going on for hours every day, every…

Scholar

Rachel Endo

Scholar

Rachel Fyall

News | February 24, 2021

Racial disparities prompt calls to repeal King County’s bicycle helmet law

In the fall of 2019, a white man spat on Edwin Lindo while he was riding his bicycle with a friend around Mercer Island. “It gets on my jersey and I’m like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening right now,’” he recalled. Lindo, who identifies as Central American Indigenous from Nicaragua and El Salvador, and his friend,…

News | July 9, 2020

Racial justice is an urban issue: A curated list of resources from UW BIPOC scholars

Racial injustice is not a new issue. Segregation and discrimination on the basis of race has long been tied to the built environments across the country, from redlining and restrictive covenants in the mid-1900s, to white flight and suburbanization after World War II, to the current trends of gentrification and displacement in cities throughout the…

Scholar

Rebecca J. Walter

Scholar

Rebecca U. Thorpe

News | October 19, 2022

Recently completed Spark Grants foster research on mobile home wastewater management, and estimating unhoused populations

Over the past year, two teams of researchers from the University of Washington tackled a host of urban challenges in our region with the support of Urban@UW’s Spark Grants. In September 2021 grants of up to $20,000 were awarded to amplify collaborative research-to-practice with a focus on today’s urban issues. The two UW teams of…

News | August 31, 2021

Red-lining, race, and wealth continue to form borders between Seattle voters

There’s a lot we can glean from Seattle’s voting habits in each election, from how the city has skewed more and more progressive in the leaders it’s elected in recent years, to how conservative interests still remain present despite that fact. During the August mayoral primary, though, the candidates voters chose painted an even broader…

News | February 28, 2018

Reducing failed deliveries, truck parking time could improve downtown Seattle congestion

In Amazon’s hometown, people turn to their computers to order everything from groceries to last-minute birthday presents to the odd toothbrush or medication forgotten from the store. If online shopping continues to grow at its current rate, there may be twice as many trucks delivering packages in Seattle’s city center within five years, a new…

News | December 20, 2016

Reflections on Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change

On November 7th and 8th Urban@UW, in collaboration with the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group (CIG), hosted a symposium to begin transdisciplinary conversation on the multifaceted dynamics and consequences of Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change (UEJ). Below are some reflections from this event, and a sample of the resources we’ll…

News | September 16, 2024

Register Today for Urban@UW’s presentation at Climate Week NYC

Urban@UW is heading to the big apple for Climate Week NYC, the largest international conference of business leaders, political change makers, scientists, and civil society representatives working for climate action. Rachel Berney, Faculty Director, and Kate Landis, Program Manager, will present “Call Me, Maybe? University-Community Partnerships for a Greener Tomorrow” on Monday, 9/23, from 5-7PM….

News | June 17, 2024

Rekindling Our Relationship with Wildfire

Written for the Climate One podcast, hosted by Greg Dalton and Ariana Brocious. Summer is just around the corner, and in addition to travel and vacation, that also means peak wildfire season. Recently we’ve seen some of the most destructive wildfires in recorded history. The images on the news of orange skies and opaque haze…

Research Beyond UW | New York University

Research, Education, and Advocacy to Combat Homelessness (REACH)

Research, Education & Advocacy to Combat Homelessness (REACH) is the law school’s primary student organization dedicated to directly serving the local homeless community and raising the profile of poverty law issues within the law school. REACH operates 2 weekly clinics in soup kitchens near NYU, where law students provide advice and referral on a wide…

Scholar

Rishi Sugla

Scholar

Robert Pekkanen

Scholar

Robert Plotnick

Funding

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pioneering Ideas and a Culture of Health

The goal of the Pioneering Ideas Brief Proposal funding opportunity is to explore; to look into the future and put health first as we design for changes in how we live, learn, work and play; to wade into uncharted territory in order to better understand what new trends, opportunities and breakthrough ideas can enable everyone…

Scholar

Ron Krabill

News | December 17, 2020

Round 2 of Washington study underway to determine food, economic insecurity during pandemic

Understanding Washington residents’ access to food and their economic well-being – or lack of it – during the COVID-19 pandemic is vital for state and community partners to identify those needs and allocate resources effectively. To help accomplish this goal, the University of Washington, Washington State University and Tacoma Community College, along with input from…

Scholar

Ryan Calo

Scholar

Ryan Hasert

Scholar

Ryan Kelly

Scholar

Sally Clark

Scholar

Samuel Kay

Scholar

Sara Curran

Scholar

Sarah Elwood

Scholar

Scott W. Allard

News | August 26, 2022

Seattle Approaches to Homelessness Highlighted in NYT Guest Essay

Urban@UW occasionally shares opinion pieces that touch on research related to urban topics. Here, we share a guest essay in the New York Times, titled, “Something Better Than a Tent for the Homeless”: The needs of homeowners and businesses and those of people who are unsheltered often conflict. Community leaders, faced with increasing crime and…

News | November 5, 2019

Seattle area has undergone record growth. Now voters may reshape its politics.

The Seattle region has more of almost everything than it did just six years ago, when voters chose to elect City Council members by districts. The area has added 135,000 homes, but has seen its population swell by 400,000. Homelessness has spiked by a third. Amazon’s workforce here has exploded from 13,000 to nearly 55,000….

News | July 29, 2021

Seattle Black faith leaders urge Mayor Durkan not to sign amended density bonus bill

Update: Council Bill 120081 was signed into law on by Mayor Durkan on July 9, 2021. Critics are still hoping that the amended law can be repealed. Critics are demanding a return to the 80% AMI threshold for affordable housing developed on land owned by religious institutions. It was a long-awaited day, one that was supposed to mark…

News | January 25, 2019

Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project Launches Newly Designed Website

The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project currently records slightly more than 31,000 page views every month, 372,000 in the past year. And now, thanks to a new, mobile-friendly design, pages are more readable and can be scaled to cell phones and smaller devices, which will help bring more traffic to the project and encourage users…

Funding

Seattle Foundation

Few regions in the world can match Seattle’s current growth and prosperity. But accompanying our good fortune are great challenges, including the widening disparities between rich and poor. Such inequities weaken the vibrancy of our community. Philanthropy can—and must—step in. Using our philanthropic expertise, deep roots in the community and network of partners, Seattle Foundation…

News | July 16, 2020

Seattle groups present proposal to defund police department, invest in community

On July 8, Seattle and King County groups proposed several ways to allocate money from defunding the Seattle Police Department, all of which involve reinvesting in community-based programs. The plan comes as thousands of people have been protesting for weeks, marching in the streets in Seattle and across the country fighting against police brutality and systemic…

News | September 4, 2018

Seattle Growth Podcast 5.3: Homeless in Seattle

The fifth season of the Seattle Growth Podcast continues the wide-ranging conversation about the city’s growing homelessness crisis. “Each episode of this season brings voices from a variety of perspectives,” says podcast host Jeff Shulman Associate Professor of Marketing in the Foster school of Business. “Together, the episodes will help listeners understand homelessness from multiple angles, become better informed…

News | August 28, 2018

Seattle Growth Podcast 5.4: Homelessness and City Hall

The fifth season of the Seattle Growth Podcast continues the wide-ranging conversation about the city’s growing homelessness crisis. Episode 4 takes you behind the scenes at Seattle City Hall as the City Council weighed a controversial “head tax” on companies to raise more money to address the crisis. City Council member Teresa Mosqueda shares her opinion on the failed campaign and…

News | February 26, 2016

Seattle mayor signs new open data policy that makes city information more accessible

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray today signed an executive order that instructs city departments to make their data more accessible to the public. The new open data policy was developed by city IT staff with help from the University of Washington and the Sunlight Foundation to help make data about everything from homelessness to local parks…

News | July 10, 2024

Seattle Nurses Take Heart Care to the Streets

Written by Christine Clarridge for Axios. Two Harborview nurses are leaving the hospital to make “house calls” at tents, bus stops and cars to bring life-saving heart care to people where they are. Why it matters: The Community Heart Failure Program not only stabilizes patients’ cardiac health but also reduces hospital admissions, lengths of stay…

News | August 2, 2018

Seattle pilot project planting trees that can adapt to global warming

Seattle City Light and the Mountains to Sound Greenway are planting native trees from warmer climates on 154 acres along Stossel Creek. If Western Washington’s climate warms up in the next half-century, could our trees stand it? As an experiment, Seattle City Light and the Mountains to Sound Greenway have embarked on a test to…

Map | Seattle

Seattle Police Department Data Maps

These maps shows all the Police responses to 9-1-1 calls within the city up to the last 24 hours. To protect the security of a scene, the safety of officers and the public, and sensitive ongoing investigation, these events will populate the map only after the incident is considered safe to close out.

News | May 17, 2019

Seattle port could play key role in race to rule the Arctic

In the 1890s, Seattle was the gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush. As countries eye the warming Arctic in a 21st century rush to establish maritime trade routes and exploit natural resources, Puget Sound is once again poised to serve a vital support role. That, at least, is the vision that U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of…

News | May 7, 2024

Seattle-area housing market picks up, but buyers feel the squeeze

Written by Heidi Grover for The Seattle Times The Seattle area’s spring housing market continued to heat up in April, with more activity and higher home prices across the region, particularly in King County. The number of new listings and home sales climbed throughout the Puget Sound region in April, a typical seasonal uptick. But…

News | June 30, 2020

Seattle’s activist-occupied zone is just the latest in a long history of movements and protests

The six blocks of occupied Seattle streets now known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or “CHOP”, have become a focal point of the nationwide anti-racist protests, eliciting both encouragement and concern. But for this Pacific Northwest city, it is far from the first time in the radical spotlight. Seattle has a long and storied history of…

Map | Seattle

Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development GIS

​This interactive GIS map published by Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development makes essential GIS layers easily accessible. A few of the base layers include: building outlines, contours, parcels, pavement edges, and tree canopy cover. Zoning and environmentally critical areas are also highlighted, including layers for areas that are: flood prone, susceptible liquefaction, wetlands, steep…

News | July 22, 2022

Seattle’s soda tax benefits low-income communities, study finds

A new study concludes that Seattle’s soda tax isn’t disproportionately harming lower-income families — and is actually benefiting lower-income households as a group. University of Washington researchers analyzed sugary drink purchases across more than 1,100 households in Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle in the first year the cities enacted soda taxes. In all three cities,…

News | July 23, 2020

Seattle’s tarnished dream

In his 2017 State of the City address, then-mayor Ed Murray declared that “Seattle will shine a light and offer a different vision.” He promised a city where all four-year-olds attended preschool, where all high school graduates had access to free community college, and where strict labor standards guaranteed the lowliest worker a reasonable standard…

News | November 29, 2022

Seattle’s cooling real estate market widens budget shortfall

City officials had to rework the budget this month after new forecasts showed Seattle will likely bring in tens of millions of dollars less than previously expected over the next two years, including a significant drop in real estate-related tax revenue. As inflation persists, interest rates remain high and many people find themselves locked out…

News | January 17, 2023

Seattle’s cost of living is more complicated than you think

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…

News | July 12, 2022

Seattle’s Homelessness Chief Worries Inflation Will Erode Progress

The head of Seattle’s new agency responding to homelessness — in a city with one of the largest unhoused populations in the US — is concerned more people are about to land on the street because of inflation and rising prices for necessities like gas. With the pandemic making the challenges of homelessness more acute and more visible, Margaret…

News | October 24, 2019

Seattle’s minimum wage is going up again in 2020. But is it enough to afford to live in the city?

The city’s Office of Labor Standards announced this week the new minimum wages which will go into effect Jan. 1, 2020, as required by the Minimum Wage Ordinance. For large employers with 501 employees or more, the minimum wage is going up 39 cents to $16.39. For small employers with 500 employees or fewer, minimum wage is…

News | November 7, 2019

Seattle’s next traffic challenge: Thousands of tunnel drivers will switch to city streets when tolls start Nov. 9

Whether you drive Highway 99 or not, the tunnel tolls starting Nov. 9 will disrupt your travel in downtown Seattle through higher costs, slower trips or more aggravation. That’s because thousands of toll-dodging motorists will crowd city streets, rather than pay for a 2-mile tunnel drive between Sodo and South Lake Union. State officials warn as…

News | April 26, 2024

Seattle’s troubled past and present suggest a new approach to mental health

Written by Will James, Sydney Brownstone, and Esme Jimenez as part of the series “Lost Patients” for KUOW, an NPR Station. Edward Moore, a 32-year-old sailor, was discovered, near freezing and living in a tattered tent on the shore near current day Seattle in 1854. At the time, Washington was still a territory and Seattle…

Scholar

Sebawit (Seba) Bishu

News | August 14, 2019

See how a Seattle artist is telling the painful story of redlining in his city

Warren Pope is hellbent on walloping the corneas of any Seattleite who believes this city is absolved from a racist past. With “Warren Pope: Blood Lines, Time Lines, Red Lines,” an exhibition running through Sept. 8 at the Northwest African American Museum (NAAM), the 72-year-old West Seattle artist says he yearns to expose how the…

Scholar

Seema Clifasefi

Scholar

Sharon Kioko

News | September 13, 2024

Shhh! The orcas can’t hear their dinner

Reported by John Ryan for KUOW/NPR When an orca hunts salmon, it clicks and buzzes. It sends a beam of sounds from its nasal passages into the murky depths in hopes that the sound waves will bounce back and reveal the location of its next nutritious meal. Those hopes are often dashed when noise from…

News | August 23, 2023

Should Governments Be Blamed for Climate Change? How One Lawsuit Could Change US Policies

A landmark ruling saying Montana has a constitutional duty to guard residents from the harmful effects of climate change could have wider implications, environmental experts said. In a decision Monday lauded by activists as a potential turning point for the environmental movement, District Court Judge Kathy Seeley sided with young plaintiffs who claimed state policies…

News | January 23, 2018

Should Seattle declare war on parking to fight climate change?

Make no mistake: The rising cost and declining amount of on-street parking downtown are part of a much bigger plan to reduce Seattle’s carbon footprint.University of Washington traffic engineer Mark Hallenbeck is adamant that Seattle should not go down the same road as Oslo. “Removing parking might have an environmental benefit, but the backlash from…

News | February 1, 2024

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 | July 27, 2023

Signature Biden Program Won’t Fix Racial Gap in Air Quality, Study Suggests

A new analysis has found that the White House’s signature environmental justice program may not shrink racial disparities in who breathes the most polluted air, in part because of efforts to ensure that it could withstand legal challenges. The program, called Justice40, aims to address inequalities by directing 40 percent of the benefits from certain…

News | December 15, 2017

Skid Road: The intersection of health and homelessness

After years of caring for the homeless in the streets and dilapidated motels of Richmond, Virginia, nurse Josephine Ensign became homeless herself. Many of her patients were prostitutes—some as young as 15—and her conscience no longer allowed her to adhere to her clinic’s policies. Though she was Christian, she was fired for referring many of…

News | April 22, 2024

Skip the Traffic: Commuters Turn to Ferries to Get Around

Written by Linda Baker for The New York Times. As remote work reshapes the way people live and travel around cities, Americans are taking to the waterways not only as part of their commute but also as part of their daily lives. Some coastal cities are seeing ferry ridership bounce back after a decline during…

Research Beyond UW | Harvard University

Social Agency Lab

The Social Agency Lab is a research group at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. The lab studies the ways in which individuals, institutions and organizations shape social outcomes in cities.

Degree Program

Social Welfare (BA, PhD) / Social Work (MSW)

We offer nationally recognized academic programs, leading edge research, and a wide range of supervised field education opportunities to help you build professional expertise, hone investigative skills, and foster the ability to lead and serve in a multicultural world. These rich learning opportunities allow you to connect and collaborate with social work students, committed faculty…

News | July 16, 2024

SPARK Grant Recipients Win Big with a Social Justice Jacket

Reported by Kate Landis for Urban@UW What if a denim jacket could tell the stories of people impacted by housing inequality across the country? Resistive Threads, a project that was awarded a Urban@UW SPARK grant in 2023, was recently awarded a Honorable Mention at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference,…

News | October 25, 2022

Sparking Climate Connections – UW Lightning Talks on Climate Change

Addressing our climate crisis can’t be done alone; this all-hands-on-deck moment requires as many voices, disciplines and perspectives as possible to forge connections that will inspire collective action. Urban@UW and the EarthLab Advisory Board of Deans invite you to participate in an exciting two-part event bringing together the rich variety of climate change related research…

Scholar

Spencer Cohen

News | December 9, 2015

SPH Faculty Tap into New UW Effort to Create More Livable Cities

A new University of Washington initiative is thinking “upstream” when it comes to creating safer, healthier and more livable cities. Urban@UW aims to bring together UW faculty, staff and students from different disciplines with city decision-makers and citizens to wrestle with urban issues such as housing and poverty, growth and transportation, and food and economic…

Scholar

Stephanie Farquhar

Scholar

Stephen Kosack

Scholar

Stephen M. Gardiner

Scholar

Steve Herbert

Scholar

Steven Bourassa

News | August 20, 2018

Student volunteers help expand UW’s outreach to homeless youth

It started with a Sunday afternoon café outside a community center last December — the University of Washington’s new initiative to reach homeless youth around the U District. In the eight months since, the UW’s effort, known as The Doorway Project, has offered a café in the neighborhood each quarter, while students have helped add services — from…

News | August 3, 2018

Students push public transit policy

Public transit systems are lifelines that connect people to jobs, education and opportunity. And students at the University of Washington School of Public Health are working to give Seattle residents a bit more slack. Students met with the Seattle City Council’s Sustainability & Transportation Committee last month to discuss ways to expand access to public…

News | June 30, 2020

Study asks Washington state residents to describe food security and access during pandemic, economic downturn

The Washington State Food Security Survey, which went live June 18 and runs through July 31, is open to all Washington state residents aged 18 or over. It was created by researchers at the University of Washington, Washington State University and Tacoma Community College, along with input from partners in local, county and state governments —…

Center & Lab

Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center

The Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center (SCTL) is headed by Anne Goodchild and Barb Ivanov and investigates the logistics and infrastructures for local and global supply chains critical to the economics and well-being of urban systems world-wide. The SCTL Center is a world leader in supply chain, transportation and logistics research and education serving…

Degree Program

Sustainable Urban Development (BA)

Accomplishing sustainable urban development is a crucial challenge for the twenty-first century. The University of Washington Tacoma is at the forefront of engaging and educating undergraduate students on this topic. The Sustainable Urban Development degree provides students with a critical and rigorous training in ecological, political, economic, and social aspects of urban development processes.

News | July 15, 2019

Tacoma’s wastewater has the answers in a new cannabis study

Scientists from the University of Washington and the University of Puget Sound took samples from Tacoma’s wastewater plants from 2013 to 2016 and then analyzed those samples for THC levels. THC is the most common psychoactive chemical found in cannabis, so measuring the quantity of THC in Tacoma’s excrement would provide data on how much…

Center & Lab

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab is a unique, interdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Washington that aims to enhance technology policy through research, education, and thought leadership.

News | August 31, 2020

Terms in Seattle-area rental ads reinforce neighborhood segregation, study says

A new University of Washington study of thousands of local rental ads finds a pattern of “racialized language” that can perpetuate neighborhood segregation, using specific terms to describe apartments in different areas of town. Terms like “convenient” and “safe and secure” are more common in neighborhoods with a greater proportion of people of color, while…

News | September 26, 2016

The Annie E. Casey Foundation to Support MetroLab Network’s Big Data + Human Services Lab

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, which aims to improve delivery of human services to children and families by focusing on big data solutions with cities, countries, and universities, will support MetroLab Network’s Big Data + Human Services Lab. MetroLab Network is pleased to announce that the Annie E. Casey Foundation will be supporting the formation…

News | March 9, 2023

The Battle Is On to Increase Housing Supply

This may be the year of aggressive efforts to increase the housing supply in Washington and Seattle. A total of 13 bills are moving through the Legislature with bipartisan support. They would speed permitting, make it easier to build “mother-in-law” units adjacent to existing houses, and allow lots of more than 1,500 square feet to…

Research Beyond UW | Case Western Reserve University

The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development

The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development (the Poverty Center) works to inform public policy and program planning through data and analysis to address urban poverty, its causes, and its impact on communities and their residents. Since our founding in 1988, our mission has broadened to understand and address poverty by delving into its…

Research Beyond UW | Queen Mary University of London

The City Centre

In 2006, the School of Geography at Queen Mary University of London, launched a new centre for collaborative research and related activities that are focused on the city. The City Centre is designed to provide a space in which academic research can be developed and communicated with those within and beyond the academy. Particular interests…

News | February 27, 2020

The Debate Over Single Family Housing

Nearly a century into the story of single-family zoning, feelings and ideas around it are starting to shift. The City of Minneapolis and the State of Oregon both recently passed laws that loosen single-family regulations. California has proposed similar measures: some have failed (such as one encouraging denser development near transit), others have succeeded (such…

News | January 16, 2019

The deed to your Seattle-area home may contain racist language. Here’s how to fix it.

Starting in the 1920s, covenants in force throughout the region allowed only white people to own property in most neighborhoods in Seattle. The covenants were outlawed in the 1960s, but now a new state law allows property owners to strike them from a property deed. They date back to a time when racial discrimination was…

News | October 27, 2020

The Doorway Project October Update

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…

News | May 20, 2022

The extraordinary heat wave in India and Pakistan, explained

Nearly one in eight people on Earth are enduring a relentless, lethal heat wave that is stretching into its third week. Triple-digit temperatures are continuing to bake swaths of India and Pakistan, a region home to 1.5 billion people. Extreme heat has also scorched Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in recent weeks. For India, this past April was…

News | July 26, 2021

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on low-income tenants’ housing security in Washington state

Originally written by Matthew Fowle, Ph.D Candidate and Rachel Fyall, Associate Professor at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. The COVID-19 pandemic and related economic recession have had a substantial negative impact on low-income tenants’ housing security. A record number of households have been unable to pay their rent on-time. To stem the threat of…

News | November 18, 2019

The law that’s helping fuel Delhi’s deadly air pollution

Another cloud of choking smoke and dust is set to descend upon the 20 million residents of Delhi this week, with forecasters warning that air pollution is likely to reach “severe” or “emergency” levels on Wednesday. The dangerous, dirty air is arising from a mix of weather conditions, urban emissions, and rural smoke converging over India’s capital…

Center & Lab

The Minimum Wage Study

The Minimum Wage Study is a research effort dedicated to providing rigorous analysis of the impact of minimum wage ordinances in metropolitan regions and states. We seek to provide insights that will be useful for policymakers and scholars. As more states and localities move forward with plans to raise the minimum wage, this research will…

Center & Lab

The Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

The PNW CESU is a partnership for research, technical assistance, and education to enhance understanding and management of natural and cultural resources. Established in 2000 as a cooperative venture, the PNW CESU consists of 12 federal agencies dedicated to natural and cultural resource management and 19 leading academic institutions, four non-profits, one non-governmental organization, and…

News | November 18, 2020

The pandemic changed our daily routines. Here’s how that’s impacting mental health, productivity and the environment

Few people think about the impact their daily routine has on themselves, or even the planet. But the small actions — from what you eat for breakfast to how you commute to work — are having an effect. Urban Design and Planning doctoral student Xiao Shi has long been interested in the small and large impacts of people’s…

News | September 9, 2022

The Past, Present and Future of Tipping and Tipped Workers in Seattle

Today, Washington state and Seattle have some of the best laws in the U.S. when it comes to protecting tipped workers, but the practice of tipping has an ugly beginning and a rocky past. As service industries (where most tipping happens) continue to be shaken up by the pandemic, and as the emerging gig economy…

News | October 24, 2019

The potential of green urban planning for mental health

Neighborhood architects, engineers, and policymakers look at all kinds of factors and needs when building a city, including transportation links, housing, aesthetics, amenities, and so forth. Natural spaces are also considered, for their aesthetic, recreational, and ecological benefits. A study published in July in Science Advances outlines a model that will let policymakers see nature’s impacts on…

News | August 30, 2024

The pros and cons of spraying pesticides to keep disease-carrying mosquito populations down

Written by Julia Jacobo for ABC News Researchers are trying to find ways to quell growing mosquito populations that spread disease without putting recovering populations of important pollinators like bees and butterflies at risk. Pesticides are an important management tool for mosquito control as well as for other pests that impact agriculture, Laura Melissa Guzman, assistant…

News | July 15, 2024

The Quinault Nation and the Rising Pacific

Written by Hallie Golden for the Associated Press TAHOLAH, Wash. (AP) — Standing water lies beneath the home Sonny Curley shares with his parents and three children on the Quinault reservation a few steps from the Pacific Ocean in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. The back deck is rotting, and black mold speckles the walls inside, leaving…

News | December 1, 2020

The ununited state of juvenile justice in America

As a child in the United States, justice often depends on where you live, the color of your skin, which police officer arrests you, or which judge, prosecutor or probation officer happens to be involved in your case. Juvenile courts across the country processed nearly 750,000 cases in 2018. About 200,000 of these cases involved…

Research Beyond UW | University of Calgary

The Urban Lab

THE URBAN LAB, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary is a research group dealing with urban design, community planning, and urban development issues. Established in 2000, the Urban Lab is an ongoing experiment in education, research and outreach, and is an example of university - community collaboration involving faculty, students and the public. We…

News | June 5, 2024

The West’s wetlands are struggling. Some have been overlooked altogether.

Written by Natalia Mesa for High Country News On a warm day in August, Anthony Stewart hiked through a forest on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, making his way through a tangle of ferns and grasses. Wispy, lichen-coated branches hung overhead, providing shade as he set down his backpack and shovel, and he and his team prepared…

News | February 10, 2023

There are 4,000 racist housing covenants in Pierce County. You can find them on a map

Professor of history James Gregory knows the subject well. For roughly two decades, he’s been unearthing the ugly, racist underpinnings of racial disparities in wealth and homeownership seen to this day across Puget Sound. For Gregory, it started in 2005, when he first began to dig into discriminatory housing covenants in Seattle and later King…

Scholar

Theresa Rocha Beardall

Center & Lab

THINK (Transportation-Human Interaction and Network Knowledge) Lab

The THINK (Transportation-Human Interaction and Network Knowledge) Lab studies the sustainability and resilience of a city through the lens of human beings interacting with the physical environment. We generate new knowledge and insights for use in city planning, infrastructure development and policy design. Our research results facilitate real-time disaster response and recovery efforts. Our work…

News | October 29, 2024

This Atlanta neighborhood hired a case manager to address rising homelessness − and it’s improving health and safety for everyone

Reported by Ishita Chordia, Ph.D. Candidate in Information Science, University of Washington Homelessness has surged across the United States in recent years, rising 19% from 2016 though 2023. The main cause is a severe shortage of affordable housing. Rising homelessness has renewed debates about use of public space and how encampments affect public safety. The…

Scholar

Thomas Diehm

Scholar

Thomas R Andrews

Scholar

Tim Thomas

News | May 12, 2021

Tiny air pollutants may come from different sources, but they all show a similar biased trend

Air pollution from fine particulate matter—extremely small bits of material like soot that can enter the nose and throat while breathing—can have deadly health consequences. One 2019 study of 4.5 million U.S. veterans estimated that nearly 200,000 people, of whom a disproportionate number were Black, died of causes associated with fine particulate matter (also known as…

News | June 9, 2020

To address health inequities, Black folks need the right to move without harm

On a crisp afternoon last fall, Douglas Pullen, a 69-year-old Black man, was nearly hit by a white driver during his daily walk through his Seattle neighborhood. Having witnessed this, Kate Hoerster, assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UW School of Medicine, checked on Mr. Pullen after he was safely on the other side…

News | March 19, 2024

To report or not report ‘suspicious people’ near campus

Originally reported in The Daily by Shira Sur It took three encounters with a person threatening bypassers near the West Campus dorms for first-year student Hannah Whitemarsh to call 911. Whitemarsh’s call to UWPD, which was made in mid-October of 2023, was transferred to the Seattle Police Department (SPD). After she was asked whether the…

Scholar

Tom Halverson

Scholar

Tracey Seslen

News | February 16, 2024

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 | September 14, 2021

Trees: Our mental, physical, climate change antidote

There are many sugar maples along the banks of the Mill River in western Massachusetts. But this one is special, at least to Danielle Ignace. Its wide, green canopy keeps Ignace cool as she works or entertains friends, even on this hot summer day in Williamsburg. Its tens of thousands of leaves, rustling in a…

News | March 1, 2018

Tri-campus survey aims to identify student struggles with housing, food costs

In a region as expensive as the Puget Sound, making ends meet affects college students, too. Rent, utilities and food can run into the hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a month – and for students without the means, it’s a daunting and sometimes compromising challenge. Urban@UW is trying to learn more about the situations…

News | July 9, 2020

Trouble paying medical bills can lead to longer episodes of homelessness, new study shows

Even before the pandemic left COVID-19 patients with staggering hospital bills, many people, especially those who are uninsured, were often overwhelmed with medical bills. And medical debt and housing instability often go hand in hand. In a new University of Washington study of people experiencing homelessness in King County, unpaid medical bills were their primary…

News | October 7, 2020

Turning hotels into emergency shelter as part of COVID-19 response limited spread of coronavirus, improved health and stability

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…

News | February 13, 2019

Two new studies published about the Seattle minimum wage ordinance

University of Washington researchers continue to study the impact of the 2014 Seattle minimum wage ordinance. An interdisciplinary team of faculty and graduate students who have tracked various industries since the ordinance’s implementation just published two new studies: These papers take a closer look at the effects on child care businesses and on food prices…

Research Beyond UW | University of Chicago

UChicago Urban Labs

The University of Chicago's Urban Labs comprises 5 units: Crime Lab, Education Lab, Energy & Environment Lab, Health Lab, and Poverty Lab. Working in partnership with policy makers and practitioners worldwide, Urban Labs help evaluate and implement the most effective urban policies and solutions around the world, bringing improvements to people's lives in real time.…

News | June 30, 2022

Understanding the role of historical residential segregation on pediatric injury and violence

Approximately 265 pediatric deaths occurred as a result of injury or violence in Washington state in 2020. A team of researchers from the University of Washington and hospitals around the state are collaborating on a new Population Health Initiative-funded pilot project, “Residential Segregation and Pediatric Injury and Violence in Seattle, Spokane and Tacoma,” to better…

Funding

United States Conference of Mayors – CommunityWINS Grant Program

The Wells Fargo/U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) CommunityWINSTM (Working/Investing in Neighborhood Stabilization) Grant Program is a collaborative effort between USCM, Wells Fargo Bank, and the Wells Fargo Foundation. The goal of the grant is to: Assist cities with the opportunity to invest, strengthen, and address housing affordability issues. Award $1,000,000 to support local nonprofit partners…

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…

Funding

Urban Communication Foundation Grants

Since our launch in 2005, the Urban Communication Foundation has provided awards and grants to dozens of distinguished scholars, researchers, and journalists to recognize and support provocative work that contributes in significant ways to the discourse around urban communication issues. While most of our recipients hail from academia and journalism, we also encourage submissions from…

Degree Program

Urban Design and Planning (Minor, Cert, MUP, dual MLA-MUP, PhD)

Our core mission is to develop a community of inquiry, learning, and practice that helps urban regions to become more livable, just, economically effective, and environmentally sound through a democratic process of urban design and planning.

Research Beyond UW | University of Tokyo

Urban Design Lab

The objective of the Urban Design Lab is to strike a balance between scientific research, teaching, and practical urban design work in the field. We encourage students to develop practical skills as well as a sound theoretical knowledge in order to enable them practicing in all areas of urban design; in the contexts of spatial…

News | November 21, 2018

Urban Freight Lab will help UPS evaluate its new e-bike delivery service in Seattle

Seattle is one of the most congested cities in America, in part due to delivery trucks taking up space on crowded streets. One solution could be for companies to make deliveries using bicycles instead. UPS announced today that it will be pilot-testing deliveries with cargo e-bikes in downtown Seattle. This test is expected to last a…

Center & Lab

Urban Infrastructure Lab

The Urban Infrastructure Lab (UIL) brings together students and faculty across numerous disciplines with a shared interest in the planning, governance, finance, design, development, economics, and environmental effects of infrastructure. The interests of the UIL span the systems critical to economic and social well-being, such as energy, water, health, transportation, education, and communications. Across these…

News | May 26, 2023

Urban Scholar Highlight: Dana Nickson

This is the third in a series of interviews from Urban@UW highlighting the research of urban scholars at the University of Washington. Urban@UW spoke to Dana Nickson, Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Washington Seattle. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.   What do you do at…

News | April 28, 2021

Urban Scholar Highlight: Jan Whittington

Jan Whittington is an Associate Professor of the Department of Urban Design and Planning, Director of the Urban Infrastructure Lab, Associate Director of the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, and Affiliate Faculty at the Tech Policy Lab. Her research applies transaction cost economic theory to networked infrastructures, such as transportation, water, and communication systems,…

News | March 28, 2018

Urban Scholar Highlight: Josephine Ensign

Josephine Ensign is a Professor in University of Washington’s School of Nursing and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, Affiliate Faculty in UW’s Certificate Program in Public Scholarship, and coordinator of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative’s Doorway Project—which is hosting a popup cafe in honor of Earth Day on April 22!…

News | January 31, 2018

Urban Scholar Highlight: Rachel Fyall

Rachel Fyall is an Assistant Professor in the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, and the Faculty Chair of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative. We sat down with her last quarter to discuss her work. What you do at the UW and what led you to your current research interests? The main thing I study…

News | August 28, 2017

Urban Scholar Highlight: Scott Allard

Scott W. Allard is a Professor of Public Affairs at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. Allard is also on the executive committee of the West Coast Poverty Center and Urban@UW, and an affiliate of the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology. We sat down with him to discuss his work at…

Degree Program

Urban Studies (Cert, BA, MA, MS)

The Urban Studies Program offers a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies with formal options in Global Urbanism and Community Development & Planning. The degree starts with an introduction into the discipline of urban studies with course topics on exploring cities, world development, and urban studies “in practice”. The formal options deliver focused theory and…

Research Beyond UW | Imperial College London

Urban Systems Lab

Cities are central to economic growth and social activity with a growing share of the global population. Increasingly, the need of cities to improve performance in services and infrastructure is creating not only technical, social, and business challenges, but also opportunities as new niches are opened on the basis of new technology and a better…

Research Beyond UW | Harvard University

Urban Theory Lab

In the early 1970s, Henri Lefebvre put forward the radical hypothesis of the complete urbanization of society. This required, in his view, a radical shift from the analysis of urban form to the investigation of urbanization processes. The Urban Theory Lab builds upon Lefebvre’s approach to investigate emergent sociospatial formations under early twenty-first century capitalism.…

News | May 24, 2021

Urban@UW Announces Another Round of Funding Through Research Spark Grants

Urban@UW is excited to be able to provide another cycle of funding for small-scale, new or emergent projects in urban systems. Our Urban@UW Research Spark Grants RFP is intended to catalyze new ideas, connections, and next steps for UW faculty and research staff undertaking cross-disciplinary and community-engaged urban scholarship. The application window opens June 14,…

News | February 19, 2020

Urban@UW announces Research Spark Grants

UPDATE: In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on academic and research activities, Urban@UW has made the difficult decision to postpone our Spark Grants program. In addition to recognizing the varied strains and hardship our community is experiencing, we want to ensure that new collaborations launch in a context that promotes meeting and…

News | April 3, 2024

Urban@UW announces second cycle of Research to Action Collaboratory projects

Urban@UW is excited to announce the project teams selected for the second Research to Action Collaboratory (RAC) cohort. Throughout the next 18 months, Urban@UW will work with these teams to provide seed funds, dedicate time to building team cohesion and collaboration skills, and foster opportunities for peer support, shared resources, and learning. These two project…

News | April 17, 2023

Urban@UW Announces the 2023 Research to Action Collaboratory Inaugural Cohort

Urban@UW is excited to announce the project teams selected for the inaugural cohort of the Research to Action Collaboratory (RAC). Throughout the next 18 months, Urban@UW will work with these teams and provide seed funds, dedicated time to build team cohesion and collaboration skills, and foster opportunities for peer support and shared resources and learning….

News | October 20, 2017

Urban@UW compiles Faculty Highlights Report for research, teaching and engagement on homelessness

As part of its recently launched Homelessess Research Initiative, Urban@UW has collaborated with faculty and staff across all three UW campuses to compile a broad-ranging selection of powerful and robust projects addressing homelessness from a research lens. Check out the Faculty Highlights Report to learn more about these efforts and the people behind them.

News | September 5, 2024

Urban@UW Presenting at New York Climate Week

Urban@UW Director Rachel Berney and Program Manager Kate Landis will present on the Research-to Action Collaboratory later this month at New York Climate Week, as part of the New York Climate Exchange.  “We are thrilled to be one of the very few university centers invited to participate in New York Climate Week. This well- publicized…

News | October 2, 2024

Urban@UW Presents at Climate Week NYC

Last week Urban@UW’s Director Rachel Berney and Program Manager Kate Landis presented on the Research to Action Collaboratory at Climate Week NYC, as a guest of the New York Climate Exchange. Leaders from all sectors met on Governors Island, just south of Manhattan, to discuss climate adaptations, potential partnerships, and new technology in carbon reduction….

News | November 1, 2024

Urban@UW’s Research to Action Teams Gather for a Fall Workshop

What do Microforests, the historic University of Tacoma campus, refugee resettlement, greenwater recycling, everything bagels and tasty Thai food have in common? They all played a part in October’s Research to Action teams retreat, led by Urban@UW.  Urban@UW brings together multidisciplinary academics and embedded community leaders to solve complex urban challenges through the Research to…

News | October 24, 2019

US transit ridership is down: Can San Diego’s speedy commuter rail plan buck the trend?

Elected officials are preparing to ask San Diegans to approve not one but two tax increases to fund billions of dollars in bus and rail investments, including a San Diego Grand Central Station to connect riders to the airport. The ask comes at a time when many cities around the country — from Atlanta to Houston to…

News | March 2, 2016

UW aids city of Seattle on open data initiative

<allenges.< p=””></allenges.<>   If people find it easier to get data from the city of Seattle going forward, they can in part thank the University of Washington. A team of UW faculty members and doctoral students spent the past six months working with the city on a new open data policy unveiled last week by…

News | October 27, 2015

UW initiative aims to tackle city, region’s most pressing urban issues

When Thaisa Way put a call out last spring to see if University of Washington faculty members working on urban issues wanted to join forces, she wasn’t sure what the response would be. “There were a lot of people who said, ‘You’re not going to get anyone to show up,‘” said Way, a UW associate…

News | December 20, 2016

UW professor: Seattle exposed to most ‘chronically high noise levels’ of any city in US

How Seattle’s development is impacting your health and, more specifically, your ears is not something being taken into account by city leaders, according to a University of Washington professor. And changing an ordinance that mutes construction’s noise pollution to match other cities from around the country might be a potent elixir, he says. Eliot Brenowitz,…

News | December 7, 2015

UW project focuses on fines and fees that create ‘prisoners of debt’

Criminals are meant to pay their debts to society through sentencing, but a different type of court-imposed debt can tie them to the criminal justice system for life and impact their ability to move forward with their lives. Though debtors’ prisons were eliminated in the United States almost two centuries ago, a modern-day version exists…

News | May 26, 2020

UW research team seeks campus input with survey on coronavirus mobility impacts

Three professors are teaming up for a study of the mobility impacts of the coronavirus — and they are inviting UW faculty, staff and students to complete a short online survey to assist the research. The research is being conducted by Anne Vernez Moudon, professor emerita of urban design and planning in the College of Built Environments, with Jeff…

News | September 27, 2017

UW researchers analyze effects of minimum wage on seattle food prices

Affiliates UW Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and Adjunct Assistant Professor in Health Services Jennifer Otten (lead author), UW Professor at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance Jake Vigdor, and Evans School’s Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Public policy and Governance and Adjunct Professor of Economics Mark Long…

News | October 6, 2020

UW researchers driving around Seattle to track COVID-19 response over time

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?…

News | December 15, 2021

UW study finds Seattle $15 minimum wage ‘did little to offset widening inequality’

University of Washington researchers have been conducting studies into various facets of Seattle’s $15-an-hour minimum wage for years. For their latest study, they looked into how the higher minimum wage has addressed (or failed to address) income inequality. Seattle minimum wage will increase on Jan. 1 The study found that over a 12-year period, inequality…

News | November 28, 2016

UW, City of Seattle and MetroLab Network to host workshop on big data and human services

On January 17, 2017 the City of Seattle, MetroLab Network and the University of Washington will convene experts from local government and universities to discuss common challenges and propose collaborative, data-driven solutions to human service issues. Work will continue after the meeting as members focus on opportunities for collaborative research, and scalable projects. The workshop…

News | February 15, 2018

UW, Seattle & King county join forces for new academic health department

The University of Washington Schools of Public Health and of Nursing have formalized an alliance with Public Health – Seattle & King County that seeks to encourage collaboration and resource sharing through a new academic health department. The three-year partnership will provide a foundation for increased training and other opportunities for students, faculty, researchers and…

News | March 15, 2024

UW’s College of Built Environments Professor Faces an Electrifying Challenge

Reported by Jen Moss for the University of Washington’ College of Built Environments King County Metro (Metro), which serves a daily average of over 250,000 riders across more than 203 square miles of the county, has an emissions challenge. Their zero-carbon emissions target, set by the King County Council, must be met by 2035. This…

News | December 18, 2015

UW/Seattle MetroLab Partnership

Have you been wondering what exactly is going to happen with the Seattle / UW partnership under the MetroLab initiative? The three “named” projects from Seattle will be the Array of Things partnership with Chicago, Private data sharing with the Tech Policy Lab, and a smart grid study of the relationship between temperature and power…

Scholar

Val Kalei Kanuha

Scholar

Vanessa Freije

News | May 10, 2018

Vikram Prakash’s ‘ArchitectureTalk’ podcast explores topics ‘at the edge of the known’

Vikram Prakash says his weekly “ArchitectureTalk” podcast got its start, as many things do, from a student’s idea. Prakash is a professor of architecture in the University of Washington College of Built Environments. An architect himself, he is also an author, a theorist and an architectural historian. He said he has always felt “energized” by discussions in…

News | April 30, 2020

Virginia takes a big step against criminalizing poverty

Virginia will no longer suspend driver’s licenses because people owe court debt, thanks to legislation that was signed into law last week. The state has been suspending hundreds of thousands of licenses each year, disproportionately those of African Americans and lower-income Virginians. “Payment systems are not sustainable because people are robbing from rent and from putting food…

News | October 7, 2024

WA Gen Z voters excited, but turnout still a toss-up

Reported by Paris Jackson for Cascade/PBS There’s a surge in interest among young voters, those considered Generation Z, this election cycle. They’re outspoken, savvy and civically engaged. Gen Z’ers are those born between 1997 and 2012, according to Pew Research. They’re touted as the generation that grew up with the internet as an integral part…

News | January 30, 2021

WA Rep. Jayapal: Bill raising federal minimum wage to $15 will bring US ‘up to standard Seattle set’

Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal joined Congressional Democrats on Tuesday to introduce a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025. If passed, this would mark the first time the federal minimum wage was raised since 2009. The proposal would gradually phase in the increase, starting by raising minimum wage…

Center & Lab

Washington Center for Real Estate Research

The Washington Center for Real Estate Research (WCRER) was initially established by the Board of Regents at Washington State University to provide a bridge between academic study and research on real estate topics and the professional real estate industries. It served that mission at WSU until merging with the Runstad Center at the beginning of…

Center & Lab

Washington Institute for the Study of Inequality and Race (WISIR)

The Washington Institute for the Study of Inequality and Race (WISIR) is an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to bringing the tools of critical theory and contemporary social science to the analysis of social, economic, and political inequality along lines of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. The center seeks to enhance public understanding of these…

News | February 8, 2021

Washington lawmakers look for ways to exit the eviction moratorium — and prevent the fallout

Nearly a year after Gov. Jay Inslee stopped evictions for failure to pay during the pandemic, lawmakers now find themselves attempting to unwind an experiment of their own making. Both Republicans and Democrats are looking for a way to end the eviction moratorium while staving off what some predict could be a “tsunami” of evictions…

News | January 20, 2023

Washington legislature debates whether to cap rent increases

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…

News | May 20, 2024

Washington overdose deaths continued to rise in 2023 while national trends declined, but there’s hope

Reported by Kate Walters for KUOW/NPR Overdose deaths in Washington state continued to rise throughout 2023, bucking the national trend. According to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week, reported overdose deaths across the U.S. fell by roughly 5% in 2023, compared to 2022. In contrast, Washington state saw…

News | May 9, 2023

Washington Seeks to Repair Harm Caused by Racially Restrictive Real Estate Covenants

Washington state is setting aside money to help people who were hurt by racially restrictive real estate covenants — documents that were used to enforce segregation in the early- to mid-20th century. On Monday, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a measure into law Monday that will create a downpayment assistance program for people affected by the…

Center & Lab

Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC)

The Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC) is a cooperative, interdisciplinary transportation research agency. Its members, Washington State University (WSU), the University of Washington (UW), and the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), formed TRAC in 1983 to coordinate transportation research efforts—both state and commercial, public and private—and to develop research opportunities both nationally and locally.…

News | January 27, 2021

Washington tribes join lawsuit to stop sale of National Archives in Seattle

Concerned it would threaten their cultural preservation, history and treaty rights, 40 tribes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska joined a Jan. 4 lawsuit with Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson to stop the federal government from selling the National Archives facility in Seattle and shipping its millions of boxes of records to California and Missouri….

Center & Lab

West Coast Poverty Center

The West Coast Poverty Center works to bridge the gaps between antipoverty research, practice, and policy by connecting scholars, policymakers and practitioners; facilitating important social policy research; magnifying the reach of new knowledge; and fostering the next generation of antipoverty scholars. A collaborative venture of the UW School of Social Work, the Daniel J. Evans…

Map | New York

What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York

There was something fitting in this unlikely connection, since 311 is designed to re-create some of the human touch of small-town life in the context of a vast metropolis. Eighty percent of calls connect to a live rep within half a minute, after a brief recorded message summing up the day’s parking regulations (a major…

News | December 10, 2020

What happened when these places raised the minimum wage to $15?

The federal minimum wage — $7.25 per hour — hasn’t changed since 2009, even though the cost of living has risen rapidly. Labor activists long have been asking for a raise in the minimum wage but due to the partisan split between the House and Senate, it seems unlikely there will be a change in…

News | December 3, 2020

What happens when the eviction moratorium expires?

More than 171,000 Washington households are behind on rent, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In normal times, every one of them could be issued a notice to vacate today, and face eviction in court in a matter of weeks. That’s not happening right now because Gov. Jay Inslee enacted a moratorium…

News | December 6, 2021

What it’s going to take for Tacoma to become an ‘anti-racist city’

Urban@UW colleague Rubén Casas shares his perspective on the city of Tacoma’s goal of becoming an ‘anti-racist city’ in his Crosscut article. — Mayor Victoria Woodards wants to make Tacoma “an anti-racist city.” The question is, can she do it? And if so, how should it look in practice? This was a central theme of her…

News | June 22, 2017

What the bond between homeless people and their pets demonstrates about compassion

A video camera captures an interview with a man named Spirit, who relaxes in an outdoor plaza on a sunny afternoon. Of his nearby service dogs, Kyya and Miniaga, he says, “They mean everything to me, and I mean everything to them.”In another video, three sweater-clad dogs scamper around a Los Angeles park, while their…

News | February 21, 2018

What would a truly disabled-accessible city look like?

To David Meere, a visually impaired man from Melbourne, among the various obstacles to life in cities is another that is less frequently discussed: fear. “The fear of not being able to navigate busy, cluttered and visually oriented environments is a major barrier to participation in normal life,” says Meere, 52, “be that going to…

News | October 22, 2020

Why are cities (still) so expensive?

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…

News | June 25, 2024

Why social media rarely leads to constructive political action

Written by Stefan Milne for UW News. While social media platforms are rife with problems — from harassment to misinformation — many argue that the platforms also nurture political movements, such as the Arab Spring and #MeToo. But in her new book “Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix,” Katherine Cross, a University…

News | June 21, 2024

Why the First Heat Wave of the Summer Can Be the Most Dangerous

Written by Scott Dance for the Washington Post. In an average June, just a few days reach 90 degrees in Detroit. But by the time the year’s first blast of summer breaks in the Motor City this weekend, nearly a week of intense heat will have passed. And some of the most dangerous heat waves…

News | August 2, 2024

Wildfire Smoke Exposure Linked With Higher Dementia Risk

Reported by Dennis Thompson for HealthDay THURSDAY, Aug. 1, 2024 (HealthDay News) — The wildfires thats are increasing with climate change could harm the future brain health of humanity, a new study suggests. Wildfire smoke appears to increase people’s risk of a dementia diagnosis even more than other types of air pollution, researchers reported this…

Scholar

William Hartmann

News | July 26, 2024

With $50M infusion, UW to launch security center to fight research theft

Reported by Emerson Drewes for the Seattle Times The University of Washington will receive a $50 million investment over five years from the United States National Science Foundation to establish a national center for research security. Universities, including those in Washington, have been victims of cyberattacks and hacks in attempts to access, download, alter or…

News | April 14, 2020

With more people staying home, Washington skies are cleaner

Since the coronavirus pandemic sent Washingtonians indoors to help flatten the curve of infection, Seattleites who open a window or venture outside for socially distanced nature therapy swear something’s different in the air. “It’s for sure much cleaner,” says lifelong Seattle resident Cathryn Stenson, who has been walking through nearby parks more than normal to take…

News | February 1, 2017

Working with community to tackle homelessness

Seattle’s rapid rise in homelessness, coinciding with increasing costs in housing and living, have brought significant challenges to economically vulnerable populations in the Puget Sound. In spite of a sense of urgency regionally and in many areas of the country, sufficient resources, effective systemic fixes and broad support still have not come together to end…

News | June 20, 2018

You asked about the crisis of homelessness in Seattle. Here are some answers

There’s a lot of money in Seattle these days. Companies like Amazon and Starbucks are based here, and construction has been booming. But our city has one of the biggest homelessness problems in the country. Our listeners are wondering about that disconnect. And they’ve been asking us questions about the issue. To try to answer…

Scholar

Zackery Thill