Op-Ed: Expand Urbanism, Emphasize Inclusion and Equity in Our Shared Vision

To fully realize the transformative promise of urbanism, we must be willing to ask: urbanism for whom?

Last fall, community members gathered in the parking lot of the Othello Safeway to honor the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. The event was a somber reflection of the infrastructure injustices faced disproportionately by communities of color. In King County, for instance, 70% of Sound Transit collisions occur in South Seattle, underscoring how deeply racial inequities are built into our streets, sidewalks, and transit systems.

These inequities are not due to a lack of vision. The urbanist movement — committed to people-centered communities, public transit, walkability, bikeability, and housing affordability through housing density — has fundamentally reshaped our region’s discourse on how we build thriving cities. But to fully realize the transformative promise of urbanism, we must be willing to ask: urbanism for whom?

Too often, urbanist conversations and strategies have centered on the concerns of wealthier and whiter neighborhoods, places with the resources and political capital to advocate effectively for their needs. Meanwhile, neighborhoods like South Seattle, Skyway, and other working-class communities of color remain sidelined. Their needs — safer sidewalks, basic transit access, housing stability, and public safety — are urbanist needs, too.

Urbanism is, at its core, about how people interact with the built environment and what we can do to make those interactions better. That interaction looks very different depending on where you live, how much you earn, and what neighborhood you call home. For some, it’s about protected bike lanes and zoning reform. For others, it’s about whether your child can safely walk to school without crossing a four-lane highway. Both are valid urbanist concerns.

A more expansive urbanism centers efforts to reduce speed limits and build sidewalks in Skyway, a neighborhood that still lacks basic pedestrian infrastructure. It centers thoughtful, community-led planning like the Rainier Valley Safety Master Plan to address transit safety in one of our region’s most diverse corridors. It means Missing Middle Housing legislation, which increases density while being cognizant of displacement pressures in vulnerable communities. It means promoting Black and Brown homeownership to keep communities rooted in place. And it means big swings like the Regional Workforce Housing Initiative to invest billions into affordable homes near jobs and transit.

These efforts reflect our vision — as two leaders of color in the urbanist movement — of a broader, more inclusive urbanism than the one that gets the most attention. This more inclusive vision has motivated many new voices to engage with their community’s politics for better buses and more housing. This vision is an urbanism that integrates housing, safety, transit, and public health with racial and economic justice. 

If we want to build people-centered communities, we must measure our success not only in transit ridership or housing units permitted, but in a deeper care and attention paid to who benefits. How many pedestrian injuries occur in low-income neighborhoods versus more affluent ones? Are we reducing gun violence and improving mental health services alongside our transit investments? Are families being displaced by the very policies intended to help them?

We can make progress on all these questions if we expand the scope of our urbanist vision. 

Together, we can evolve a movement initially rooted in density and design to expand its mission, its aims, and its energies to include justice and belonging. Urbanism can and should be a vehicle for equity, sustainability, and shared prosperity and must work for everyone. Let’s build a King County where it does.

Girmay Zahilay is the Chair of the King County Council and a candidate for King County Executive.

Rian Watt is vice-president of The Urbanist Board of Directors and the organization’s former executive director.

Editor’s note: Read about our endorsement process. The Urbanist’s primary endorsements are published in July. This guest op-ed has no bearing in that process and does not connote an endorsement. The Board of Directors do not play a role in The Urbanist’s endorsement decisions, which are made by the Elections Committee.

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