Doug Trumm
Doug Trumm is The Urbanist's Executive Director. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike.
When it comes to adding seats in the state legislature, the 2020 election was a wash for Washington Democrats. State Senator T'wina Nobles (D-Fircrest) is an exciting addition, but State Senator Dean Takko (D-Longview) lost his seat, meaning the senate is still 28-21. Democrats can lose three caucus votes...
Yesterday, Puget Sound Business Journal published a story on Bellevue's affordability efforts. Despite some optimistic quotes from local leaders, Bellevue has yet to crack the code or doing anything of note, as far as I can tell. Notwithstanding bluster about outdoing Seattle, Bellevue suffers from the same problems, and...
Eight of nine Seattle City Councilmembers demanded Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) president Mike Solan's resignation on Monday, following a freewheeling week during which he blamed the Trump-backed coup on Black Lives Matter protesters after it failed to block certification of results. Two Seattle Police Department (SPD) officers went...
Last week was a weird week for public housing. On Tuesday, Substack pundit Matt Yglesias opined that public housing doesn't solve a single problem and isn't worthy of investment. Later that day, Raphael Warnock won his election for the United States Senate. It was the first time Georgia has...
Sound Transit is projecting an additional $4 billion in costs for light rail to Ballard and West Seattle. The projected cost of the two lines jumped from $7.9 billion in 2019 to $12.1 billion--a jump exceeding 50%. The agency revealed the bad news at the Sound Transit Board meeting...
2020 did not pull its punches, and yet we at The Urbanist did our best to roll with them. We’re proud of how we persevered.
As the pandemic hit, we had to cancel our in-person monthly meetups. By May, we switched to an online format and hosted 12 events over...
Bremerton is allowing an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on every single-family lot and waiving parking and owner-occupancy requirements. The City tabled a measure to allow two ADUs per lot.
On December 16th, the Bremerton City Council unanimously voted to liberalize ADU rules in a bid to increase housing production and...
Thank you for reading The Urbanist and making it through a crucible of a year with us. We wanted to look back at our most popular articles as we try to put 2020 in the rearview mirror of our tandem bike, dear reader, as soon as possible--reflecting a smidge...
