Community Development

A photo of a low-rise grocery store with a surface level parking lot in front of it.

734 Homes Proposed in University Village Safeway Redevelopment Plans

Details are emerging on plans to replace the suburban-style Safeway grocery story adjacent to University Village Mall with an eight-story mixed-use development. The plans...
A view of a mountain in the distance behind a suburban neighborhood

Legislators Should Build on a Powerful Tool That Improves Cities and Conserves Natural Landscapes

Walking among the gleaming towers in Seattle’s South Lake Union, there is a buzz in the air. The aroma of tantalizing restaurants, the din of...

Housing Notes: Africatown Plaza Breaks Ground, Built-to-Rent Single-Family Home Boom, and Living Office Building

This installment of housing notes contains mix of high and low notes, but we'll kick things off with story that hits the upper octaves....

Café Streets: From Pandemic Response to Permanent Program

The Seattle City Council is considering a bill to extend cafe street and outdoor dining permits until January 2023. The popular program arose during...

Urban Life in the Metaverse: Potential for Utopia or Wholly Unnecessary?

South Korea’s capital city of Seoul recently unveiled plans to become the first major city government with a solid foothold in the metaverse. Both a result...

Explainer: What’s an Environmental Impact Statement?

An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) sounds like a highly technical and complex mechanism of governance. They take years, spiral into hundreds of pages with...
A photo of a white apartment building in an urban area.

Call to Action: Speak Up For Housing Benefit Districts

On a day-to-day basis, we are confronted with a million different challenges: maybe you dropped your coffee on the carpet, maybe you just cannot...
A photo of an empty freeway edged by trees

South Park Joins Growing Movement to Dismantle Freeways

From a bird’s eye view, Seattle’s South Park neighborhood is cut in half by SR-99, divided diagonally from one end to another. The highway,...