The Urbanist Elections Committee is proud to unveil our 2024 Primary endorsements, headlined by Ryan Mello's exciting bid for Pierce County Executive. This slate of urbanists is poised to make a difference.

Mayor Bruce Harrell and Governor Jay Inslee were on Thursday's program at Bloomberg Green Festival hosted at the Seattle Center. Both touted local leadership on environmental issues, even as that work remains tenuous.

By this winter, Seattle voters will have before them the question of whether to fund the city's new social housing developer with a tax on the highest compensated employees in the city. To make it happen, House Our Neighbors gathered more than 38,000 signatures in support of Initiative 137.

Transportation and housing organizer Saunatina Sanchez is making a case that her background in community makes her the best choice for the Seattle City Council seat currently held by Tanya Woo.

Electrifying port infrastructure and traffic is already slow-moving at the expense of nearby communities, and in the absence of clean energy regulation for ports in Washington, these projects heavily rely on funding from the contested Climate Commitment Act. 

Mayor Bruce Harrell has dropped acoustic gunshot locator technology from his proposal to beef up surveillance of Seattle residents. The expansion of automated license plate readers, cameras, and real-time crime center software has continued to draw criticism from groups focused on privacy and racial equity.

After pushback, Councilmember Maritza Rivera backed off a push to pull back funding for the Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) but the episode spoke volumes about the city council's current goals.

The Urbanist sat down with State Rep. Jessica Bateman, who is running for the Washington State Senate pledging to bring the same urgency around housing issues that she has brought to the lower chamber.