_: Misleading.

Seattle's growth is pretty substantial for a city with one of the lowest "vacant land" percentages in the country. The fast-growing cities aren't as dense, and, as a component of their low density, they have more vacant land. Even Portland has a much lower density.

Seattle's growth from 486,000 in 1986 to about 580,000 today is all the more remarkable because household sizes have fallen substantially.

Even going from 559,000 (1950 or 1960?) to 486,000 meant more occupied housing units during that period, because household sizes fell dramatically -- due to natural reasons (smaller families) and land use reasons (more apartments, no room for more houses).

Regionally, we seem to be continuing our trend of growing faster than the nation, but moderately only.

An important ongoing story: Understanding the business and social components of growth, good and bad, is an essential part of being an informed citizen of the Puget Sound. That might sound trite, but it is too easy to forget - as, for example, is the story of Frank Colarcucio, our most 'obvious' regional vice purveyor.

About the time Colurccio was getting his start with the FBI, Norm Maleng was cutting his teeth as a successful young prosecutor and Christine Gregoire was graduating from Law School. Gregoire would go on to join the new Department of Ecology, making her name, in part, through applying environmental regulations to the City of Bellevue- the inspirational roots for growth management.

Bellevue has certainly been a success, as has been Seattle, even though their regulations may have cost them the Microsoft Headquarters. Bellevue too is a static city, at least at times. And this is a good thing, growth has spread throughout the region and we have the foundations for a much more decentralized power structure in the region than either the limousine liberals of Seattle or their spouses at the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce would like to believe.

Emmett Watson and Charlie Chong may not have held the entire truth about growth but their stature as leaders has been crucial to this success. Sharing the wealth among all races, sexes, and generations is a good thing and that has been the practical, beneficial result of these politcal battles.

Unfortunately Maleng has still not learned to either legalize vice here or prosecute those who associate in the closet - his teeth were never sharpened all that much, and the resulting corruption still afflicts us, and benefits his industry.

Vice as a business has been historically important in Seattle - servicing Alaska, the North Pacific Naval Fleet, and even a few 'MicroSofties' and Boeing clients.

Something that seems to have been lost in our debates over growth in Seattle is assigning costs to those who benefit. This is as hypocritical as accusing Tim Eyman of electoral fraud while government fails to hold itself to those same standards of demeanor - instead insisting that every small business man is a self centered crook to be milked.

Instead of taxing those who take responsibility for their own lives to death - how about legalizing vice and utilize those taxes to help maintain, and manage, our quality of life? Heck, why not require medical supervision not just for Marijuana but also for alchohol and prostitution?

We'd raise tax revenues, increase participation in our medical payments system, increase mental health and advance our reputation as a world class City.

And maybe even set aside some surpluses for an easy to access transportation rainy day fund! We certainly don't need anymore State politico's like Ted Bundy, even if they aren't as honest or sincere as he. Alcohol is not always the social and business lubricant that it is portrayed as - certainly when mixed with hate filled sex - of any preference, or race.

The Mayor has a different plan: Mayor Nickels wants to add another 400,000 residents into the City by 2030.

_: I believe that figure was for a much later date than 2030.

Seattle's compounded growth rate has been about 1% over the past 20yrs: This slow growth rate is one of the big things wrong with Growth Management and Sound Transit and the whole high density culture. It hasn't been happening, it isn't happening, and even the laws that are supposed to make it happen aren't making it happen. Thus we have hyper growth at the urban boundaries and across county borders and in places like the Issaquah plateau, where people have access to freeways that can quickly take you to a number of urban centers.

On the other hand, Seattle likes to keep old neighborhoods in tact, doesn't like to increase densities in neighborhoods, and hopes for massive influxes of people who are going to want to live near Transit centers. The idea of a Static Seattle is a very good one and one that fits very much in line with the notion of sustainability. Incremental growth is controlled and managed growth, just as the name growth management suggests.

In contrast, the GMA and the Manhattan-instead-of-Seattle densification hegemony is built on six flawed assumptions:
1) growth is good (rhymes with "greed is good");
2) growth is inevitable (all cities die eventually);
3) dense growth is good (ever seen a tenement?);
4) people living on land is bad (why do rich people live in the suburbs?),
5) people living in concrete urban environments is good (ever seen a tenement?), and
6) mass transit will attracts people to dense urban centers (would your rather live next to a park, a school, or a mass transit center?).

Seattle's growth rate over the years tells me that the citizens of Seattle are voting with their feet by staying put where they like living. They don't want growth, except "out there" somewhere. When you go "out there," people like where they live and don't want growth except "out there" somewhere. Thus the pressure on urban boundaries which say "there's no out there out there." Slow, incremental, measured growth is the right way to sustain Seattle. Static Seattle sounds right. It's a Seattle at equilibrium. We like it here, we want to keep what we like, if we can grow a bit on the margins and sustain what's good that's great. We emphatically don't want another million people here in the next forty years, and we'll do whatever we can to keep those people from coming. We seem to be doing that with our Siamese twins: zoning and unaffordable housing. That's the real Growth Management that has nothing to do with environmental concerns. It's the Growth Management that constrains buildable land so thoroughly that property values go up across the board, lifting all ships, and pricing out our poor, our huddled masses yearning to breath free, our wretched refuse teeming at the shore, our homeless, our tempest-tossed. We have no place for these people. That's Growth Management.

_: You do realize that population growth has been speeding up locally?

Also, that nobody in Seattle is advocating tenements? Even our low-income housing is generally nice looking.

re speeding up...: Yeah, Seattle's population has been increasing lately at a much greater rate than in the past. But realize that ups and downs happen cyclically. Remember the Dot Com bust? I believe that caused shrinkage, not growth. And Seattle's popular now, but how long will this upsurge last? It's related mainly to hiring at Boeing and Microsoft, who are dependent on global demand for their products. People are coming because there are jobs, not because we have mass transit and a livable city. When the jobs stop, then what?

I think that Seattle has been shirking its GMA responsibility to take density at the expense of surrounding cities who've been swamped by densifying, uglifying growth, so I'm pleased to see that Seattle is building more density.

You say that no one is advocating tenements. Actually, condos for rich people is what all local cities are pushing for. They envision a whole bunch of rich people living down town, feeding the property tax base, and commuting back and forth with light rail. That's the extent of the picture of a world-class city that the region is advancing. For poor people there's virtually nothing. For the middle class, there's virtually nothing. And the few low income housing units that looks "pretty good" are a lot like the new homes I saw while gutting houses in New Orleans, pretty, but extremely rare.

You're right, I got the numbers switched.: It's not 400,000 by 2035, it's 350,000 by 2040, still, that's a lot of people.

_: There's no silver bullet that can house the poor in an expensive city like this. The same is true in many cities without growth controls -- Phoenix, Boise, et al.

We can, and are, fighting for cheap housing with our current Seattle housing levy, with the help of a series of outstanding non-profits, and by reducing parking requirements to a level that makes sense with the cars people actually have, i.e. don't have, in certain neighborhoods. I like the levy because it spreads the cost to all of us. I'd happily vote for a bigger levy.

I agree that Seattle and the existing suburban areas ought to allow higher densities. Seattle should allow townhouses in more areas, and mother-in-laws basically everywhere. (I work for a contractor as you might know, but we don't build either of these.) Townhouses allow "family sized" housing to get built more cheaply than houses, mostly by sharing the land cost among more units.

re silver bullet: we shouldn't make bullets out of precious metals, or houses either: Government could help out TREMENDOUSLY in creating affordable housing by increasing the amount of buildable land. That's a product of zoning and of prioritizing salmon hunting habitat over habitat for people. Growth Management limits building so extremely that land costs have doubled and tripled over the last few years, making property owners unearned billions in the Seattle area, while exacerbating the economic pressure on low-wage earners.

Does anyone in government understand how much pressure this is on low-wage families, on their kids, on their educations, on their commutes, on their homes, and on their quality of life? No one's handing them billions of dollars in unearned income. This sorry situation is a product of zoning and of prioritizing salmon hunting habitat over habitat for people.

Permitting costs are also horrendous, as are the long waits to get permits processed. All told, I'm guessing your average unit has between $100K to $250K of government zoning tax added on top of the value of a piece of land. Builders typically try to sell homes at three times the cost of land, so the government "zoning tax" adds between $300K to $750K to the price of a home. That's why so many homes are well over $1 million now. Builders and developers long ago stopped trying to fight government. Now they just pass on the costs to home buyers.

These added costs force builders to build larger, more extravagant homes that destroy the character of neighborhoods and are environmental nightmares because of their huge building and utility costs, and the lifestyles that they encourage over many years. This is a policy fiasco of the first order.

Maybe if we all play our cards right we can all have $135M homes like Bill Gates. Government's all for that. Think of the property tax revenue!

The poor are completely disenfranchised. All the above government-controlled factors make for an "expensive city." And government sits by obliviously as if it has no role.

Growth management was supposed to be about preserving the environment. What it really has turned out to be is a scheme to raise everyone's property values so that government can collect higher property taxes. Maybe if we all play our cards right we can all have $135M homes like Bill Gates. Government's all for that. Think of the property tax revenue! With that revenue government can build affordable housing that is twice as costly as homes built by your average builder. That will certainly solve the affordable housing problem, won't it? Does anyone see something wrong with this picture? Does anyone see how the overall flow of money, though legal, is ultimately evil in character?

Growing nowhere: "Misleading"? Hardly. Facts speak for themselves.

An acknowledgement of what many been saying for years: Seattle's population isn't growing at significant rates, isn't likely too.

Understand now why Mayor and Council are so eager to annex Highline/White Center, low income status aside? It's the only way Seattle can cross the Rubicon of "600,000" needed to move up the population rung of Federal grant status.

"Static" - simply a more palatable term for "stagnant"; giving lie to "greenie" delusions that endless hordes will flock to Seattle, magically combating suburban "sprawl", no matter how unaffordable this city becomes to all but the most affluent.

"Static" means no significant growth in business, property or other taxes providing City revenues. Services won't increase; they'll steadily degrade, as the funds needed to simply maintain them at current levels erode away

Exactly what's happening now.

One couldn't find Seattle's thirty year population growth rate with an electron microscope. Going from less than 500,000 in 1977 to 570,000 today is not significant growth. If we can't "grow" any faster in these good economic times, what do you think will happen in the next recession?

Better hold those checks to "Futurewise" and their hysterical growth claims; think twice about the PSRC's "population projections" (Check out "WPPSS" for similar examples).

What people mistake for population "growth" here is actually "demographic shift" phenomena: In Seattle's case, from a city where 2/3rd's of the population was once single family, middle class households (usually with children) to one now less than 50 per cent that. Where mostly affluent single's, "DINKS" (dual income no kids) and retirees now make up more than half our city.

Where homeowners, once by far the majority, now nearly equal renters.

In 1977, we had over 90,000 children in public schools. Now it's 45,000. Where have they, along with most of the population growth and public and private sector revenues they generated, gone?

Take a look in King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties.

Seattle taxes are higher, home ownership more costly, burdens on businesses more onerous, services decaying faster - all more than ever. People are "surprised" that our population isn't growing faster?

It's the next step, like SF, to "negative growth", i.e., declining population: Unless we start implementing smarter public policies making better use of tax dollars, governing land use more effectively, creating more affordable housing and attracting more varieties of business.

We're not getting there appealing to narrowing, affluent demographic niches and strapped businesses expected to pay steadily increasing taxes funding ever declining services.

Much like "San Francisco". Not a historically successful formula for a "sustainable" urban economic environment.

Economic and environmental "sustainability" is achieved by using public policy to promote truly diverse economic housing and employment opportunities for families and businesses of all income levels.

Ultimately, it's not how many people you have that sustains a city, but the economic and demographic diversity of that population supporting its tax base. Seattle is not going down that path.

Ignorant, self styled "urban visionaries" and "environmentalists" who believe - but don't have the guts to publicly admit - that cities can only succeed by catering to childless, wealthy DINKS, singles and retirees are wrong, and cluelessly sowing the seeds of urban decay's next round.

Why not, after all? These affluent can afford it, or so they think.

growth is uneven, not static: The CITY of Seattle has grown faster than the story implies, but in HOUSEHOLDS (and housing units) rather than population -- simply bcause singles and couples enter, families leave.
The giant coastal cities are growing more slowly in population because they are so expensive and have run out of space, so growth is moving to
"satellite" cities, like Sacrament, San Bernadino and yes, Las Vegas. This could be good (?) news for Spokane, Yakima, the Tri Cities, Bellingham and Wenatchee, at least eventually.
IK wouldn't use the word 'static' to characterize the 'slower growing' mega-citie4s. This puts way too much weight on just the number of people. In the post 1980s restructuring, these cities have grown in wealth,inequality, power and control. Seattle is not growing too "slowly" ; it is growing too unequally (rich vs. poor, families vs non-families).

RE: _Tenaments: Advocating tenaments? No need. They are spreading like fungal mold. Have you seen Ballard lately? It is new tenament central. Don't fit your idea of what a tenement should look like? Give these $500,000 (per unit) tenements ten years and they'll fit your stereotype. Not low income perhaps, but tenements they are.

As for me, I've seen a lot of unwise growth-: As for me, I've seen a lot of unwise growth- from David Brewster's article today, it appears that things aren't quite as bad as I thought. Let's hope so. Seattle native Jerry Gropp Architect AIA PS