With the next four years of unrest in the U.S. and political changes likely coming to Canada, the idea of Cascadia is more relevant than ever.

I started this site 18 years ago with the aim of highlighting growing business and political ties across the Pacific Northwest. During that time the region has shared a lot, from the Olympics, to cross-border tech, to the effects of the 2021 heat dome. Drawing closer seems inevitable.

We’re culturally and politically closer than ever. Democrats control Washington and Oregon, states that will act increasingly independent during the coming Trump years. In B.C. the NDP barely holds a minority government – with almost no representation outside Vancouver and Victoria – but the center left could gain traction in opposition as the Canadian national pendulum swings conservative.

As a region, here are a few areas where we should focus:

Climate and development

• Most of our contribution to the climate problem comes from vehicles, so the best solution is to build intercity transportation that replaces driving and curbs sprawl. Stop new freeways, and limit future highway growth to narrow safety and maintenance projects. Transit should get a far bigger share of spending and roads should be held to ROI expectations.
• Create dense and walkable development to provide more housing supply and healthier less car-dependent lifestyles. The cities of Vancouver and Victoria are way ahead of the rest of the region, but are small parts even of their metros. The region already needs millions more housing units. We’re going to be inundated with climate refugees, so we should build cities for people who are coming.
• No more megaprojects. There’s no reason to destroy farmland to build new cities from scratch when places from the metros to Chehalis to Burlington can accommodate far more people. There’s no need for a new airport anywhere since forecast demand is based on speculative projections assuming cheap fuel. Trains should connect YVR, SEA, and PDX and replace much of the demand. No more Seattle tunnels or Columbia River Crossings.
• More renewable energy development, including aggressive siting of wind and solar.

Economic opportunity

• Encourage new and unique business. Even in the land of Amazon, we should promote small business with our tax and health infrastructure.
• Treat willing business as partners. Boeing blackmailed Washington taxpayers out of billions of dollars, even as management steered the company off a cliff. Never again. Instead, government should offer educated workforces and great locations.
• Reform forestry. Washington and Oregon have transformed their economies, and it’s time for B.C. to evolve from unsustainable resource extraction. This won’t be easy, and will take leadership that we haven't yet seen.
• Support local journalism. There’s a link between vibrant local media and less-corrupt and economically vibrant places. We need to support professional journalism that holds the powerful to account and reports new ideas.

Social health

• Shelter the homeless, both by providing more housing and services. Obviously this is a broad topic with interconnecting issues. Services and emergency solutions need to be regional.
• Provide more access to doctors in B.C. About 700,000 lack access to a family doctor and 40% of current practicioners plan to retire or scale back. 
• Provide long-term care in Washington and Oregon. The failure of an initiative to repeal current funding in Washington means no back-sliding, at least.

I didn't mention crime, because it seems like a mostly local and sub-regional issue. Did I miss anything else? Meanwhile, get your Doug Fir paraphernalia and support Cascadia. It’s happening.

I published the following op-ed in the Nov. 11, 2010 edition of The Seattle Times. Please let me know what you think in the comments.

In the wake of last week's election, I've heard people across Seattle asking: What were Americans thinking? Pundits say the results were a call for smaller government and fewer services. Gov. Chris Gregoire even responded by pledging an "all cuts" budget.

But voters aren't stupid. They want government to creatively solve problems and deliver results especially at the local level, where it's most tangible.

The vast majority of my neighbors in Southeast Seattle are concerned about the basics. Most don't have time to regularly attend community meetings because they're fully occupied working long hours and taking care of their families. They elect representatives to make sensible decisions about complex issues for them.

What comes to mind first is creating jobs and opportunity. Even during the boom times leading up to the 2008 crash, the population of the city of Seattle was growing and the number of jobs was falling — a combination that eventually will mean more taxes on individuals to support city services.

To avoid that result, we need to make it easier to do business here. It shouldn't take years to get a building permit through approvals and opening a new business should be straightforward.

(more…)

During a breakfast presentation today in Seattle, the author Joel Kotkin delivered an optimistic forecast for our region that left everyone with a spring in their step. I enjoyed the message, but wonder if we took the right lesson.

The talk was in support of Kotkin's new book The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. (His previous book The City: A Global History was engaging so I was eager to hear him.) Kotkin is a cheerleader for suburbs and thinks growing population due to high immigration rates means America's prospects are good. (More on that on his Web site.) The Seattle area is particularly well poised to prosper from its position on the Pacific Rim, partly because, as he put it, Seattle is "like Portland with an economy." (On cue, laughs in the room.)

But he lost me when it came to describing the sort of land use and development we'll need to accommodate more people in 2050. He said that 86% of Americans now "want" to live in detached, single-family homes, a category that presumably includes everything from mansions on five-acre lots to tall, narrow urban infill homes.  More than once he said that today's planners are going too far by "forcing" people to live too densely.

(more…)

Here's a question to stoke some intra-Cascadia rivalry: is Vancouver's art scene better than Seattle's?

Is writer Jen Graves right? I'm not sure how much of her piece is just the "grass is greener," but the provocation is much needed.  She offers a few sensible suggestions, starting with celebrating our region's work in our museums:

The Henry should step up its game by exhibiting all six short listers rather than just the winner, while the Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland art museums should all start reconceptualizing the meaning of "regional," like the Henry is doing, and quick. (The "inclusion" of such places as Idaho and Montana in Tacoma Art Museum's biennial, for instance, reflects a fake constituency and has fake results. Art is now and has always been a city game. The art "region" is along or connected to the I-5 corridor, and in most ways, Seattle has more in common with Los Angeles than Spokane.

I published the following op-ed in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Now, after months of work and increasing media scrutiny, it's natural that some participants feel weary. Yet overall, this process has been open-minded, transparent and genuinely inviting of public input.

(more…)

The Port of Seattle Commission recently reversed itself, voting to not increase its property-tax levy on the homeowners throughout King County. Why?

The Seattle Times credited testimony by the Municipal League and individual taxpayers at a Commission hearing. Here's an op-ed we wrote that previously appeared in the paper:

Port of Seattle: Don't increase tax revenues

By Bradley Meacham and Bruce Carter

The Municipal League of King County recommends the Port of Seattle commission reduce the $8.1 million increase in the proposed 2009 real estate tax levy.

A league committee monitoring the affairs of the Port of Seattle has concluded the increase is not warranted, especially considering the financial meltdown that is dramatically afflicting business activity and real property values in King County.

(more…)

It's been a while but I can't stay quiet any longer. The reason? There's a report out today with a couple dozen recommendations to improve Metro Transit. 

The biggest deal is calling for a Metro — which serves the 1.9 million people of King County – to design its service around where people live and work rather than outmoded political compromises. Currently 80 percent of new service is divided among south and east King County, with the remainder going to Seattle, which has more demand and transit-oriented development.

The report was produced by a citizen committee organized by the Municipal League. (Yes, I'm biased since I'm League chair.)  It's just in time, too, because Metro needs more funding in order to meet soaring demand.  Most of the debate over transit around Seattle has been about light rail, streetcars and ferries. We also should get a better return on investment from our main existing transit service.

Much of the stuff in the report should be obvious: Metro needs more transparency about route performance, costs and accountability.  Hopefully shining a light on the agency and calling for the basics will help.

My arches still ache from traipsing to eight election parties last night in downtown Seattle in To Boot loafers.

The vote tallies were depressing (and today’s stock-market sell off and continuing slump in the U.S. dollar didn’t help the mood). A few takeaways:

— People don’t want “politics” and compromise. I held my nose and voted for transit and roads — Prop. 1 — arguing that the package was better than doing nothing. Evidently there was just too much there for everyone to dislike.

— Too few bothered to participate. Maybe Prop. 1 was so uninspiring that voters dismissed the whole election, which gave more power to obstructionists. How else to explain looney results like the victory of no-tax I-960 and the failure of simple majority for school levies?

— The Establishment needs a shakeup. Everyone from council members to the biggest companies got slammed. On Prop. 1, they spent too much capital on TV ads and slogans ahead of the election, and not enough on honing the package and then inspiring the rest of us that it made sense. The region’s leadership vacuum is clearer than ever.

So what’s next? For transportation, the first priority should be reorganizing transit planning to align growth with infrastructure. Then we need transit plans with a) incentives to change lifestyle patterns and b) infrastructure that will start to meet growing demand.

Hopefully there’s more to celebrate after the next vote.

People in Toronto have a crazy way of getting around the city: streetcars.

After a few days of enviously watching streetcars move through traffic-clogged streets (they have right of way), I finally snapped this picture on King Street.

There’s momentum to expand streetcars in Cascadia, though it seems to be a question whether they could work in a city bigger than Portland.

Seattle has a tiny starter line and an expansion is a small part of the transit package, Prop. 1, on the ballot next month in the Puget Sound area.

There will be few or no posts here during the next 10 days while I’m taking a vacation in Japan.

On Tuesday I’ll be giving a lecture on business and journalism at Akita International University. The rest of the time I’ll be visiting old friends and colleagues in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. It will be tough to stay away from the Web.