Seattle-Tacoma Sprawl Worst in Region

By Peyton Whitely, a Seattle Times Staff Reporter - July 25, 2002

The Seattle-Tacoma area has the worst land-use sprawl in the Pacific Northwest.

Fixing it may mean living in tighter neighborhoods, giving up cars and stopping building new roads that encourage people to live far from their jobs.

Those conclusions were described in a new report and presentation yesterday by an environmental group that's spent years studying how the region is dealing with growth.

"The metropolitan region uses 25 percent more land per resident than does greater Portland and 75 percent more than greater Vancouver, B.C.," said the report issued by Northwest Environment Watch (NEW), a Seattle-based research center.

The report used population data from U.S. and Canadian censuses and took the analysis down to individual city blocks.

The report generally found the Seattle-Tacoma area has done poorly in coping with the problems caused by its rising population. The area gained 461,000 people in the 1990s, and an additional 1 million people are expected by 2025.

Some solutions were presented at a morning panel, which compared the Seattle area, Portland, and Vancouver, B.C. The panelists were King County Executive Ron Sims; former Portland City Commissioner Charlie Hales; and Gordon Price, a Vancouver city councilman.

Each sounded the same theme: Basic changes are needed in the way areas cope with growth if they're going to avoid the massive costs of sprawl.

The changes, in essence, involve developing what NEW described as "compact growth" - residents living in places with more than 12 people per acre.

At densities less than that, life is nearly completely dependent on cars, said Alan Durning, NEW executive director. With 12 or more people per acre, most activities can be accomplished by walking or taking mass transit, which affects how a place looks and functions, he said.

The report said King County made some progress in dealing with sprawl in the 1990s.

In 1990, it said, 21 percent of Seattle-Tacoma area residents lived in compact communities. That percentage had grown to 25 percent by 2000. Residential development in downtown Seattle, and in older, denser towns and neighborhoods accounted for much of that change.

The compact-community rate also varies by county, with King County leading among King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. King County had 28 percent of its population in compact communities in 1990 and 33 percent in 2000.

"But despite this slight gain, the bulk of population growth - 55 percent, or 253,000 new residents over the decade - took place in low-density areas with fewer than 12 people per acre. Car-dependent sprawl is still the norm for the region, as it has been since the 1950s," the report said.

The two biggest obstacles for the Seattle area, Sims said, are transportation and affordable housing.

He noted that Seattle's Belltown is the fastest growing area in the county, yet the average sales price of housing there is $450,000, putting it out of reach of most buyers. Sims said there's no question compact communities can work.

"People have made a market decision and are moving into compact neighborhoods," he said, choosing to give up long car commutes in favor of places where shopping, parks and other desirable features are outside their doors, rather than miles away.