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It's time to vote for Seattle City Council, a housing levy, and elected positions all over King County. The Urbanist has published its general election endorsements. Get out your ballots, use the endorsements to pick the best candidates, and make sure they're returned by November 7.
In this episode, co-hosts Natalie Argerious and Ray Dubicki break down the issues facing Seattle in this election and then review the endorsements. Gotta say that the Election Committee did a good job on some, but left us wanting on a couple of others. Also, lutefisk.
In other news, this will be Natalie and Ray's last episode as co-hosts of The Urbanist Podcast. We are moving on to a couple of new ventures, including some new podcasts that you may enjoy. You can find us at infiniteshoplimited.com or @popcitypod. We appreciate your listening to us through three seasons of The Urbanist Podcast.
Editor's note: Apologies for the mispronunciation of Jorge Barón's name in this episode. Please note that the correction pronunciation is HOR-heh bah-RONE. -
Primary election ballots are arriving in the mail and due by August 1st. In the run up The Urbanist Elections Committee has been hard at work prepping endorsements for what is shaping to be an exciting (and consequential) primary election. In this podcast episode, host and reporter Ray Dubicki chats with Election Committee members Rian Watt, Urbanist executive director, and Maya Ramakrishnan, eviction attorney, about the committee's endorsements.
Want to know more about their process for scrutinizing dozens of candidates and figuring out who to endorse? Interested learn why some candidates were chosen and others cast aside? This podcast episode will take on all of this and more.
Do you want to give props to our Election Committee for their hard work and rigorous process? Or maybe you feel they made the wrong call in an endorsement? In any case, we want to hear from you. Reach out to us with your comments, questions, and future episode ideas at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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Summer is (finally) here for families with kids in Seattle Public Schools! In this mini episode, hosts Ray Dubicki and Natalie Argerious reflect on how we got to this late start to summer and look forward to what's ahead. A great companion piece to this episode is Ray's recent op-ed on Mayor Harrell's vision for Downtown Seattle. Be sure to check it out.
This is the last episode of our third podcast season. Although we are taking a break from recording, we will be checking our email this summer, and we'd love to hear from you about your summer adventures and ideas for future episodes once return in September. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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Summertime gets us thinking about whole bunch of stuff, including grass. In cities across North America, grass yards are often a symbol of wealth and success and in many areas have a cult status. But what are some of the pros and cons of covering land in a plant monoculture? What happens when deadly grasses like foxtail invade? And is it true that in the right conditions synthetic turf can melt?
We discuss all of these questions and more in this episode. While look forward to you listening, if you are a dog or outside cat owner and don't know yet about how dangerous foxtail is, please also take a moment to check out this article from WebMD. It's seriously scary stuff and the more pet owners know about how to keep their pets safe, the better. Let's keep the furry ones safe.
We would love to hear your plans for a yard without grass. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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Cascadia is uniquely set up as a region that would support high-speed rail. Between the linear arrangement of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC, and the just-over-100 mile distance between each one, the super region could be tied together by a fast. It's an idea being pushed by a number of actors, including the Cascadia Innovation Corridor, Microsoft, and anyone who REALLY needs to get back north for the Michelin starred roast duck at iDen & Quanjude Beijing Duck House.
In this episode, co-hosts Natalie and Ray discuss a recent report on planning for high speed rail from the Urban Infrastructure Lab at the University of Washington's College of Built Environments. The report looks at a half dozen other high-speed rail projects around the world and draws lessons from their construction and operation. The biggest take away of all: plan to provide great high speed rail service. It's a little different than the infrastructure plans Cascadia normally undertakes.
Here's a link to the report: https://mic.comotion.uw.edu/our-work/ultra-high-speed-rail-project/
We would love to hear your plans for what to do in a neighboring city if it was only an hour train ride away. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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The Urbanist recently reported on Seattle snagging the 8th slot in the Trust for Public Land's 2023 national ParkScore index.
In this episode, Natalie Argerious speaks with the Trust for Public Land's (TPL) Linda Hwang, Senior Director, Strategy and Innovation of the Land and People Lab, and Ronda Lee Chapman, Equity Director, about their organization's work to create more quality public parks throughout the US.
Whether its research, advocacy, or community outreach, TPL is involved in a lot of interesting efforts. The pandemic showed us how important parks our to people's health and well-being, yet an estimated 100 million Americans lack easy access to one.
As mentioned in the episode TPL has also recently launched a podcast, People. Nature. Big Ideas, featuring conversations about how our connection with the natural environment helps build vibrant communities. Be sure to check it out.
Do you want to give a shout out to your favorite park? Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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Last week, we published an oral history of Washington State's missing middle housing bill. Creating this episode involved interviewing several of the lawmakers and advocates, like Representative Jessica Bateman (D- Olympia) and Bryce Yadon, lobbyist for Futurewise, who were involved in the legislation's path to success. There were so many good insights in the interviews that we decided to revisit a few more things we learned from these important conversations before shifting our focus to the future.
In this episode, we also consider what the next steps will be for implementing statewide missing middle housing policy, as well as other ways Washington State can address its housing affordability and scarcity woes.
We want to know your idea for policies that can help more abundant, affordable housing. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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In this year’s legislative session, the Washington State Legislature passed extensive housing reform. House Bill 1110 compelled many cities in Washington to open up single-housing residential zones to long-banned duplexes, cottage courts, and small apartments. Such middle housing has been missing from the calculation for years, and it’s no wonder that housing has become unaffordable in that time.
It took a lot to pass that legislation. In this episode, Doug Trumm and Ray Dubicki bring together interviews with key players who worked . You will hear from Marcella Buser from Futurewise and Cliff Cawthon from Habitat for Humanity of Seattle-King and Kittitas Counties about the process of building a coalition. Carl Schroeder from the Association of Washington Cities will talk about reaching compromise among many that may not really be interested. And Bryce Yadon from Futurewise and Senator Yasmin Trudeau will talk about working the floor in the state legislature. Through it all, lead sponsor of HB1110, Representative Jessica Bateman, will narrate the process.
We want to know your thoughts on the passage of HB1110 and the hurdles middle housing needs to overcome in Washington. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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In this episode, civil engineer and Urbanist contributing writer Donna Breske discusses her experience with the frustrating hurdles posed by the permitting process in Seattle with podcast host Ray Dubicki.
Breske works on the kind of urban infill projects that the City of Seattle purports to want to see built, but in her experience, impediments in permit process, particularly for utilities, end up crushing development plans. Breske has shared some of these case studies in articles for The Urbanist and in a Permit Impediments Forum hosted at Seattle University. One of these articles focused on water system upgrades and permitting was just published this Friday -- check it out! In this conversation with Ray, she shares her perspective as a civil engineer on what's not working and how Seattle could do things better.
As always, we love to hear from you. Tell us if you've also encountered impediments with permits or if it was smooth sailing for your development. We are also interested in your questions, comments, or ideas for future episodes. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.You can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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Sound Transit CEO Julie Timm was our guest for The Urbanist's monthly talk series. Timm took the reins in September after coming out on top in a national CEO search to replace Peter Rogoff. She left her post as CEO of Greater Richmond Transit Company in Virginia to take the top job at Sound Transit.
The discussion features a wide range of topics facing Seattle's light rail, from the issues with escalators to the order of stations opening. Timm provides a very frank observation many of the high visibility problems faced by the system. Given the size and complexity of this moving, well used system, it is not about avoiding outages, "the question is how are you going to minimize it."
You can always get in touch with The Urbanist Podcast at podcast (at) the urbanist.org. Let us know if you enjoy getting audio from the meetups in this podcast feed, and we'll continue making that happen. -
We get a lot of news-ish emails about ranking cities in lists. Whether it's the best cities for strange hats or the metros one can find the most left handed plumbers, there's a list for everything.
The proliferation of lists begs the question of their quality. Who is making them, are they trustworthy, and are the lists even useful at all? In this episode, Natalie and Ray look at what makes a city ranking list good and how much entertainment can we draw out of the bad ones. Check out the show notes at theurbanist [dot] org for links to the lists we discuss in the episode.
As always, we love to hear from you. Tell us where you rank Seattle and the metrics you're using, as well as any questions, comments, or ideas for future episodes. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
You can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners. -
This week Ray Dubicki and I chat about the policy changes that have been proposed for Seattle's industrial zones. These policies have been in the works for a long time and are finally coming up for consideration by the Seattle City Council in May and June.
While we may associate industrial lands with factories, these days in Seattle they are more likely to be the location of big box stores or storage rental facilities. This is problematic since, at their core, industrial zones are supposed to be job creators. Fortunately, the proposed policies do a pretty good job of addressing this issue. In the episode, we dive into how the proposed industrial rezones could make some positive changes and how they could be even further improved. Ray has become our in-house subject matter expert on industrial lands, and as such he also penned this article on the topic.
As always, we love to hear from you. Tell us what you’re reading, as well as any questions, comments, or ideas for future episodes. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
You can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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In this week's episode, podcast host Ray Dubicki discusses the Heroes and Zeroes of the recent state legislative session with Urbanist Executive Director Doug Trumm.
Heroes and Zeroes is a standing tradition at The Urbanist, and this year's session concluded on some high notes as missing middle housing and climate action achieved victories. But there were some disappointments along the way too. This episode will cover the legislators who hustled bills past the finish line, as well as those who watered bills down or flat out blocked them.
As always, we love to hear from you. Tell us what you’re reading, as well as any questions, comments, or ideas for future episodes. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.You can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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Sometimes we feel a modicum of shame that we're not reading enough books. As the pile on the nightstand gets taller, the guilt grows. There's absolutely no reason for that to be the case. Many of us spend all day, every day reading something. Literally, you're reading this right now. Good job.
In this episode, Ray and Natalie talk about the varied things we're reading. And it's not just books, we cover some of the articles, children's books, and tingling romance novellas that have been in our e-readers and browsers for the last few months. Also, go thank a librarian because they're awesome.
As always, we love to hear from you. Tell us what you're reading, as well as any questions, comments, or ideas for future episodes. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.You can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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Every one knows there are two things you can't escape in life, death and taxes. While I'd add a few more items to that list, it seems that with Washington State having such an, ahem, unique tax system, the time had come for us to tackle the topic of taxes on The Urbanist podcast.
So in this episode, Ray and I talk about Washington State's tax system -- the agrarian origins of how we became one of a select few U.S. states without an income tax, what it means to be one of these states, and what efforts have been under way to make Washington's tax system fairer. We also share our "dream" taxes and cover the wealth tax that was proposed in the state legislature this year.
Also, if it sounds like I was abducted and had to call into the podcast from a 1950's AM radio frequency, don't worry, I'm fine and 100% in 2023. And by next week I'll have the right adapter on hand for my microphone. Ham radios are really cool, but sounding like you're on a ham radio on a podcast is not. Apologies.
As always, we love to hear from you. Tell us anything you’ve heard from the podcast that you’d like an update about, questions, or ideas for future episodes. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.You can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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Thank you for contacting The Urbanist Podcast. It is Spring Break, so co-hosts Ray Dubicki and Natalie Argerious are out of the office this week. So please enjoy a couple of unaired clips and updates from earlier stores we covered. We assure you that tiki shirts are being worn.
As always, we love to hear from you. Tell us anything you've heard from the podcast that you'd like an update about, or any of the weird into-the-ether conversations Ray has with his computer while clicking on things. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
You can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners. -
In this episode, co-hosts Natalie Argerious and Ray Dubicki welcome Ron Davis to talk about a proposed Jump Start Tax Holiday in the city of Seattle. Ron last joined the pod to talk about how the city's comprehensive planning was lacking a level of seriousness. This tax holiday idea is not all that different.
The Jump Start tax was passed by Seattle's City Council in 2020 after years of attempting to find a progressive revenue stream tapping into the biggest earners and businesses in the city. Surviving a number of challenges, the tax raised enough revenue to plug the city's budget hole. Now, interests are arguing that the city's recovery requires businesses secure a holiday from this tax.
It is also time for The Urbanist’s Spring Subscriber Drive. If you enjoy this podcast or the reporting and advocacy we do, please consider becoming a subscriber. Details are at the urbanist.org/donate.
As always, we love to hear from you. Tell us your expectations for the future of light rail in Seattle, and what you want to see from new stations. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
You can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners. -
It is simultaneously exciting and trying times for transit in Seattle. Over the next few years, dozens of new stops will open in Bellevue, Lynnwood, and Federal Way. At the same time, future extensions are facing dual headwinds of being overly complex and lightly understood, even by elected officials tasked with deciding their locations. On Thursday, the Sound Transit executive board heard testimony from the community about where to identify as preferred station locations in the Chinatown International District and downtown. The meeting was long.
Co-hosts Natalie Argerious and Ray Dubicki talk with The Urbanist's senior reporter Stephen Fesler about the comings and goings of light rail in the city, what exciting things are coming and the difficult issues facing future development of the system.
It is also time for The Urbanist's Spring Subscriber Drive. If you enjoy this podcast or the reporting and advocacy we do, please consider becoming a subscriber. Details are at the urbanist [dot] org [slash] donate.
As always, we love to hear from you. Tell us your expectations for the future of light rail in Seattle, and what you want to see from new stations. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.You can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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It is spring of 8th Grade in the Dubicki household, so we have been investigating options on where to attend high schools. Seattle Public Schools offers schools in a home attendance area as well as option schools, allowing families to choose whether a school outside the neighborhood is a better fit. We looked at a few.
Host Natalie Argerious questions co-host Ray Dubicki about whether the choices made about school were bad or worse for living and raising kids in an urban place, and Ray's overall sense of failure as a parent. Whether detaching a school from a neighborhood is a good thing and continuing fallout from pandemic teaching leads us to wonder what an ideal school district would look like, it all ends up being judgment on parenting and *SOB*.
What has been your experience with schools around Seattle? Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners. -
In this week's episode, co-hosts Natalie Argerious and Ray Dubicki are joined by conservation educators Hanae Bettencourt, Josh Morris, and Kate Lanier from Seattle Audubon. We get to talk about birds! The good news: it's fun to get into birding and Seattle's a great place to do it. Unfortunately, there is some bad news too. The region's birds face a number of threats, including window strikes and our resident "adorable murder machines" -- cats.
Come to find out that, due to its location between mountains and water, Seattle is home to a wonderful array of bird species. From the to the super smart crows of Bothell to the migrating Rufous hummingbird, the region does well for spotting all sorts of interesting species. And getting into the habit is easy, regardless of the stereotypes that hang on bird watching. Here's a link to the Merlin bird identifying app we talk about in the show. But really, the only thing it takes to watch birds is getting outside and giving them a little attention. Which is good for us too.
Is there a fantastic bird you've seen or a place you enjoy listening to our winged residents? Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
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