Join us in welcoming Linda Hanlon as the new lead editor of The Urbanist.
Linda relocated to Seattle from Ohio in 1990, the year that the Growth Management Act established goals for where and how Washington state’s human population would grow, and it set methods to evaluate relationships — including citizen engagement, and historic and cultural preservation — with shorelines, forests, open spaces, and wetlands.
Implementing the Growth Management Act over the past decades highlights actions to both protect this place and to make sure that the quality of life for all living beings matters. Because Hanlon had witnessed suburban sprawl in Ohio, which was obliterating important farmlands and forests, the success of the Growth Management Act is important to her here in the Pacific Northwest as area populations keep growing.
Hanlon continues to be involved with environmental advocacy and outdoor activities, especially bicycle touring, hiking, camping, and sea kayaking.
For the past five years she has been living in Port Townsend where she has been helping with multi-use trail development and bicycle route networks. She is also an artist and graphic designer. Her managing editor experience goes back to Ohio where she was the founding editor of a statewide bicycling magazine, BikeOhio, which was published later as Bike Midwest until 2008.
In Port Townsend she is also involved with affordable middle housing issues. The lack of housing (availability is less than 1%) is eroding the ability of businesses to fill open jobs, and it has forced workers to commuter farther due to limited and expensive housing — sometimes as far away as Bainbridge and Whidbey Islands. She sees housing, transportation, and economic sustainability as interconnected. One cannot be managed without considering the impacts and opportunities to and for the others.
Hanlon says she looks forward to getting to know readers, contributors and the broader community of urbanists in the days ahead.
The Urbanist is always looking for contributing writers (volunteer and freelance). Please contact us with questions and pitches at editor [at] theurbanist.org. More information at www.theurbanist.org/write/.
And don’t worry readers: former managing editors Ray Dubicki and Natalie Bicknell Argerious are still around and will be contributing articles and podcast episodes. And executive director Doug Trumm will still be chipping in everywhere to keep the lights on and fill in where there are gaps.
The Urbanist staff occasionally teams up to cover breaking news or tackle large projects. See more about our team on the staff page.
