Doug Trumm
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrian streets, bus lanes, and a mass-timber building spree to end our housing crisis. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood and loves to explore the city by foot and by bike.
Mayor Jenny Durkan announced $100 million of affordable housing investment yesterday at a press conference at the Filipino Community Center in Rainier Valley. The $100 million more than doubled last year's Seattle Office of Housing budget, which tallied $47 million. Seattle passing a doubled housing levy and the Seattle City...
The first run of Amtrak Cascades service to Portland using the Port Defiance Bypass ended in tragedy as it derailed near Dupont, Washington. Some of traincars spilled off a railbridge and onto southbound I-5, colliding with five vehicles. Three train passengers died and more than 70 were injured. Our...
Thursday morning the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) hosted a drop-in session on the redesign of NE 65th St at Broadcast Coffee in Roosevelt. A few dozen people trickled through to get questions answered or give feedback. Some street safety advocates pressed SDOT to improve the design, particularly for...
Lid I-5 hosted a charrette on September 16th dedicated to sketching out a design for a freeway lid on the stretch of Interstate 5 that separates Wallingford and the University District. Breaking into five teams, participants brainstormed and drew up designs to realize that freeway lid. The results demonstrated...
A coalition of 24 neighborhood groups announced an appeal of the City of Seattle's Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) rezone plan. The alliance calls itself the Seattle Coalition for Affordability, Livability, and Equity (SCALE) and threw a litany of complaints at the proposal, claiming the status quo would be better...
Peter Calthorpe breaks down some scenarios for growth using as examples California and Chongqing, China in this TED talk from April. Calthorpe argues sprawl isolates--and counter to prevailing wisdom, it can be high density, citing gated high-rise superblocks in China as an example. He highlights seven principles the Chinese...
Seattle's wealthiest residents have something extra to be thankful for this Thanksgiving as the King County Superior Court issued a ruling invalidating Seattle's 2.25% tax on annual incomes above $250,000. Though clearly a setback for a progressive tax push, the tax measure's defendants--City of Seattle and the Economic Opportunity...
The Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) released its preferred alternative for the Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) zoning changes earlier this month. Much was made of difference between Draft Alternative 2 and Alternative 3--which had a displacement analysis--but, for the most part, the preferred alternative sticks to the...