Rubén Casas
Rubén joined The Urbanist's board in 2022. He is a scholar and teacher of rhetoric and writing at the University of Washington Tacoma. He is also the faculty lead of the Urban Environmental Justice Initiative at Urban@UW. In his work and advocacy, Rubén examines how cities and the institutions that comprise them imagine, plan, and build in ways that promote and/or discourage community and a sense of place.
Tacoma has the least tree canopy in the Puget Sound Region. Residents experience this reality in higher average temperatures and poor air quality.
On a recent walk through the Hilltop neighborhood, I came across a stretch of sidewalk decorated with polka dots, each about a foot in diameter and spaced...
Scuttling bus rapid transit plans, Pierce Transit is moving ahead with a scaled back express bus shadowing Route 1.
Bus rapid transit (BRT) along Pacific Avenue/State Route 7 in Pierce County is no longer feasible, according to Pierce Transit. The agency’s board met on August 14th and voted to effectively...
Sound Transit has announced a “celebration” marking the opening of the Tacoma Link Hilltop Extension for September 16th. The agency does not stipulate that the 16th is the official opening of the line, stating only that the extension is opening “very soon.”
Wilbert Santos, a Sound Transit representative, tells The...
Tollefson Plaza in downtown Tacoma confounds me. It’s an attractive space next to a bustling university campus and an art museum. It is adjacent to a pedestrian urban trail, near the city’s convention center, and it is flanked by well-served multi-modal transit stops. But it’s nearly always empty, a...
Tacomans contend with their streets and roads
This is the last of three vignettes depicting possible conversations between imaginary people in Tacoma as the city grapples with growth, densification, and other forms of change.
A common topic across all of these stories will be Home in Tacoma, an ambitious plan to overhaul...
This is the second of three vignettes depicting possible conversations between imaginary people in Tacoma as the city grapples with growth, densification, and other forms of change.
A common topic across all of these stories will be Home in Tacoma, an ambitious plan to overhaul Tacoma’s zoning laws to allow denser...
This is the first of three vignettes depicting possible conversations between imaginary people in Tacoma as the city grapples with growth, densification, and other forms of change.
A common topic across all of these stories will be Home in Tacoma, an ambitious plan to overhaul Tacoma’s zoning laws to allow...
In recent years, cities in the Northwest have responded affirmatively to calls to make housing more available and attainable through zoning reform. Portland, Oregon, adopted wide reforms in August 2020 that are meant to promote infill by making it easier to build “middle housing,” a category that includes smaller...