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Washington
Puget Sound's Quality Growth Alliance to Provide Smart Growth Expertise for Region
Many of the 60,000 students, faculty and staff who commute daily to University of Washington (UW) in Seattle are increasingly handicapped by high fuel costs or an aged transportation system, and they would fare better if they lived in communities with easy transit access everywhere as would all current residents and the additional 1.7 million expected in the four-county region by 2040, along with 1.2 million new jobs, wrote UW President Mark Emmert in a Seattle Times guest opinion before the inaugural forum of the region's broad-based Quality Growth Alliance -- its agenda focused on ''the creation of walkable, compact communities in urban centers,'' investment in multimodal transportation, and protection of the environment.
A fruit of the landmark Reality Check envisioning session, held April 30 by the Urban Land Institute Seattle, the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), UW College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Enterprise Community Partners, the Cascade Land Conservancy, the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties, Futurewise, and the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, he noted, the Quality Growth Alliance will apply their joint knowledge and political force to accommodate the new residents and jobs in the best suited areas, to strengthen the economy, and to preserve the Northwest way of life.
''With research assistance from the UW on the climate-change impacts of land use decisions and other growth-related issues, the alliance will provide land-use expertise to those places where most growth is expected to occur,'' the UW president pledged. ''We'll research local and national best practices, providing community and state leaders with the most current research to inform good land-use decisions. The alliance will highlight success stories by hosting an awards program.''
Among its key endeavors, he mentions Decision Commons, a virtual decision-making tool -- developed together with Microsoft, Seattle, and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce -- which will help planners and municipal leaders ''create and see three-dimensional views of the street-level experience of more people, jobs and investments in our urban centers.''
Alerting readers to its inaugural forum on September 23, he stated, ''With a strong foundation of broad commitment to a shared vision, the Quality Growth Alliance is poised to act on a 21st century agenda.''
Agenda details at www.qualitygrowthalliance.org. Seattle Times 9/19/2008
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