This book investigates the new urban geographies of "smart" metropolitan
regionalism across the Greater Seattle area and examines the
relationship between smart growth planning strategies and spaces of
work, home, and mobility. The book specifically explores Seattle within
the wider space-economy and multi-scaled policy regime of the Puget
Sound region as a whole, 'jumping up' from questions of city politics to
concerns with what the book interprets as the "intercurrence" of
city-regional "ordering." These theoretical terms capture the
state-progressive effort to promote smarter forms of regional
development but also the societal/institutional tensions and outright
contradictions that such urban development invariably entails,
particularly around problems of social equity. Key organizing themes in
the text include: the historical path-dependencies of uneven economic
and social development, particularly between Tacoma-Pierce County and
Seattle-King County; current patterns of high-wage, medium-wage, and
low-wage jobs; the emerging spatial and social structure of recent
residential changes, especially with respect to class and race
composition; and, finally, transit trends and new urban spaces
associated with policy efforts to mitigate highway congestion and
car-dependency. Greater Seattle, then, is mapped as a key US urban
region inscribed spatially by the uneven search for a more sustainable
order.
Historically-sensitive, theoretically-informed and empirically topical,
this book is of interest to scholars and students at all levels in
regional planning, urban geography, political science, sustainability
studies, urban sociology and public policy.