Regional Growth Centers
VISION 2020 is the central Puget Sound region's adopted long-range growth, transportation, and economic strategy. A central goal of VISION 2020 is to foster a regional growth pattern that focuses development into urban growth areas (UGA), and increases the portion of jobs and housing that occurs in regional growth centers within the UGA. In the central Puget Sound region, 21 regional growth centers have been designated by countywide planning organizations.
Centers are relatively small areas where housing, employment, shopping, and other activities are in close proximity. They come in a variety of sizes and types, ranging from large, established downtowns that serve major portions of the whole region, to emerging suburban crossroads. The term "regional growth center" is used to differentiate centers that are designated for regional purposes from those that have a more local focus.
The Development Toolkit project focused on six centers:
These six centers, shown in blue on the adjoining map, were selected because they present a diverse set of situations that are representative of the whole set of centers, with some growing fast and others developing more slowly.
The center "stories" are meant to complement the thorough inventory of center-related data compiled as part of the 2002 Regional Growth Centers report. The data on each of the center pages references changes between 1990 and 2000, except for employment, which references changes between 1995 and 2000.