Larger Cities
This alternative has the second most focused growth pattern, focusing residential and employment growth in the core suburban and larger suburban areas, with more moderate amounts of growth in the metropolitan cities.

Metropolitan Cities
The region’s five metropolitan cities would absorb much of the housing and job growth. Core suburban cities would also grow substantially.

Smaller Cities
This alternative results in the most dispersed growth pattern, distributing housing and jobs to the smaller suburban cities and to the outlying areas, and significantly reducing growth in the dense urban areas as compared to the other three alternatives.

The region has many different kinds of places, which have been classified into “regional geographies” (see descriptions below). The categories were based on current incorporated boundaries, population and employment, adopted urban growth areas, the locations of designated regional growth centers, and current thinking about the variety of roles that different broad classes of cities might play in the region’s future.

The four growth alternatives distribute forecasted growth of population and employment to these regional geographies in different ways. The objective was to explore the different roles that these geographies might play in accommodating future growth, and gain a better understanding of potential impacts if the region were to grow in different patterns.

Growth ranges at the individual city and county levels were developed and used as technical inputs in order to perform more detailed analysis of the four alternatives in the draft environmental impact statement.

Below are some examples of what the four alternatives might mean for particular places in the region. It is important to note that these more detailed numbers are preliminary and are meant to illustrate the types of county and city growth ranges that might be possible under the four conceptual regional growth alternatives. They are not growth forecasts or proposed local growth targets, and local level growth ranges will not define the preferred regional growth alternative that is developed.

Tacoma (Metropolitan City) Alternative Population Employment Year 2000 193,564 113,243 Growth Targets 307,056 175,983 Metro Cities 338,833 178,999 Larger Cities 266,198 142,468 Smaller Cities 229,881 127,855 Other metropolitan cities: Bellevue, Bremerton, Everett, and Seattle.	Lynnwood (Core Suburban City) Alternative Population Employment Year 2000 33,847 25,670 Growth Targets 44,850 39,337 Metro Cities 55,786 42,245 Larger Cities 60,174 42,245 Smaller Cities 42,623 31,195 Other core suburban cities: Auburn, Bothell, Burien, Federal Way, Kent, Kirkland, Lakewood, Puyallup, Redmond, Renton, SeaTac, Silverdale (Kitsap County), and Tukwila.
Issaquah (Larger Suburban City) Alternative Population Employment Year 2000 11,212 16,875 Growth Targets 24,267 39,539 Metro Cities 24,131 40,897 Larger Cities 37,050 88,941 Smaller Cities 15,518 28,886 Other larger suburban cities: Bainbridge Island, Des Moines, Edmonds, Kenmore, Marysville, Mercer Island, Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo, Sammamish, Shoreline, University Place, and Woodinville.	Port Orchard (Smaller Suburban City) Alternative Population Employment Year 2000 7,693 5,242 Growth Targets 13,152 8,174 Metro Cities 12,547 7,420 Larger Cities 10,120 7,420 Smaller Cities 22,254 18,311 Smaller suburban cities: Algona, Arlington, Black Diamond, Bonney Lake, Brier, Covington, DuPont, Edgewood, Fife, Fircrest, Gig Harbor, Lake Forest Park, Lake Stevens, Maple Valley, Medina, Mill Creek, Milton, Newcastle, Normandy Park, Orting, Pacific, Port Orchard, Poulsbo, Ruston, Steilacoom, Sumner, Beaux Arts, Clyde Hill, Hunts Point, Woodway, Yarrow Point, Buckley, Carbonado, Carnation, Darrington, Duvall, Eatonville, Enumclaw, Gold Bar, Granite Falls, Index, Monroe, North Bend, Roy, Skykomish, Snohomish, Snoqualmie, South Prairie, Stanwood, Sultan and Wilkeson.
Unincorporated Urban Growth Areas Alternative Population Employment Year 2000 604,343 117,289 Growth Targets 1,017,776 215,334 Metro Cities 689,957 178,255 Larger Cities 775,571 239,221 Smaller Cities 1,203,639 544,051	Rural Areas Alternative Population Employment Year 2000 492,573 64,301 Growth Targets 721,964 105,059 Metro Cities 578,186 125,266 Larger Cities 578,185 125,265 Smaller Cities 663,799 186,231

Long-time PSRC staff member Peter Beaulieu is moving on to new adventures after 35 years of service to the citizens of the region. Pete is known throughout the central Puget Sound region and beyond for inspiring innovative and collaborative approaches to public policy, most recently for the movement of freight and goods through our Pacific Rim location. He has been a key figure in the formation and ongoing work of the public-private Regional Freight Mobility Roundtable (1994 –) and the interagency FAST Corridor Partnership. Both of these activities have brought national recognition to the region by taking more cohesive approach to the movement of goods statewide and helping to move everything better.

“Pete Beaulieu has always been a quick study and generous with his insight and his humor. He works through problems and reads situations faster than any one I’ve ever met, and you can’t help but admire someone whose opinion is respected by others who may have a completely contradictory position on the same issue,” said Chip Wood, USDOT, Office of the Secretary.

“Pete has become a one-man freight ‘communication hub.’ He knows the key people in government and in the private sector. They all trust him because he does not have a hidden agenda.   It also helps that he is very smart and very knowledgeable,” said Dan O’Neal, chair of the Washington State Transportation Commission.

“His reach goes well beyond the PSRC geographic boundaries.  Those of us who have worked with him on freight matters have respect approaching awe for his intelligence and work ethic.  He will always enjoy our admiration and affection,” O’Neal said.  Ken Casavant, Transportation Economist at Washington State University, notes that, “Pete was the first to reach out past the local area and understand that freight was a regional and statewide issue, working with the researchers and planners of eastern Washington in a holistic approach to the transportation issues.  His understanding of data and the functions underlying those data was a strength that will be sorely missed.”

Pete was born on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, grew up in Richland, Washington, and moved to Seattle after serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War and then as part of the carrier recovery team (USS Hornet) for the Apollo XI and XII lunar missions in 1969. At the University of Washington, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in architecture in 1967. He received his PhD in Urban and Regional Planning in 1975, completing an interdisciplinary dissertation on economic development in multicultural settings, using Singapore and Southeast Asia as his case study. A short-term assignment at the PSRC’s precursor, turned into a varied and remarkable career. Prior to spearheading freight planning Pete helped foster early regional efforts to coordinate planning and actions on a range of capital investment and environmental issues. In the early 1980s he chaired the citizen/interagency committee that helped shape Seattle’s complex and politically challenging comprehensive water supply plan.

With a sharp intellect and a wry sense of humor, Pete is appreciated by friends and colleagues for his professionalism, creativity and risk-taking. “Pete is the Puget Sound’s freight mobility brain trust. His expertise is at the level of national expert,” said Andrew Johnsen of the BNSF Railway, charter organization of the Roundtable.

Karen Schmidt, executive director of the Freight Mobility Strategic Investment Board, describes Pete as “the state’s freight godfather” who has nurtured numerous levels of improved freight focus and planning both within the Puget Sound region, as well as statewide efforts such as the Freight Mobility Strategic Investment Board and the new freight office at WSDOT. “It is no accident that all of these efforts are coordinating for a unified seamless approach to improving freight mobility. Pete has worked hard to get everyone moving in the same direction,” Schmidt said. Pete’s response is: “If I know anything about this stuff, it’s because I listen to what all these folks are saying, and try to remember some of it at those times when it matters.”

For the immediate future, Pete’s plan is “simply to rinse out my head, and visit friends and relatives mostly on the West Coast, and to get into art work again. Any bigger decisions will come later.” In early July he will attend the funeral of a long-time friend and freight authority with the Transportation Research Board, and the USS Hornet’s last commanding officer, RADM Carl Seiberlich, at Arlington National Cemetery.

Pete regards his professional opportunity with the Roundtable as “the best job in the world,” and will miss the genuine collegiality that is taking place. On the personal side, Pete has been adjusting to the passing of his treasured and supportive wife, Kristi, who surrendered to cancer in late 2001. He has completed a book about many of their experiences, including home hospice and Pete’s later reflections (Kristi: So Thin is the Veil), to be published this summer by Crossroad Publishing (New York). It is unusual, he says, that the publisher has left every page and line of the manuscript intact. The 400 pages include 16 original drawings, mostly of Northwest settings.

The national Alliance for Regional Stewardship announced that the central Puget Sound region, along with Pittsburgh and the San Fernando Valley, is the winner of the 2006 cash prize for effective regional stewardship.

The Puget Sound region received the recognition through Prosperity Partnership, a growing coalition of over 170 government, business, labor and community organizations within King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish counties dedicated to developing and implementing a common economic strategy. The home of Prosperity Partnership is the Puget Sound Regional Council. The Prosperity Partnership jointly submitted the region's application with the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle.

“On behalf of the Puget Sound region I would like to express gratitude to ARS and the Morgan Foundation for recognizing the vital role of effective regional stewardship in building strong economies and livable communities through social inclusion and collaborative governance throughout the nation,” said Bob Drewel, Executive Director of the Puget Sound Regional Council. “Prosperity Partnership is one big way we’re demonstrating that regional collaboration is alive and well, and making a difference, here in the Northwest.”

As a center for high-tech industries, the central Puget Sound region suffered more than other regions when the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. However, recent trends indicate that the region’s high tech sector is on its way to making a recovery.

High-tech employment in the central Puget Sound region peaked in late 2000— estimated at 154,000 jobs as of March 2001. Between 1995 and 2001, the region gained over 60,000 high-tech jobs at a rate of 8.8 percent. However, between 2001 and 2003, the region experienced a steep decline, with a loss of approximately 22,000 jobs or 7.5 percent. The most recent available numbers show that high-tech employment stabilized from 2003 to 2004, with a slight net addition of over 1,000 jobs.

Overall, the region gained 40,000 high-tech jobs (or 4.1 percent) since 1995, and is beginning to recapture some of the 22,000 jobs lost between 2001 and 2003. Software had the largest gains in employment between 1995 and 2004, with an increase of more than 22,000. The Software sector has consistently held the largest share of high-tech employment in the region. In 1995, Software sector jobs accounted for 21 percent of the total jobs, and by 2004, the sector had increased its share to 31 percent. The second largest increase between 1995 and 2004 occurred in Computer Related, which added 9,000 jobs. This sector had the second largest share of high-tech employment in 2004 with 17 percent. Telecommunications had the third largest gain with an addition of almost 5,000 jobs.

More information about high-tech jobs is available in the June issue of Puget Sound Trends, available online at psrc.org or through the PSRC’s Information Center, 206-587-4825. For more information, contact Kristen Koch at 206-587-5667 or kkoch@psrc.org. Detailed employment estimates for the central Puget Sound region are available at psrc.org/datapubs/data/index.htm.

Table 2: Percent Change in Regional High-Tech Employment
	1995-2001	2001-2003	2003-2004	1995-2004
Aerospace	4.1%	-14.6%	-4.5%	-1.3%
Biotech	5.3%	2.1%	-2.1%	3.7%
Computer Related	17.3%	-19.7%	0.5%	6.0%
Electronic Equipment	4.0%	-21.8%	-4.0%	-3.3%
Instruments and Related Products	2.3%	-6.0%	-7.0%	-0.7%
Scientific and Technical Services	4.7%	-3.9%	3.1%	2.6%
Software	12.2%	1.2%	4.5%	8.8%
Telecommunications	7.4%	-7.1%	0.6%	3.2%
Total High-Tech Industries	8.8%	-7.5%	0.9%	4.1%

The employment data shown in this Trend come from PSRC’s covered employment database, which allows for analysis at detailed industry levels. The employment numbers represent covered jobs during March of the given year. Covered employment accounts for 85-90 percent of total jobs, including part-time and temporary employment, but does not account for self-employed workers, proprietors, CEOs, military, or other non-insured workers. The data lags behind a year due to processing time by PSRC and the Employment Security Department.

The PSRC high-technology NAICS groups were developed based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) definition of high-tech. Industries are considered high-tech if the employment in technology-oriented occupations accounted for a proportion of that industry’s total employment that was at least twice the 4.9 percent average for all industries. The PSRC high-tech sectors include private industry employment only. Please note that the Aerospace sector does not include Boeing due to the company’s predominance in the sector.

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