Seattle

Seattle is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound (an inlet of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. A major gateway for trade with East Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2021. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix, as well as the origin of the bands Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Heart, Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters, and the alternative rock movement grunge. The Seattle area developed into a technology center from the 1980s onwards with companies like Microsoft becoming established in the region. Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle in 1994, and major airline Alaska Airlines is based in SeaTac, Washington, serving Seattle's international airport, SeattleTacoma International Airport. Seattle also has a significant musical history. Between 1918 and 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District to the Central District. The jazz scene nurtured the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. The city's growth rate of 21.1% between 2010 and 2020 makes it one of the nation's fastest-growing large cities. Seattle has high populations of Native, Scandinavian, European American, Asian American and African American people.

History

Seattle is the primary city name, but also Burien are acceptable city names or spellings, Shorewood, White Center on the other hand no longer accepted or obsolete and are no longer used as a designation. The official name is City of Seattle. Seattle has a history of boom-and-bust cycles, like many other cities near areas of extensive natural and mineral resources. Seattle has risen several times economically, then gone into precipitous decline, but it has typically used those periods to rebuild solid infrastructure. The first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 179195 expedition for the Royal Navy to chart the Pacific Northwest. In 1900, Asians were 4.2% of the population of Seattle. Seattle became a major transportation center during the Klondike Gold Rush, which ended the Great Depression in 1893. The city was founded in the immediate wake of the fire that destroyed the central business district of the city in 1889. In 1855, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of trustees managing the city. That same year, Seattle acquired the epithet of the "Queen City", a designation officially changed in 1982 to "Emerald City". The name "Seattle" appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23, 1853, when the first plats for the village were filed. During this period the road now known as Yesler Way won the nickname "Skid Road," supposedly after the timber skidding down the hill to Henry Yesler's sawmill. The later dereliction of the area may be a possible origin for the term which later entered the wider American lexicon as Skid Row. In the early 1900s, Seattle saw numerous conflicts between labor and management that culminated in the anti-Chinese riots of 1885-1886.

Geography

Seattle is located between the saltwater Puget Sound (an arm of the Pacific Ocean) to the west and Lake Washington to the east. The city itself is hilly, though not uniformly so. Like Rome, the city is said to lie on seven hills; the lists vary but typically include Capitol Hill, First Hill, West Seattle, Beacon Hill, Queen Anne, Magnolia, and the former Denny Hill. The highest point within city limits is at High Point, which is roughly located near 35th Ave SW and SW Myrtle St. The sea, rivers, forests, lakes, and fields surrounding Seattle were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. Due to its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire, Seattle is in a major earthquake zone. On February 28, 2001, the magnitude 6.8 Nisqually earthquake did significant architectural damage, especially in the Pioneer Square area (built on reclaimed land, as are the Industrial District and part of the city center), and caused one fatality. The Cascadia subduction zone poses the threat of an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or greater, capable of seriously damaging the city and collapsing many buildings. It has a cool, mild, wet winters and relatively dry summers. The climate is sometimes characterized as a "modified climate" because it is cooler and wetter than a "true" Mediterranean, but shares the region's vegetation with the Mediterranean. The Seattle area is the only place in the U.S. where extreme heat waves are rare.

Demographics

Seattle's population historically has been predominantly white. The 2010 census showed that Seattle was one of the whitest big cities in the country. In 1960, whites constituted 91.6% of the city's population, while in 2010 they constituted 69.5%. According to the 2006-2008 American Community Survey, approximately 78.9% of residents over the age of five spoke only English at home. The Seattle area had the highest percentage of self-identified mixed-race people of any large metropolitan area in the United States in the 2000 United States Census Bureau. According to a 2012 HistoryLink study, Seattle's 98118 ZIP code (in the Columbia City neighborhood) was one. of the most diverse ZIP Code Tabulation Areas in the U.S. In 2021 Seattle experienced its first population decline in 50 years. It is estimated that King County has 8,000 homeless people on any given night, and many of those live in Seattle. Seattle has the fifth highest proportion of single-person households nationwide among cities of 100,000 or more residents, at 40.8%.Seattle has a notably large lesbian, gay bisexual, and transgender community. This was second-highest proportion of any major city, behind San Francisco. The Capitol Hill district has historically been the center of LGBT culture in Seattle, with 6.5 percent of the population identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. In 2006, after growing by 4,000 citizens per year for the previous 16 years, regional planners expected the population of Seattle to grow by 200,000 people by 2040. However, former mayor Greg Nickels supported plans that would increase the population by 60%, or 350, 000 people, by 2030.

Economy

Seattle's economy is driven by a mix of older industrial companies and "new economy" internet and technology companies. Seven companies on Fortune 500's 2022 list of the United States' largest companies are headquartered in Seattle. The Port of Seattle, which also operates SeattleTacoma International Airport, is a major gateway for trade with Asia and cruises to Alaska. Seattle is a hub for global health with the headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH, Infectious Disease Research Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. In 2005, Forbes ranked Seattle as the most expensive American city for buying a house based on the local income levels. Owing largely to the rapidly increasing cost of living, Seattle and Washington State have some of the highest minimum wages in the country, at $15 per hour for smaller businesses and $16 for the city's largest employers. In February 2010, the city government committed Seattle to become North America's first "climate neutral" city, with a goal of reaching zero net per capita greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The city has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption; coffee companies founded or based in Seattle include Starbucks, Seattle's Best Coffee, and Tully's. In 2006 former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced a desire to spark a new economic boom driven by the biotechnology industry. Major redevelopment of the South Lake Union neighborhood is underway in an effort to attract new and established biotech companies to the city, joining biotech companies Corixa (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), Immunex (now part of Amgen), Trubion, and ZymoGenetics.

Culture

Seattle is considered the home of grunge music, having produced artists such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Mudhoney. Rock musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Duff McKagan, and Nikki Sixx spent their formative years in Seattle. Seattle annually sends a team of spoken word slammers to the National Poetry Slam and considers itself home to such performance poets as Buddy Wakefield, Anis Mojgani, and Danny Sherrard. The city also hosts the 24-day Seattle International Film Festival, Northwest Folklife over the Memorial Day weekend, numerous Seafair events throughout July and August. Seattle is the largest city in the United States to host the Bumbershoot music festival, which is attended by 100,000 people every Labor Day weekend. There are numerous Native American pow-wows, a Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals associated with many of the city's ethnic groups. Seattle has "around 100" theatrical production companies and over two dozen live theatre venues, many of them associated with fringe theatre. The Seattle Cinerama stands out as one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel CinerAMA films. Seattle hosts the Antiquarian Book Fair & Book Show, an anime convention, a two-day Penny Expo, a gaming convention, and a gaming-day gaming festival. Seattle also hosts numerous other annual events, ranging from the Seattle Book Fair to a Bonnaroo music festival.

Religion

According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, the largest religious groupings are Christians (52%), followed by those of no religion (37%), Hindus (2%), Buddhists (2%) Jews (1%), Muslims (1%) and a variety of other religions have smaller followings. About 34% of Seattleites are Protestant, and 15% are Roman Catholic. Meanwhile, 6% of the residents in Seattle call themselves agnostics, while 10% call themselves atheists. The city has a population of 1.2 million. The population of Seattle is 1.3 million, and the population of the city is 2.1 million, according to the city's 2010 census. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 1.4 million people live in the city, and 1.6 million of them live in Washington state. The number of people living in Seattle has grown by 1.7 million since 2010, the Census Bureau says. It is the largest city in the U.K. with 1.8 million people. The City of Seattle has a total population of 2.2million, and it is the most populous city in Washington State, with 2.4million people. It has a Population Center for Research on Religion and Culture, which provides data on the state's religious and ethnic makeup. The Seattle Police Department has a database of more than 2,000 names of people who live in Seattle. It also has data on how many people in Seattle identify as atheist or agnostic.

Sports

Seattle's professional sports history began at the start of the 20th century with the PCHA's Seattle Metropolitans, which in 1917 became the first American hockey team to win the Stanley Cup. The Seattle Seahawks entered the National Football League in 1976 as an expansion team and have advanced to the Super Bowl three times: 2005, 2013 and 2014. The team played in the Kingdome until it was imploded in 2000 and moved into Qwest Field (now Lumen Field) at the same site in 2003. The Seahawks lost Super Bowl XL in 2005 to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Detroit, but won Super BowlXLVIII in 2013 by defeating the Denver Broncos 438 at MetLife Stadium. Seattle Sounders FC has played in Major League Soccer since 2009 as a continuation of earlier teams in the lower divisions of American soccer and the original North American Soccer League. The Sounders won their first MLS Cup after defeating Toronto FC 54 in a penalty shootout, in MLS Cup 2016; the team would go on to finish as runners-up to Toronto FC in the following cup. Seattle's Major League Rugby team, the Seattle Seawolves, play at Starfire Sports Complex in nearby Tukwila, a small stadium that is also used by the Sounders for their U.S. Open Cup matches. They began play in 2018 and won the league's inaugural championship. They successfully defended the title in the 2019 season. Seattle will be one of eleven US host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Parks and recreation

Seattle's mild, temperate, marine climate allows year-round outdoor recreation. In 2005, Men's Fitness magazine named Seattle the fittest city in the United States. In town, many people walk around Green Lake, through the forests and along the bluffs and beaches of 535-acre (2.2 km²) Discovery Park. Gas Works Park features the preserved superstructure of a coal gasification plant closed in 1956. Also popular are hikes and skiing in the nearby Cascade or Olympic Mountains and kayaking and sailing in the waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Straits of Georgia.

Government and politics

Seattle is a charter city, with a mayorcouncil form of government. From 1911 to 2013, Seattle's nine city councillors were elected at large, rather than by geographic subdivisions. For the 2015 election, this changed to a hybrid system of seven district members and two at-large members as a result of a ballot measure passed on November 5, 2013. The only other elected offices are the city attorney and Municipal Court judges. All city offices are officially non-partisan. Seattle is widely considered one of the most socially liberal cities in the United States, even surpassing Portland. In the 2012 U.S. general election, a majority of Seattleites voted to approve Referendum 74 and legalize gay marriage in Washington state. All precincts in Seattle voted for Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. In partisan elections for the Washington State Legislature and United States Congress, nearly all elections are won by Democrats. In 1926, Seattle became the first major American city to elect a female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes. It has also elected an openly gay mayor, Ed Murray, and a third-party socialist councillor, Kshama Sawant. Bruce Harrell was elected as mayor in the 2021 mayoral election, succeeding Jenny Durkan, and took office on January 1, 2022. The mayor's office also includes three deputy mayors, appointed to advise the mayor on policies. As of 2022, the city's deputy mayors are Monisha Harrell, Tiffany Washington, and Kendee Yamaguchi. Most of the city is in Washington's 7th congressional district, represented by Democrat Pramila Jayapal, the first Indian-American woman elected to Congress. Part of southeastern Seattle is in the 9th District,represented by Democrat Adam Smith.

Air Quality, Water Quality, Superfund Sites & UV Index

The Air Quality index is in Seattle, King County, Washington = 36. These Air Quality index is based on annual reports from the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The number of ozone alert days is used as an indicator of air quality, as are the amounts of seven pollutants including particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, and volatile organic chemicals. The Water Quality Index is 59. A measure of the quality of an area’s water supply as rated by the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The EPA has a complex method of measuring the watershed quality, using 15 indicators such as pollutants, turbidity, sediments, and toxic discharges. The Superfund Sites Index is 20. Higher is better (100=best). Based upon the number and impact of EPA Superfund pollution sites in the county, including spending on the cleanup efforts. The UV Index in Seattle = 2.6 and is a measure of an area's exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays. This is most often a combination of sunny weather, altitude, and latitude. The UV Index has been defined by the WHO (www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/radiation-the-ultraviolet-(uv)-index) and is uniform worldwide.

Employed

The most recent city population of 737,015 individuals with a median age of 39.7 age the population grows by 6.87% in Seattle, King County, Washington population since 2000 and are distributed over a density of 8,775.03 residents per square mile of area (3,387.95/km²). There are average 2.07 people per household in the 277,849 households with an average household income of $57,390 a year. The unemployment rate in Alabama is 7.80% of the available work force and has dropped -0.89% over the most recent 12-month period and the projected change in job supply over the next decade based on migration patterns, economic growth, and other factors will increase by 30.42%. The number of physicians in Seattle per 100,000 population = 334.8.

Weather

The annual rainfall in Seattle = 35.9 inches and the annual snowfall = 11 inches. The annual number of days with measurable precipitation (over .01 inch) = 155. The average number of days per year that are predominantly sunny = 152. 75 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily high temperature for the month of July and 36.7 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily low temperature for the month of January. The Comfort Index (higher=better) is 72, where higher values mean a more pleasant climate. The Comfort Index measure recognizes that humidity by itself isn't the problem. (Have you noticed nobody ever complains about the weather being 'cold and humid?) It's in the summertime that we notice the humidity the most, when it's hot and muggy. Our Comfort Index uses a combination of afternoon summer temperature and humidity to closely predict the effect that the humidity will have on people.

Median Home Cost

The percentage of housing units in Seattle, King County, Washington which are owned by the occupant = 44.30%. A housing unit is a house, apartment, mobile home, or room occupied as separate living quarters. The average age of homes = 50 years with median home cost = $361,940 and home appreciation of -8.83%. This is the value of the years most recent home sales data. Its important to note that this is not the average (or arithmetic mean). The median home price is the middle value when you arrange all the sales prices of homes from lowest to highest. This is a better indicator than the average, because the median is not changed as much by a few unusually high or low values. The property tax rate of $10.66 shown here is the rate per $1,000 of home value. If for simplification for example the tax rate is $14.00 and the home value is $250,000, the property tax would be $14.00 x ($250,000/1000), or $3500. This is the 'effective' tax rate.

Study

The local school district spends $5,072 per student. There are 18.9 students for each teacher in the school, 538 students for each Librarian and 479 students for each Counselor. 6.51% of the area’s population over the age of 25 with an Associate Degree or other 2-year college degree, 29.62% with a master’s degree, Ph.D. or other advanced college degree and 16.86% with high school diplomas or high school equivalency degrees (GEDs).