Extreme Seattle a bellwether for parts of North Central Washington?

Posted on August 28th, 2008 by Al_Lorenz

According to a post in Crosscut today, Seattle is one of the most extreme cities in the USA. How extreme? Seattle has few families, is highly educated and very gentrified. The big number is that Seattle averages only 2.08 occupants per household. The closest rivals of major cities are San Francisco and Portland at 2.24 and the national average is 2.61. A local Community Housing Steering Committee I am serving on shows a trend towards similar demographics in certain parts of North Central Washington.

Here’s an excerpt from the article and a link:

A related statistic is the share of households that are families with children; the Seattle share is 19 percent, San Francisco 18 (lowest in the country), and Portland 24. (The U.S. average is 31 percent share of families with children.) Conversely, the share of non-family households (singles, unmarried partners) is 55 percent (33 for the U.S.). Seattle is only slightly behind the winner, San Francisco, in the share of adults never married (51 percent to 52 percent, 30 for the U.S.). Lastly, the proportion of the population under 15 is 13 percent in Seattle and San Francisco, 18 percent in Portland, and 20 percent nationally. – Crosscut

How does this impact North Central Washington? Well, we’re seeing a bunch of migration from Seattle, and gentrification in places like Wenatchee, Leavenworth, Chelan and Manson. As these highly educated, traffic weary, often retiring folks move to our area, we may see similar gentrification and a lower average household occupancy. The article in Crosscut speaks to the good and bad associated with such a demographic.

For example, the City of Chelan’s current draft housing needs assessment speaks to household size projections moving from 2.4 as the average size in 2000 becoming 2.2 by 2020 and finally a projected average of only 2.1 by 2030, almost the same as Seattle’s! Does that mean that families will be relegated to the outlying areas in Chelan, like Seattle is seeing? According to the projected age structure, by 2030 one-third of the population will be over 60 in the City of Chelan.

If you have thoughts on what this trend might mean for North Central Washington, please comment!