Unlike Tacoma’s neighbor to the north (Seattle), which saw a dramatic turnaround in results with Katie Wilson coming in from behind the incumbent by 9 points to lead a week later, Tacoma’s Mayoral election was essentially settled on election day - with former Tacoma Councilmember Anders Ibsen (who represented District 1) again defeating Councilmember John Hines (currently representing District 1) in a citywide electoral rematch.
The Election as a Geographic Test Every election is a test of the sentiments of the public. Do they seek to change or to stay the course? Are the people hungry for new leadership? Are they satisfied with public services and infrastructure, the economy? And where are these sentiments the strongest or the weakest throughout a geography? It’s difficult to answer these questions, and damned near impossible without actual data.
I would like to wish my friends in China on the other side of the world a Happy New Year and happy year of the snake. I hope that this year brings you all good health, prosperity and new possibilities.
If you live in the West and haven’t noticed, a quiet revolution has been taking shape on a Chinese social media app called Xiaohongshu or RedNote. In the lead up to this revolution, the US federal government enacted a draconian law meant to coerce, censor and align content filtration on the short-form social media app Tiktok with the incoming Administration.
Tacoma has spent a lot of energy and effort to revitalize its downtown into a vibrant urban center and to plan for future growth in its mixed use growth areas. These centers are meant to provide walkable commercial services, densifying environments, with added opportunities for housing, public amenities and access to robust public transportation.
Growth centers are classified into three broad categories: Regional Growth Centers, Neighborhood Centers and Crossroads Centers. There are only two Regional Growth Centers: Downtown and Tacoma Mall, which represent the largest areas in the city with the highest levels of land use intensity in terms of commercial and residential development.
