Cities Matter!
While many people think of the Greenway as being about trails, parks, and open space, it is also a place where cities matter! Cities are essential to the Greenway Trust’s work of creating a high quality of life for people in this region.
The vast majority of people in the Greenway live, work, and play in cities (over 94% of people in King County live in urban growth areas). Cities and towns can be viewed on a grand scale as important centers of civic life, generators of culture, and engines of growth. They are also human scaled communities where our kids go to school, we run into neighbors in local coffee shops, we commute to work, we take a walk in a park, and we explore vibrant neighborhood centers. Cities are the engines of economic growth in the region now that the natural resource industry is playing an increasingly smaller role relative to other industries. In addition to being where most people make a living, cities are also where people create a life for themselves. It is of the utmost importance to the livability of our region that Greenway Cities are healthy, fun, vibrant, affordable, equitable, sustainable, culturally rich, safe, diverse, prosperous, and beautiful! Currently the Greenway’s main focus in cities is in improving parks and helping to create citywide and regional trails for walkers and bikers.
Just how many cities are within the Greenway’s newly defined boundaries? There are officially 28 cities and towns in the Greenway:
- Beaux Arts
- Bellevue
- Bothell
- Carnation
- Cle Elum
- Clyde Hill
- Duvall
- Ellensburg
- Hunts Point
- Issaquah
- Kenmore
- Kirkland
- Lake Forest Park
- Maple Valley
- Medina
- Mercer Island
- Newcastle
- North Bend
- Redmond
- Renton
- Roslyn
- Sammamish
- Seattle
- Shoreline
- Snoqualmie
- South Cle Elum
- Woodinville
- Yarrow Point
Stay tuned for more cities blog entries. Coming up next in the series is a lighthearted look at some interesting trivia about each of the 28 cities.
