Population, Employment, and Housing

This chapter describes historical and current population, employment and housing characteristics in the central Puget Sound region. It then describes these characteristics for each of the four alternatives.

Current Trends

The central Puget Sound region continues to be one of the faster growing metropolitan areas in the U.S. This section provides an overview of its historical and forecast trends in population, employment, and housing to establish a context for exploring the potential growth impacts among the four alternatives.

Population

The Region's Population Today. The region was home to a population of almost 3.4 million residents in 2003, and is forecast to continue to grow as people move here in pursuit of job opportunities and to enjoy the remarkable quality of life offered by the central Puget Sound area. The region has a relatively young and very well-educated labor force in comparison to the nation.

Increased in-migration from other parts of the country and the world has enriched the region's communities with a growing diversity of cultures, languages, and knowledge.

Employment

The Region's Economy Today. Many of the region's traditionally strong employment sectors, such as forestry, fishing, agriculture, manufacturing, and aerospace, have declined in the past years. Forestry and fishing may decline further, while other new industries might emerge. Ongoing efforts to diversify the economic base have borne fruit, however, and have helped the region to better weather economic recessions.

Some new industries, such as biotechnology and life sciences, have grown particularly well in the past few years. New opportunities and markets have been opened with the rise of local companies gaining international prominence, such as Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Paccar, and Starbucks.

The region is also home to a very strong and growing small- and medium-sized business sector. As of 2003, 82 percent of all establishments in the region had 10 or less employees (almost 14 percent of total covered employment), with over 16 percent of the remaining establishments falling into the 10 to 99 employees range (almost 35 percent of total covered employment). These percentages are almost exactly the same in each county (CEDS, 2004).

Housing

The Region's Housing Today. The economic boom of the late 1990s generated a significant rise in demand for housing across the region, particularly around its major employment centers. Housing demand, buoyed by in-migration, wealth creation, and decreasing mortgage loan rates, intersected with a tight housing supply to produce rapid increases in housing prices. From 1997 to 2003, average rents in the region's four counties rose between 20 to 33 percent, and median home resale prices increased between 36 to 55 percent. However, rent increases have slowed in recent years.