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| City Guide - Seattle - City Overview | ||
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City Overview Founded in 1869, the 'Emerald City' is a young city, which experienced its first boom in the late 1890s as the last US departure point for those chasing the Klondike Gold Rush. Now, Seattle is the primary international and domestic gateway to Washington State and the lush Pacific Northwest, as well as Canada and Alaska. Recently, it has been at the forefront of a number of international trends - the influences of Microsoft and the e-commerce boom, Starbucks coffee, the grunge music scene and the new Frank Gehry designed Experience Music Project Museum have all raised the city's image. Seattle has also been continuously voted one of America's most liveable cities, due in a large part to its beautiful natural setting, surrounded by the waters of Lake Washington and Puget Sound, with spectacular views of the Cascades and the Olympic Mountains, including its highest peak, Mount Rainier. The climate is moderate, with bright summer days outlining the mountains against blue skies, even the mist and rain of winter give an ethereal touch to the city's atmosphere. Numerous ports, waterways and small islands off the coast also lend Nordic comparisons. Located in the western coastal part of Washington, the Greater Seattle Area has a population of 3.1 million and spreads over 155 sq kilometres (60 sq miles) and so is Washington state's largest urban centre, even though the city itself has only 534,700 inhabitants. Over the past 30 years, the region has grown nearly twice as fast as the national average and part of the disproportion of Seattle's city population and its outlying areas is because of sprawl brought on by the high-tech revolution. Since Bill Gates opened Microsoft in Redmond in 1975, the city has become a world centre of the industry and also home to a legion of 'Microsoft Millionaires' who invested in stock in the early years of the company's boom. Consequently, property prices in the city have soared, banishing those with more mundane occupations to the outlying suburbs and leading to a relentless spread of highways and cheaper condominium complexes where there were farms and woodlands. The part of the city that has suffered the most in the suburban push has been Seattle's old downtown, where the famous Pike Place Market still overlooks the bay and Pioneer Square contains the city's few historic buildings. There are still plenty of galleries and trendy pubs but the area tends to be deserted after dark when commuters have left and the city's many homeless are more in evidence. The trendiest areas are now Capitol Hill, as well as Belltown, Fremont and Ballard. These historic neighbourhoods have appealed to Seattle's young and well-off, who have the money to restore the turn-of-the-century wooden houses and old brick industrial buildings into elegant homes, designer lofts, quirky shops and galleries or nightspots. Without question, Seattle is a city of youthful dynamism with its eye on the high-tech future and the profits and innovations this new industry can bring. |
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