SEATTLE likes to compare itself to its neighbors. On issues from light rail to cycling-friendly streetscapes to the business climate and innovation, Puget Sound residents look to places like Portland and San Francisco and wonder whether the region needs improvement or is doing it better than others.
Generally, those are matters of political and public will, leavened of course with the realities of public finance.
But in the coming decade, the demographic changes that metropolitan Seattle will face should prompt a look at another set of places more like the region than its West Coast neighbors.
Over the 2000s, the Puget Sound region ranked above the national average on measures of growth, educational attainment and racial and ethnic diversity. The Seattle region faces challenges and opportunities distinct from those in the less-diverse Portland area, or the much slower-growing San Francisco Bay Area.
New Brookings research instead counts Seattle among a series of growing, highly educated, diverse "Next Frontier" regions like Austin, Denver, and Washington, D.C.
Obviously, the writer doesn't know anything about Portland. Public will doesn't enter into anything here, and the politicians could care less about the realities of public finance. One reason for the disconnect :
Oregon’s public school system is one of the worst in the nation, ranking 43rd out of 50 states in educational performance.
State economists made a little math error. It only came to $14.5 million, but hey. A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.
