City life again holds allure

E-mail this article Print this article Other links A map showing how Seattle has grown

Bouncing back from the suburban flight of the 1960s and 1970s, Seattle's population has reached a record high of 563,374 and is becoming more ethnically diverse as more Hispanics and Asians move in.

In a decade when Seattle saw the emergence of dot.coms, latte stands and high-rise downtown condominiums, the city's population rose 9 percent, according to U.S. 2000 Census data released yesterday. While people settled in all over the city, the hottest neighborhoods were downtown in Belltown/Denny Regrade and the International District, as well as north of the Ship Canal, in Bitter Lake and Haller Lake.

Of the 47,115 residents new to the city in the past decade, more than half were Asian and Hispanic.

Before now, the city's peak population was 557,087, recorded in 1960.

The information on population, racial makeup and age over the past decade shows a city that has more than rebounded from the losses of the 1960s and 1970s, when people were leaving the cities and Boeing went bust.

"The trend in the '70s and '80s is clearly reversed in the '90s," said Mayor Paul Schell, "and people are coming back to the cities."

Schell said he thinks part of the draw to Seattle is the desire to avoid long commutes.

The new figures outpaced state estimates, and fortunately for Seattle, many new residents are moving right where city planners want them: downtown near jobs and public transportation.

Census 2000 Seattle and Kirkland have the lowest percentage of kids under 18 in King County.

In Belltown and the Denny Regrade, the population doubled, with 6,000 new residents.

Most of the growth in that area has occurred since 1997, with the number of housing units jumping from 5,957 units to 7,760. Nearly 1,100 more are under construction.

The city is more than halfway to its goal, set in 1994, to add 6,500 new housing units in the area by 2014.

"I've been watching construction cranes the last five years," said Zander Batchelder, president of the Belltown Community Council and a Second Avenue resident.

He talked of "new urbanism" - a philosophy that encourages people to live, work and spend their spare time in the city.

The Chinatown/International District became a more popular place to live, increasing its population by more than 25 percent. Bitter Lake and Haller Lake grew by 10 to 25 percent.

While the minority population increased citywide, some of the neighborhoods that had the most noticeable gains were Delridge in West Seattle and North Seattle, above 85th Street.

Few neighborhoods lost population.

Of 124 census tracts in the city, 17 counted fewer people than 10 years ago, but the losses were barely noticeable. No tract lost more than 200 people. Some of the losses were in West Seattle, Georgetown, Madrona and Leschi.

Census 2000 More than half of Bothell's 144 percent growth came from annexation

Asians remain the largest minority in Seattle. At 13 percent of the population, they are becoming more dominant in comparison to blacks and Hispanics.

The black population, meanwhile, has not grown and may even have declined as a percentage of the overall population. At most, blacks comprise nearly 10 percent of the city's residents.

Hispanics have grown from 3.6 percent of the city's population in 1990 to 5.3 percent in 2000 - a faster rate than Asians. That growth mirrors the statewide trend.

Getting a detailed understanding of changes to Seattle's black population is difficult, especially because of changes to the census forms. For the first time, people were allowed to identify themselves as members of multiple races.

As for the substantial growth in the Asian community, Miebeth Bustillo-Mutchins, executive director of the Washington state Commission on Asian Pacific-American Affairs, said she thinks most of the growth in Seattle can be attributed to an influx of people from Southeast Asia. She expects the new census will reflect that.

Census 2000 Normandy Park lost nearly 5 percent of its population.

She also said much of this community is young and many of the families tend to be large.

Seattle did get a little older over the past 10 years, with the under-18 crowd making up nearly 16 percent of the population, down about 1 percent from 1990. Seattle remains older than the state average.

Seattle Times staff reporter Susan Gilmore contributed to this report.