[Linking image: Detail from the Spheres at the heart of the Amazon campus, Downtown Seattle]

Seattle and the surrounding region are a study in fascinating and disquieting contradictions.

While the people of the region proudly celebrate and identify with the “natural” splendor of the Pacific Northwest setting, the shape of contemporary life in Seattle was only made possible by severe, traumatic, and permanent alterations to the natural environment and human relations therewith and therein. Though the Seattle-Tacoma region sits on unceded indigenous (Coast Salish) land in patterns literally founded on deeply settler-colonial and racist principles that have yet to be reconciled, the populous views itself as among the most progressive in the nation. Now home to some of the largest and most powerful tech companies on the planet—and with these, some of the richest individuals on earth—the city is facing deep crises borne of longstanding inequity, disparity, and displacement now accelerating amid rapid development. Here is an urban region that ostensibly has the resources, wealth, and cultural-political will to mitigate against some of the greatest challenges of the present . . . and yet? In short, this is a fascinating place to be an urban geographer and to try and engage with many of the issues just mentioned. More detail about some of the work I have been undertaking in these contexts is available below (click on the images for additional information).