Michael Luis

Goods producing sectors–mostly construction and manufacturing–are getting closer to the old normal, while services in general lag behind. Both GDP and employment will likely see long tails of recovery as high-touch services wait for safety and customers to return.

Seattle’s drop in October is even larger than in September and is right up there with the markets feeling the most pain. As with the regional data, it is difficult to see any national pattern.

The share of the region’s housing stock consisting of stand-alone single family houses fell from 60 to 57 percent.

The last time Washington added a new university, Evergreen State College, the state’s population was less than half of what it is today.

It will be many years before all-battery buses replace the current diesel and hybrid fleet. Difficult tradeoffs lie ahead.

A tight culture has more strongly enforced rules and less tolerance for deviance, while a loose culture has fewer strongly enforced rules and greater tolerance for deviance.

Washington State is home to a number of large military installations that employ tens of thousands of uniformed and civilian personnel, making it one of the largest concentrations of military activity in the country.

Software and internet industries pay 11 percent of all wages paid in the state. This is larger than all private sector industries and second only to the total of government wages. Software may not be eating the jobs numbers, but it is rapidly eating the income numbers.

It is difficult to imagine an easy path forward for transit as long as the coronavirus is a threat.

Every mayor and community development director in the country is trying to figure out how migration and settlement patterns, both national and local, will shake out in the post pandemic world, and there are few solid hints so far.