WA State of the Cities Report

Small town leaders are much more optimistic than big city leaders in a new report on the State of the Cities Report from the Association of Washington Cities (AWC). I picked up the report when I was at their annual conference last week and read it on the plane coming home.

At one of the small town committee meetings that I attended, it was pointed out that 215 of the 281 members of the AWC have a population of fewer than 10,000. The state is big but skewed in population toward Seattle.

The State of the Cities Report broke the state down into 14 categories including Regional Centers; Rural Commercial Centers; Tourism/Light Industrial Hubs; and Rural Communities that matched with the 9 agurbs® that I chose in the state.

When asked if they were optimistic or pessimistic about being able to provide citizen-demanded services over the next 5 years, Central Cities (like Seattle) were only 33% optimistic. This contrasted to Rural Communities at 54%; Tourism 50%; Rural Commercial Centers 27% and Regional Centers at 38%.

Even more pronounced was the difference on the question of providing economic development opportunities over the next five years. Central Cities were at 33% compared to Rural Communities at 43%; Tourism 67%; Rural Commercial Centers at 27% and Regional Centers at 75%. Regional Centers, which tend to have a more well diversified economic base, had the highest percentage of optimism.