Gene Balk, the FYI Guy at The Seattle Times, shared his views on three critically-important statistics to track in Seattle over the coming year.
We’ve been tracking two of these spotlighted issues in this newsletter. One is the return of workers to their offices downtown. While tourism is virtually back to pre-pandemic levels, the downtown office workforce in November 2022 was only 42% of 2019 levels. Will 2023 see a significant increase in workers’ return to downtown offices?
The second issue covered extensively in this newsletter is population growth in Seattle. In the 2010s, Seattle was the fastest-growing large city in the U.S., adding more than 100,000 people. However, the pandemic stalled that growth as the city lost almost 4,300 people from July 2020 to July 2021 (a drop of .6%). Will population growth return to Seattle in 2023?
The third issue is inflation and the cost of living in Seattle. The cost-of-living index cited by the reporter identifies Seattle as one of the ten most expensive cities in the country. How will inflation impact the affordability of life in Seattle in 2023?
