As the saying goes, “aging is not for sissies.” Cities, like people, do not fare much better with the aches, pains, growth, and challenges of aging and change. A city can do everything right and still not age well. A municipality can also let itself go, seemingly be stressed, and still have desired tourist destination cache — think New Orleans.
Federal Way seems to be working on finding an aging sweet spot of achieving a pleasant ordinariness.
Right now, the Millennials and Generation Z are the primary market for lifestyle building and require housing, schools, and employment. They are desiring crime-free lifestyle bubbles as destinations to launch families. Can Federal Way answer the bell with sufficient quality community resources, services, and cache to support the next generations seeking lifestyle advantages?
The Millennials and Generation Z are searching for the perfect bubble to catapult their lives into greatness, and if we pay attention, we will benefit. Could Federal Way be the catalyst to achieving their dreams? At present, our rallying cry seems to be we have time to rethink our future as we retool what is here with an eye toward becoming … what?
Looming in the background and still making their presence felt is the Baby Boomers generation. They are a unique challenge, due to size, and trying to maintain the feeling of being the focus of whatever they are doing. Their relevance is transitioning, but they present significant challenges.
Less than 50 percent of them are financially secure in retirement, meaning that at least half are being pushed to the edges and struggling. Communities tasked with finding paths to assure future growth and prosperity as they move forward are being challenged by aging residents with reduced means, resources and shelter stress.
Managing a city based on anticipated growth is a luxury not all cities have. Federal Way’s current growth profile seems to be running counter to the state’s projected growth. King County is growing at a 0.3 percent rate, but not all cities are experiencing a positive growth trend. According to Census Quick Facts, Federal Way experienced a 3 percent drop in population, or a population reduction of about 3,000 people, since the 2020 census.
This is interesting because Federal Way is putting the finishing touches on its Comprehensive Plan and projecting housing needs, future population and service trends. One would assume that our current population decline is a temporary glitch that will self-correct as housing availability increases, and if and when affordability issues lessen.
Overall, the Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma metropolitan area is experiencing generational growth, and our state now has a population of over 8 million. This area now accounts for slightly over 4 million of the state’s population. The state’s projected growth for the next 30 years is expected to slow, but our state is likely to add another million in population.
Cities experiencing population growth are behind the curve in being able to serve existing housing needs. The challenge of building a sufficient number of new units within the existing footprint adds to the complexity, and needing to gain community support while minimizing disruption and fears of cultural change are considerations that need to be understood.
Increasing housing density requires acceptance of increased use of mid-rise, high-rise, walk-up apartments/stacked multifamily combined mixed-use developments, transitional housing, emergency housing, and temporary shelter. Federal Way is projecting its need to be an additional 11,260 units by 2044. The city currently has over 36,500 units and the majority of them were built before 1990 which gives our city a lived-in and mature feeling of vegetation and dwelling unity.
The challenge for our residents to understand is that plans and projections are guidelines and expressions of need based on the best information that can be gathered and assimilated into a planning document. When done well, comprehensive plans define a community’s ability to adjust its thinking in the present while positioning itself for a coherent change process that increases the ability of developers and land owners to collaborate and partner with the city in meeting its targeted housing and growth needs.
That is the ideal, but many longtime residents of Federal Way are still operating within its past perception of once being a bucolic modern bedroom community. That ship has sailed and we have more in common with an urban city than a rural suburb.
Depending on where you are in our city’s age strata, financial security, job type, family size, education, and worldliness — you have a point of view about the city’s growth challenges affect you. You may be a proponent of the changes being recommended in the city’s planning document, or you may be resisting because you prefer things as they are. Our elected leaders and staff need to find a balance between these opposite viewpoints.
Ultimately cities attract, keep people engaged, and build a purposeful community by focusing on lifestyle and jobs, striving to be more than ordinary, and finding ways to elevate everyone’s well-being. To achieve some of the growth goals desired, the city needs to increase its housing stock across a spectrum of income targets by about 23 percent in the next 20 years. This is an aggressive challenge and will not be welcomed by everyone — nor will it be easy.
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Keith Livingston is a retired municipal management professional, lifelong artist and Federal Way resident. He can be reached at keithlivingstondesign@gmail.com.
