Nice visual and commentary.
Beautiful image but sad story, Chris. Here in Auckland we just keep building and building and still not enough housing!
Don't despair, Chris, the greens' global warming will take care of them.
Very telling image, thank you for sharing.
This is happening all too often and in once gorgeous areas. Some call it progress, I call it sad. I keep hoping like crazy the Skagit Valley doesn't get paved over. Some of the best farmland in the world. The pressures in the region though, coming from Seattle are so intense. Much of the farmland is preserved, but it's a hard life to make a living and money talks and who knows for how long. What drives it in many ways is the way we live as Americans in the USA. Density? No way. People want their acre in the middle of the "country".
Seattle, the region, is slowly being destroyed. Areas that were once great hiking places even on weekends, are now parked up on both sides of the road for a mile into the parking lots. I don't know what the solution is. I suppose I didn't grow up here, so I'm not any better.
Amazon doesn't care. I was happy when they looked to build their second HQ elsewhere (to the "I'll give away the most" desperate City).
Even up Mt Vernon way is getting a bit crowded. I was out there last summer to take the ferry over to Friday Harbor and was surprised at how much the area between the interstate and Anacortes had filled in. Fortunately, however, the Honda dealership saved my bacon, so guess I am grateful for the build out.
Living in Anacortes, yes I see bits of it too, but nothing like South. There's a lot of protections in place (for now) for the farmland to remain such. But.. the pressure is still there. Maybe we need a nice cold wet winter to weed out the weaklings.
However, some may argue that your scene is far better (dense buildings/housing?) that seeing suburban neighborhoods where everyone has huge "lawns" taking over farmland. No, we are not FROM anacortes, or even Washington State. We do living on essentially rock with no real value from an ag perspective though. But, many are unhappy with any growth.
It took the better part of the morning to travel from Burlington to Tacoma leaving at 5am...traffic in Seattle was just horrid. Too many people jammed up against the Snoqualmie mountains. Ugh, not likely to make a return visit unless it is via Canada.
Too many people in the world.