Sightline Institute Research

Editor's introduction: John Vaillant is a Cascadian icon. An award-winning and bestselling author residing in Vancouver, British Columbia, he has written gripping tales, both fiction and nonfiction, on the nuanced interfaces between people and nature. Vaillant's 2023 Pulitzer finalist book Fire Weather: On the Front Lines of a Burning World recounted the harrowing 2016 megafire in the Alberta oil...

Over the last eight years, a bipartisan coalition of Oregon lawmakers has led North America on a new trend: state-level zoning. As zoning restrictions spread across the continent almost exactly 100 years ago, state and provincial governments mostly delegated to cities all decisions about where and what sorts of housing should be allowed locally. During the century that followed, that led to proble...

You made it! The last contestant standing on an old-school game show. "Behind Door Number One" your charming host reveals, "a pile of rocks!" Behind Door Two, he grins, "a slightly larger pile of rocks!" And, gesturing to the last door with a glimmer of gold pouring out from beneath, "or will our lucky winner pick the million-dollar mystery prize?" It's a no-brainer. But as you reach for the knob,...

Pop quiz: What do Bruce Harrell and Lorena Gonzalez have in common? Hint: It's something they also share with both Tammy Morales and Tanya Woo, as well as Ann Davison and Nichole Thomas-Kennedy, Cathy Moore and ChrisTiana ObeySumner, Dan Strauss and Heidi Wills, and many others besides. These candidates are mostly on opposite sides of Seattle's political spectrum. Each pair of competitors comprise...

There's a reason most experience the thrill of whitewater rafting with a seasoned guide. Rivers have forks, twists, and turns, and it helps to have someone along who can navigate them. In a tumultuous time for politics in the United States, leading election reform in a place like Juneau Alaska, can feel much the same: it's exhilarating to be out front leading a movement, but there are certain rout...

With a miniscule portion of the city's budget, democracy vouchers deliver a whopping impact. The program's funding is up for renewal this August, and it's a great deal. The renewal budget, $4.5 million per year in property taxes, is just 0.053 percent of the city's $8.5 billion 2025 budget. Renewal is an even smaller proportion of the budget than the original 2015 levy (which you also needed a mag...

Critics of Seattle's democracy vouchers often point to one trend as evidence of the program's fallibility: a rise in local "independent expenditures." That is, dark money campaign funding vehicles like super PACs. Despite their upsides, critics say, vouchers have simply pushed millions of big-donor dollars from official campaigns into less transparent and accountable forms, rendering the program a...

In 2023, Washington state legislators attempted to make it easier to build long-distance power lines. Recognizing that more wires are essential to reaching 100 percent clean electricity - and that, quote: "transmission projects take a decade or more to develop and permit" end-quote, lawmakers directed a state agency to preemptively analyze the environmental impact of these projects. More specifica...

Six years after a monumental rezone, Governor Kotek's HB-2138 will fill the gaps to more fully legalize starter homes. Almost six years after Oregon became the first state to re-legalize duplexes, fourplexes, and cottage clusters throughout urban areas, the effects have arrived. From Gresham to Grants Pass, permits are being pulled, roof beams are rising, and first-time homebuyers are signing thei...

Our road-tested messaging guide to gain more great neighborhoods and the homes we need, and to kick excess asphalt to the curb. Parking policy shapes our lives. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. Today's rules chronically overprescribe far more parking than people really need. Parking is systematically overbuilt - by law. First, you'll begin to notice the vast stretches of empty pavement in...

A decade in, and up for renewal in August, Seattle's model campaign funding program has blasted past even its ambitious initial goals. Money doesn't always win elections. But it sure does help. And Cascadia's biggest city has a proven tool that democratizes who gives to city-level candidates: democracy vouchers. The program is now ten years old and has been through enough election cycles to tell i...

Lessons and strategies for parking flexibility advocates elsewhere. Last week, Governor Bob Ferguson's signature made it official: Washington has passed the strongest statewide rollback of costly parking mandates in the United States. The bill does many things, but put simply, it means that in most places across the state, onerous parking requirements will no longer limit the homes and businesses...

Lawmakers just passed groundbreaking bills on parking, TOD, and more. There's a healthy competition brewing between states that are taking action for housing abundance. But as of May 2025, Washington leads the pack. Its legislature just passed best-in-the-US bills on both parking and transit-oriented development, along with a half-dozen other policies that address the state's housing shortage and...

Data centers are the first real test of the region's climate ambitions. They might also create opportunities to achieve them. A Sightline Special Report by Sightline's Climate and Energy Program Director Emily Moore. Published on May 14, 2025. For a full list of sources, attributions, and appendices, as well as charts and graphics, please download the PDF version of this report at www.sightline.or...

A Sightline report finds that - with the right policies - the region could harness data center demand for clean power to decarbonize the broader economy. Each week seems to bring a new warning about a looming, unprecedented surge in electricity demand in the Northwest, with data centers largely to blame. Tech companies, with their seemingly insatiable appetite for power, appear to be blowing the r...

Bipartisan efforts won a string of bills for more homes, lower costs, and less red tape for Montanans - with lessons for other states. Something big is brewing in Big Sky Country: an ongoing bipartisan revolution in housing policy. In 2023 Montana passed an ambitious package of land use reforms, making it easier for the state to meet its growing demand for housing. This year the legislature's cros...

Proportional representation would deliver fairer representation for voters countywide. Can your voice be heard if you're in a small red bubble in a blue sea? Or if you see yourself as one of a handful of blue flowers in a field of red? In most of Cascadia's governing bodies, the answer is no. In the region's prevailing winner-take-all elections, whichever side gets the most votes wins all the powe...

Understanding the partisan split on nonpartisan electoral upgrades. ... In an era where everything from electric vehicles to candy mascots seem to divide Americans largely along partisan lines, there's one thing voters across the country agree upon: the political system isn't working well. Unfortunately, if 2024 election reform measures in Cascadia are any indication, there isn't a similar consens...

More than two dozen bills aim to unlock great neighborhoods, greater affordability, and less red tape for Washingtonians. Washingtonians from Spokane to Sequim, Washougal to Wenatchee, are struggling to afford homes and rents in their communities due to a deep housing shortage. While recent years' laudable legislative actions have begun to relegalize more homes, in all shapes and sizes, it will ta...

Line extension allowances are on their way out, and regulators can finish the job. Line extension allowances - the term of art for the utility customer-funded subsidies for new gas pipes - are finally, slowly on their way out of Cascadia. This is thanks to regulators who recognize the contradiction of, on the one hand, utility customers subsidizing the proliferation of carbon-intensive gas infrast...

State leaders are considering measures to allow ranked choice voting and turnout-boosting even-year elections, protect voting rights, increase language resources for elections, and more. Washington State leaders are pursuing democracy and elections upgrades that would improve representation across the broad array of Washington communities, boost voter turnout for races large and small, streamline...

Parking reform unlocks more homes and great neighborhoods, while cutting red tape and excess asphalt, sprawl, and pollution. Cities, towns, and jurisdictions around the world are adopting a powerful reform that accelerates homebuilding, eliminates red tape for small businesses, reduces pollution and sprawl, revitalizes downtowns, and streamlines permitting - at zero cost to the taxpayer. That refo...

Meet MDUs, a low-cost, fast-build, flexible solution for more homes now. Communities across Cascadia face a dire shortage of homes that is driving up prices and rents for everyone. From seniors wanting to downsize and age in place, to young people starting out and seeking apartments near their jobs, to families needing more space and nearby schools for their kids, people across the region need mor...

More trees, senior living, daycares, and lower-cost housing for Washington cities and towns - and less pavement. In 2023 Washington state adopted a raft of bills unlocking more home choices, at more affordable prices, in cities and towns across the state. It was hailed as the year of housing. The 2025 legislative session could be the year of parking reform, with the promise of taming rents and hou...

Allowing more homes, in all shapes and sizes, makes it easier and cheaper for communities to tackle infrastructure challenges. Editor's note: Sightline Institute is co-publishing this article with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. View its version here. The costs of public infrastructure are becoming the go-to excuse for restrictive zoning policies in British Columbia. These policies ef...