Sooner or later, everyone moves to Seattle, went one saying in the city’s 1990s heyday. The trouble residents face now: What happens after everyone does?

Known for hiking and the open spaces of the American West, Seattle is in the midst of another boom that’s made it the fastest-growing among the top 50 U.S. cities. That’s causing angst over density, affordability, crime and other issues more familiar to an East Coast metropolis. At the same time, pay is outpacing the national average and an already rich cultural life is thriving as new restaurants and nightspots open.

“It’s a blessing,” Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, a 59-year-old Democrat, said of the growth. “But with it comes some real challenges.”

While Amazon.com Inc. and other big employers reshape the downtown with new development, some long-time residents say they’re being priced out. Growth even is crowding the Space Needle, whose owners have fought construction that might block views of the city icon. Other residents resent dormitory-like “micro apartments” that squeeze dozens of 150-square-foot units into established neighborhoods.

Costs for everything from utilities to food come as a shock to newcomers. By one measure of a professional’s cost of living -- the price of a basic sushi roll -- Seattle leapt from the sixth-most expensive U.S. city last year to No. 3 this year, trailing only New York and Los Angeles, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Rankings.

Rent Shock

In June, Drew Haines and his fiancée saw the rent for their two-bedroom apartment near the waterfront rise almost 25 percent, to $3,100 a month, he said. They moved.

“It was eye-opening,” said Haines, 29, who took a job as a buyer on the kitchen team at Amazon after finishing an MBA degree in Washington, D.C. “The scary thing was, people were viewing the apartment right after. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already taken.”

Seattle’s population grew 2.8 percent in the year ending July 2013 to 652,000, pushing it past Boston as the 21st-largest city, U.S. Census Bureau data show. The rise reflects a new urbanism that’s made places like Denver and Atlanta more appealing, especially for those who can’t afford a house or prefer pedestrian-friendly spaces to suburbs. The largest U.S. cities grew more than 1 percent in each of the past three years, double the rate of the previous decade, a study by the Brookings Institution in Washington shows.

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