Title: History of Seattle since 1940 - Wikipedia
Headings: History of Seattle since 1940
History of Seattle since 1940
History of Seattle, Washington since 1940
Contents
WWII and the Boeing era: 1945–1970
Counterculture
Political emergence of non-white minorities
Boeing bust: 1970–1985
Silicon Forest: 1985–present
N30
Music
Environmental sustainability
See also
Notes
References
External links

Content: Freeway Park was eventually built over I-5 in 1976, restoring something of a link between Downtown and First Hill, but was not heavily enough used to provide much mitigation. The R.H. Thompson Expressway, planned to connect SR 520 with I-90 and SR 167 via the Central District, and the Bay Freeway, connecting I-5 with the Seattle Center via Mercer Street, were canceled by citizen referendums as part of nationwide freeway revolts . With all this postwar growth came growing pollution of the lakes and rivers that provided much of the beauty that had been Seattle's appeal to its recent immigrants. Also, the sprawl constantly demanded more roads, since the ones already built had terrible traffic. ( Naturally, new roads simply led to new development and were soon as snarled as those they were intended to relieve.) A group of Seattle natives, anxious to preserve the city in which they grew up, came together to institute the Metropolitan Problems Committee, or METRO, intended to manage and plan the metropolitan area. The driving force behind this movement was Jim Ellis, who headed the committee and repeatedly brought the planning issue before the voters and city governments. The logic was that a regional transit system would require a regional political body; the same held for regional sewage and pollution control or regional growth planning. The original, comprehensive METRO regional plan was defeated in a vote by suburbanites who seemed to view the problem not as one of pollution, transit, sprawl, or lack of planning: