Each phase in the life of a metropolis and its surrounding region triggers its own style of civic activism. King County, where Seattle is located, has added about 300,000 people since 2010, for a total of 2.23 million. It is home to Amazon, Microsoft and Boeing. By comparison, Kings County, New York City, also known as the Borough of Brooklyn, is up 78,000 in the same time period, to 2.58 million. Its biggest employers are hospitals, stores and an abundance of aid workers classed as employed in “social assistance.”
James Ellis, who died in late October at the age of 98, was a civic hero and catalyst for King County and the greater Seattle area’s growth spurt from the 1950s to the 1990s. He personified the civic glue that bound the city’s commercial blossoming and cultural effervescence. Although he never held government office, Ellis championed the cleanup of effluent-choked Lake Washington in the 1950s, then pushed the formation of the King County Metro Transit Dept. Next came bond measures to fund highway improvements, a stadium, fire departments, parks and a convention center.