In a matter of less than three decades, Seattle managed to arc from being known as a backwater burg to a livable, liberal, and creative city. Its neighborhoods have become little towns within the city, each with their own main street, parks, public buildings, and a full range of housing types. The city is now building rail lines, housing (including affordable housing), parks, trails, and public spaces at a pace unprecedented even for a city with a history of boom periods. In many ways, Seattle has changed for the better. It is wealthier, more diverse, offers many more choices, has a clean and magnificent natural setting, and presents opportunities for personal development without the constraints of entrenched institutions, bureaucracies, or social classes. Within the city, voters have consistently approved tax increases—whether they are for parks, schools, transit, libraries, museums, or buying the development rights of farmland. At the same time, social initiatives include dramatically increasing the minimum wage, allowing marijuana, and affirming rights of LGBTQ people. But Seattle is hardly the perfect place. Vehicular traffic jams are legion. Much of the housing stock has become unaffordable to average workers. And the homeless population is visible everywhere. Some locals have become disillusioned and moved to smaller towns. Others are protesting new development, with its dramatically greater densities. Still others bemoan a loss of a quirky community that drew them to Seattle in the first place. So, this chapter will examine several aspects. First, how did Seattle arrive at this point? What were the social and economic drivers, the key policy initiatives, the important changes in people and place that shaped this emerging urban region? What continue to be the shared values? It will look at specific places within Seattle that have changed. What has happened that has continued both positively and negatively to the public realm, the forms of housing, the social goods that make up the disparate parts of the city? What remains livable about the place and what is happening to make it less so? Finally, it will look at prospects for the future. What is being set in motion? What generational patterns are changing? What will the next iteration of Seattle and its livability be like?