Page 25 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Pacific Northwest

A POR TR AIT OF THE P A CIFIC NOR THWEST  23

thrived. Increasing numbers of tourists
come to enjoy what locals have long
considered their greatest resource: the
Pacific Northwest’s natural beauty.

People and Politics
Some 15 million people call the Pacific
Northwest home. Portland, Seattle, and
Vancouver are among the fastest-growing
Tourists at the top of Seattle’s Space Needle cities in North America. After a US-wide
spike in growth in the 1990s, the Hispanic
such as mining and logging decline and population is today Oregon’s largest
the economy shifts to one based largely ethnic group, representing nearly 12
on services and technology. In coastal percent of that state’s population. And
areas, the fishing industry too has seen Hispanics now represent 11 percent of
increasingly hard times. Fruit cultivation Washington’s population. Vancouver has
remains a major Pacific Northwest swelled in size and prosperity since the
industry, its orchards yielding some 1980s with the arrival of Asian immigrants,
of the most prized fruit in the world. particularly from mainland China, Hong
The emergence of high-tech companies Kong, India, Philippines, and South Korea.
in the region (some 3,000 software and The First Nations and bands of the Pacific
e-commerce businesses are in the Seattle Northwest, many continuing to live in
area alone) began with the rise in the 1980s traditional communities, are recovering
of Microsoft, which now employs 40,000 from a decline in population that occurred
Washingtonians. In 1995, entrepreneur after European settlement.
Jeff Bezos opened the doors to the online Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver tend
shopping business, founding Amazon.com to be liberal in their politics; other areas
in his Seattle home. Aerospace giant of the region, conservative. Even so,
Boeing operates several plants in western a unique political climate emerges in
Washington. Manufacturing facilities for the Pacific Northwest. Oregonians are
computer industry giants Intel, Epson, and the first in the US to have approved
Hewlett-Packard are located in Oregon’s assisted suicide for the terminally ill;
Willamette Valley; sportswear chain Nike Washingtonians elected the US’s first
is also based in Oregon. Asian-American governor; and British
Vancouver has benefited from Columbians have bounced between
its incarnation as Hollywood North: right- and left-leaning parties, often
movie companies inject bucking the national trend.
$3 billion annually into
the local economy.
The increase in white-
collar jobs has led to an
influx of professionals into
the three cities, not only
expanding the urban areas
but also raising the standard
(and the cost) of living
within them.
Amid this economic
transformation, the tourist
industry has consistently Pioneer Courthouse houses the US Court of Appeals, Portland

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