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Joshua McNichols

Reporter

About

As KUOW's Growth and Development reporter and co-host of KUOW's Booming podcast, Joshua's "growing pains" beat sits at the nexus of housing, transportation, urban planning, government and the economy. His favorite stories also include themes of history, technology, and climate change.

Joshua holds a B.A. in Architecture from the University of Washington. Public Radio is his second career; architecture was his first. He is proud of the many odd jobs he's held in his life, such as salmon fisher, author, bike courier, and bed-and-breakfast cook.

Location: Seattle

Languages Spoken: English

Pronouns: he/him

Professional Affiliations: The Society of Professional Journalists, Western Washington Chapter

Podcasts

Stories

  • caption: FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017, file photo, Amazon Echo Spots are displayed during a program announcing several new Amazon products by the company, in Seattle.

    Amazon can track you by your voice print

    Parents are suing Amazon, alleging the company records children without their consent. A trial could come next year. But the case brings up issues beyond those recordings.

  • caption: Oscar Pulkkinen, 4, chats with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant through the company's Echo smart speaker.

    Parenting in the age of Alexa? It’s complicated

    This week’s episode of Prime(d) talks about the relationship between children and Alexa, Amazon’s AI-powered virtual assistant. Kids love to ask Alexa questions. And Alexa is listening.

  • Primed Logo

    Preview: Primed Season 3

    Amazon is ending up in more and more of our homes. But are we asking the right questions when we invite Amazon and Alexa into our lives?

  • caption: Vaishali Kaushik lives in Sammamish, the wealthiest city in the US. She says sometimes that affluence can be a burden, such as when children want parents to buy them things to keep up with the neighbors.

    What Sammamish's high median income really means

    The Seattle Times reports that Sammamish is the nation's richest city. Its median household income of $183,000 even beats San Francisco. We wondered – what’s it feel like to live in a city that rich? So we went to find out.

  • caption: Someday, parking garages may be obsolete. Meanwhile, here come the robots.

    This robot garage in Seattle can be taken apart like LEGOs

    It's not easy driving cars in Seattle, with all the traffic. That’s driving some developers to rethink parking entirely and to plan for its eventual extinction. And in the meantime, they're making use of less space by involving using robots to pack more cars into less space.

  • caption: Warren Aakervik of the Ballard Oil Company, pictured in 2019.

    'Missing link' connects with Ballard City Council contest

    The Burke Gilman Trail "missing link" has been held up by legal appeals for years. That’s a stretch of bike trail along Ballard’s working waterfront. Now, it’s become an issue in the upcoming city council elections.

  • caption: David Rue on a billboard, part of the "Don't Blend In" campaign by SDOT.

    How not to get hit when crossing Seattle's most dangerous street

    Wear neon colors to avoid getting hit by cars when crossing Rainier Avenue S. That’s what Seattle's Department of Transportation has been telling people on billboards and ads in a campaign called “Don’t Blend In.” Rainier Avenue is Seattle’s most dangerous street. One out of every 20 pedestrians hit by cars in Seattle – are hit within a block of Rainier. The campaign has drawn a mixed response.

  • caption: An artist's rendition of the new Plymouth Housing building underway on Rainier Avenue South in the Chinatown-International District.

    Seattle plans to tap sales tax for affordable housing

    For the State of Washington, the sales tax is a firehose of money. For ages, cities have wanted to poke a straw into that firehose and get just a teensy bit of what's flowing inside. During the last legislative session, cities finally got that wish.