For Economic Development Directors, Happy Days Return The economy has proven to be more resilient than could have been imagined a year ago. Making future growth more equitable is a priority without obvious solutions. Alan Greenblatt, Senior Staff Writer | April 9, 2021 | Analysis No city enjoyed a bigger boom in the years between the Great Recession and the pandemic than Seattle. During the 2010s, its population grew by an astonishing 24 percent, the most of any major city. People were drawn by the jobs created by a metastasizing economy led by Amazon and Microsoft. Seattle recently passed Atlanta as the 10th largest metropolitan economy in the country.