Kent
Kent's setting in the Green River Valley 18 miles south of Seattle offers clear-day views of Mount Rainier rising majestically over the landscape, and the Cascade and Olympic mountains on the horizons.
Convenient to other major cities and Sea-Tac Airport, Kent is halfway between Seattle and Tacoma.
In 1890 with just 763 residents, Kent became the second city to incorporate in the newly established state of Washington.
In 1910, the school that would later become Tahoma High School was built where it still stands today. In 1926, the students named it by taking the first two letters of the three districts they came from: Taylor, Hobart and Maple Valley.
In its early history and into the 1970s, Kent was known for its agriculture. Its hops production, in fact, mirrored its namesake, Kent, England.
The truck farms that stretched along the Green River Valley through Kent in the early- to mid-20th century supplied regional stores and Seattle's historic Pike Place Market.
Today, agriculture that once made the Valley lush and green has mostly given way to the southward spread of warehouse and distribution centers serving the Greater Seattle area, and increasingly to large multi-family housing developments just west of downtown Kent.
Downtown itself is distinctly small-town. The banks, small shops and restaurants at its core are flanked by parking, playfields and community centers to the north, City Hall and a county-operated regional library to the south and golf courses, parks and playfields to the west.
Downtown is nestled on the valley floor, one of three distinct areas of town that also include West Hill (mostly residential along the path of Interstate 5) and East Hill (with its predominantly single-family neighborhoods, schools and more retail shopping).
But traveling through this town is tough.
State Route 167 runs through the middle of the city, Interstate 5 is on its western edge and to the east is a sprawling residential area. Few major roads point east-west, making it tough to get home from the freeway, or vice versa.
Also, bicycle lanes and sidewalks have been left behind in the city's mad dash to grow along with its population over the past decade.