Town and Country, Washington — Name Nailed the Geography

Town and Country developed north of Spokane in exactly the sort of landscape its name suggests.

Homes and commercial strips pushed outward from the city while farms and larger rural parcels remained mixed among them. For years the area was neither conventionally urban nor particularly country, but an evolving combination of both.

That in-between landscape accumulated a substantial unincorporated population. Residents could live in dense neighborhoods, shop in the Spokane metro area and use the same regional roads without actually residing inside Spokane's city limits.

Suburban growth has made the “country” half of the name harder to see along some roads.

The name still deserves credit. Whoever chose Town and Country managed to summarize decades of metropolitan expansion before much of it happened.