John Cook and Charles Fitzgerald spent several days in Cleveland this week, and they came back with a cautionary tale for Seattle: don’t assume the good times will last. But they also found inspiration: a city that’s coming back by getting its business, civic, and public leaders to row in the same direction.
The GeekWire co-founder and the Seattle angel investor called into the GeekWire Podcast from an unlikely setting: an abandoned Westinghouse light bulb factory on Cleveland’s near east side, part of an industrial district called The Midline that’s being redeveloped for a new generation of jobs.
The Cleveland trip closes a loop that opened in February, when Fitzgerald, a GeekWire contributing columnist, wrote a provocative piece warning that Seattle risked becoming the next Cleveland.
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb joined the podcast to push back and make the case for his city, then invited the two to come see its comeback for themselves. This week, John and Charles took him up on it.
Over several days, they met with Bibb, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, and a roster of developers, entrepreneurs, and civic and business leaders. What stood out, they say, was a city hustling and aligned around jobs and growth in a way Seattle no longer is. Their takeaway is blunt: Cleveland could eat Seattle’s lunch if Seattle keeps taking its prosperity for granted.
For the full rundown of advice from those Cleveland leaders, see John’s previous story.
Then we turn to the week’s news back home. The Seattle City Council voted unanimously for a one-year moratorium on new large data centers. Fitzgerald argues it’s political theater, since the big AI data centers were never coming to high-cost Seattle anyway, and says the real concern is the signal it sends about whether the city is open for business.
And with the SpaceX IPO landing on Friday, Fitzgerald explains why he’s sitting it out.
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