内容来源：https://www.geekwire.com/2026/what-we-learned-in-cleveland-about-seattles-future-advice-from-a-rust-belt-city-on-the-rise/

内容总结：

百年兴衰启示录：从克利夫兰的沉浮看西雅图的未来

美国俄亥俄州克利夫兰——一个世纪前，这座城市曾是美国制造业的明珠，1920年跻身全美第五大城市，凭借工业创新、移民潮和企业家精神蓬勃发展。然而，经济转型、岗位流失与总部外迁让这座城市几乎在一夜之间衰落。如今，当西雅图从软件时代迈入人工智能时代之际，克利夫兰的兴衰史被视作一面警钟，但更是一份关于“政商民同心协力”的复兴启示录。

日前，科技博客GeekWire专栏作家查尔斯·菲茨杰拉德与记者约翰·库克前往克利夫兰，与市长、州长、企业家及社区领袖深度对话，探寻这座中西部城市如何从阵痛中重生，并为西雅图建言。

市长桑德拉·摩根（东克利夫兰）：珍惜现有优势
“克利夫兰曾享受无与伦比的创新与增长浪潮，但衰退来得迅猛，我们用了近50年才扭转局面，而东克利夫兰仍在挣扎。”她建议西雅图居安思危，“混乱的增长虽然刺激，却非良策。增长总会带来意外问题，但停滞更可怕。”她笑称：“如果西雅图待腻了，东克利夫兰随时欢迎你们。”

州长迈克·德温（俄亥俄州）：欢迎企业落户
“我不给其他地区提建议，但欢迎来俄亥俄——这里生活成本低、人民友善、生活质量高。”他列举安杜里尔、乔比航空等企业入驻案例，强调“中西部时代已到来”。

市长贾斯汀·比布（克利夫兰）：夯实基础，描绘愿景
39岁的比布市长指出：“城市治理既要补坑修路、保障治安，也要为未来绘制蓝图。在经济环境中，居民和企业随时‘用脚投票’，城市必须提供‘粘性’价值。”

郡行政长官克里斯·罗内恩：支持本土优势，拥抱移民
“骑兵不会来救你——别指望靠引进大公司逆转局面。”他建议支持已有的成功产业，同时强调移民是人口增长的关键，“大都市必须主动吸引新居民”。他特别指出：“真正支撑城市的是中小企业，而非光鲜的总部。”

创新实验室创始人约翰·诺丁汉：善待企业家
“西雅图拥有强大的创业者群体，请珍惜他们。”他以洛克菲勒为例——这位石油大亨因在克利夫兰遭排挤而迁居纽约，最终将巨额捐赠投向芝加哥大学。“若将科技领袖逼走，代价可能难以估量。”

房地产开发商约什·罗森：警惕单一产业依赖
“西雅图过度依赖科技行业及少数巨头，这虽创造了增长，但也埋下隐患。一旦行业波动，缺乏多元生态的城市将难以应对。”他建议提早构建“多方协同框架”，并为建筑等实物资产的安全边际留足空间。

规划专家弗雷迪·科利尔：用“韧性”凝聚城市
“克利夫兰的独特之处在于韧性——不断重塑自我。”他建议投资水岸、步道等公共空间，“这些是超越阶层、族裔与经济的‘团结纽带’，正是城市重生的力量源泉。”

结语：警钟与希望
克利夫兰的教训直指西雅图：不要因长期繁荣而盲目自信，须警惕“后视镜式”管理。正如技术企业CEO克里斯·亚当斯所言：“冲浪太久会忘记前方暗礁。人们需要向前看，而非沉浸于过往辉煌。”而克利夫兰的答案，或许就藏在当地十年复兴计划的名字中——“全情投入”（All In）。

中文翻译：

俄亥俄州克利夫兰讯——一个世纪前，这座小城正蓬勃发展。
到1920年，得益于制造业、移民浪潮、工业创新以及企业家精神，这里已成为美国第五大都市，蜕变为发明与创业的中心。
然而，仿佛一夜之间，一切都变了。经济转型，就业枯竭，企业总部纷纷迁离。

克利夫兰的历史对西雅图而言是一个警示故事——当我们从软件时代迈向人工智能时代或更远的未来时，西雅图正站在相似的转折点上。但克利夫兰的现代故事同样鼓舞人心：它教会我们，当商界、民间与公共部门齐心协力时，一切皆有可能。

正因如此，GeekWire的专栏作家查尔斯·菲茨杰拉德和我本周在克利夫兰停留了数日——与慈善家、开发商、企业家，甚至市长贾斯汀·比布和俄亥俄州州长迈克·德瓦恩进行了交流。这场小型调研之旅始于四个月前，当时技术界老将、西雅图天使投资人查尔斯在GeekWire上发表了一篇 provocative 的专栏，题为《致西雅图的警告：别成为下一个克利夫兰》。

第二天，比布市长便与我们通电话，为他的城市辩护。他邀请我们探索克利夫兰——它的崛起、衰落与重生——去了解这座中西部城市复苏的另一面故事。

我们来时是为了了解克利夫兰，离开时却对西雅图及其如何培育繁荣未来有了新的洞见。

从抵达俄亥俄州东北部的那一刻——比布市长的声音在机场欢迎游客来到这座“坚韧与创新”铸就的城市——到离开之际，有一件事格外突出：尽管并非所有人在每个议题上都意见一致，但能切实感受到克利夫兰人“全力以赴”——如同船队沿着凯霍加河悄然推进，众人朝着同一方向划桨。

以下是我们从克利夫兰学到的：

桑德拉·摩根是东克利夫兰市的市长。这座紧邻克利夫兰的小城拥有美国最高的贫困率之一。
她对西雅图的建议是：知足常乐。
“克利夫兰市，以及东克利夫兰，曾乘着创新、工业和增长的浪潮，这在很长一段时间里在美国几乎无可匹敌，”她说。“但当我们遭遇低谷和转折时，那是一场剧变。我们花了将近50年才让这艘船重回正轨，扭转局面。”
对东克利夫兰而言，她说，“这艘船尚未完全扶正。我们仍在努力。”
但摩根并非告诫西雅图畏惧增长。“混乱的增长固然刺激，但未必是最好的增长方式，”她说。“增长总会带来一些不可预见的问题和麻烦，但在我看来，增长仍比不增长要好。”
她还发出邀请：“如果你在西雅图待腻了，就来俄亥俄州的东克利夫兰吧。我们这里有足够的空间容纳你。”

俄亥俄州州长迈克·德瓦恩自2019年起领导该州。他在克利夫兰宣布通过JobsOhio启动一项3亿美元的劳动力发展计划。
“我不会给其他地区提建议，”他在回答我们的问题时说。“但我对人们的建议是：来俄亥俄吧。来俄亥俄工作。你找不到更好的地方、更好的人民、更好的生活质量。与东西海岸相比，这里的生活成本很低。”
他提及那些押注该州的企业。“安杜里尔这样的公司将至少部分新业务迁至俄亥俄，乔比航空选择此地，宣伟涂料留在这里——这一切都有其原因。”
“看，这是我们的时代。这是中西部在历史上的时刻，”德瓦恩说。“我们不希望任何人失败，我们希望这个国家的每个人都能成功。但我们知道，在俄亥俄，我们拥有独特的东西。”

贾斯汀·比布是39岁的克利夫兰市长。当我们问他会给西雅图及其新任市长凯蒂·威尔逊什么建议时，他从最基本的问题谈起。
“你必须专注于城市治理的基础设施和关键环节，”他说。“同时，正如前市长皮特·布蒂吉格常说的，这份工作一半是修补坑洼，一半是勾勒愿景。这大体上就是我的双重使命：嘿，警察的薪水得发，街道得安全，坑洼得补上。市政府必须运转良好。”
但管理好城市只是工作的一半，他说。“你必须为城市的发展方向描绘愿景。因为在这个经济环境下，我们的顾客、居民和企业可以轻松选择，所以我们必须确保我们的价值主张既有吸引力又令人难以抗拒。对我来说，这就是市长的职责。”

克里斯·罗奈恩是凯霍加县行政长官，也是包括克利夫兰在内的该县最高民选官员，曾担任该市规划局局长。他的建议源于规划背景：找出社区中行之有效的部分，并加以投资。
“支持那些管用的。让现有的东西自然生长，”他说，并将这种方法与追逐下一个大公司的经济发展战略进行了对比。“救兵不会来，”他说。“这是克利夫兰的教训，也是西雅图的教训。”
他还指出移民对增长至关重要，并提到近年来移民是克利夫兰地区人口增长的唯一来源。“大都市必须带头制定战略，吸引新来者到你的城市，”他承认，在当前环境下，这对任何都市区都是“一项复杂的任务”。
他的第三条建议是：不要只盯着巨头。克利夫兰曾以其财富500强企业总部闻名，正如现在的西雅图，他说，但“真正的命脉是小企业。”

约翰·诺丁汉是诺丁汉·斯珀克公司的联合创始人。这家克利夫兰的创新实验室推出了高露洁SpinBrush等产品，拥有近1600项专利。公司办公地点位于一座俯瞰该市大学环区、由前基督教科学教堂改建的建筑内。
他的建议是：“西雅图有一些非常强大的企业家。你应该珍惜你的企业家。”
诺丁汉追溯一个世纪前的警示故事：约翰·D·洛克菲勒将标准石油打造成“第一家跨国公司，驱动了其他一切，”他说。但这位石油大亨的成功在家乡引发了怨恨。“他几乎被赶出克利夫兰，关于这件事有很多故事。”
洛克菲勒迁往纽约，并在晚年捐赠巨资建立了芝加哥大学。对西雅图——一个知名科技领袖不断离开的地区——而言，这个教训意味深长。

布拉德·怀特黑德是“好工作基金”的选址管理总监，也是“中线”项目的开发者——这是一个正在克利夫兰近东侧成形、包括前西屋灯泡厂的工业区。他带我们参观了那里。
他说，克利夫兰的错误在于自满。这座城市曾多次自我重塑，以至于领导者们相信变革会自然而然地再次发生。西雅图可以从中吸取教训。
“当下一个机遇总是不请自来时，你不能假设它会一直如此，”他说。“多年来，我们对自己的身份有某种认知，因为我们拥有那些响亮的名字，就以为一切都会继续顺利运转。”
该地区太晚才意识到声望和就业是两码事。“仅仅因为某家公司有总部，并不代表生产就在那里。我们有一些出色的公司找到了适应和生存的方法，但这往往意味着工作岗位离开了，去了其他地方。”

米歇尔·托马洛是FIT Technologies的联合创始人兼首席人事官。这家员工持股的IT管理服务提供商位于克利夫兰市中心。
她的建议呼应了我们反复听到的一个主题：成功往往会缩小你的视野。
“要非常审慎地思考未来会带来什么，”她说，“因为我认为当我们取得巨大成功时，有时会离即将到来的变化很远。”

乔什·罗森是可持续社区协会的联合所有人。这家房地产开发公司正将克利夫兰特雷蒙特社区的废弃加油站、干洗店和工业用地改造成住宅。
从外部观察西雅图，罗森看到了集中风险。
“感觉西雅图依赖于一个行业，而且在很多方面依赖于该行业中非常少的几家公司，”他说。“这促进了某种类型的增长。但当环境变化时，如果你没有建立一个所有利益相关者相互依存的框架，这种变化可能突如其来，并且不是你想要的。”
他说，教训是“开始建立一个协同工作的生态系统，这样当出现转变或变化时，社区已为下一阶段做好准备。”
作为一名开发商，他指出房地产是最先显现这种脆弱性的地方。“所有这些建筑都是基于一定水平的收入而建成的。抵押贷款和贷款正是靠这些收入来偿还的。但如果这个收入下降20%呢？”

伊薇特·伊图是克利夫兰发展顾问公司的总裁兼首席执行官。该公司将投资引入克利夫兰各社区的房地产和重建项目。
她的建议不太关乎某一项政策，而更关乎一座城市如何协同运作。
“商界、民间和公共部门之间的协作对你社区中将要进行的任何事都至关重要，”她说。“这确实需要所有这些部门的相互联系、协作和沟通。”

内森·凯利是Playhouse Square房地产公司总裁。该公司隶属于一家非营利组织，负责运营纽约以外全美最大的演艺区之一。
他的建议触及一切的前提：“我认为，安全——无论是实际安全还是感知安全——是建设或发展一个地方最重要的因素，”他说。“我只能影响人们的安全感。但我们通过小事来实现这一点，比如我要求所有零售和二楼租户的灯24小时亮着，这样光线就能洒到街上。我们还通过色彩和涂装做了很多事，让环境显得充满活力，即使只有你一个人。”
他说，这不仅仅是表面功夫。该区与市里和经济团体合作，安排制服警察和安全巡逻，同时解决更深层次的人文服务需求。“当有人出现不需要警方干预的状况时，我知道该打给谁。我认为这是最根本的。”

克里斯·亚当斯是Park Place Technologies的总裁兼首席执行官。这家IT基础设施服务公司在克利夫兰总部拥有500多名员工。
他说，克利夫兰的问题并非缺乏预警信号，而是反应速度。
“当世界开始变化时，我们作为一个社区需要更快地适应。我真的认为是官僚体制辜负了人们。你的职责是为民众服务，”他说。“我们现在作为社区环境表现不错，但人们转变方向确实花了一些时间。”
他这样描述危险：“你总是盯着后视镜，乘着浪潮前行，却看不到前方即将撞上的陆地。你只能冲浪这么久。从根本上说，人们需要向前看，而不是向后看。”
“仅仅因为这里长期以来一直是繁荣之地，这只会让人过度自信，”他补充道。“如果你对自己拥有的东西过于自信，你可能会失去它。”

拜朱·沙阿是大克利夫兰伙伴组织的总裁兼首席执行官。该组织围绕一项名为“全力以赴”的十年共享计划，组织了该地区的复兴努力。
他对西雅图的建议正是这个名称背后的策略。
“你需要让商界领袖和公共部门领导深度参与并做出承诺。我们称之为‘全力以赴’，”他说。“必须有一个能让所有人达成一致并开始努力推进的区域经济愿景，无论这些优先事项是什么。”

弗雷迪·科利尔是大克利夫兰伙伴组织（该地区的商会）的战略与新举措高级副总裁。
他指出，克利夫兰度过最艰难几十年的特质是：“让克利夫兰与众不同的关键特质之一是韧性。它不断进化，不断自我重塑。这是我喜欢这个城市的原因之一。这是一个大都市，却有小镇的感觉。人们彼此认识，互相联系。”
他对任何正在经历变革的城市的建议是：投资于那些能将人们凝聚在一起的事物。对克利夫兰来说，这始于地理：“我认为我们的自然资产是我们的超能力：滨水区、河滨步道、小径，”他说。“这些都是连接人们的事物，无论你来自哪个阶层，无论你的背景如何，无论你的经济状况如何。”
“在这个城市，我们有能够凝聚人心、促成平等的东西，”他说，“我为此深感自豪。”

周六预告：约翰·库克和查尔斯·菲茨杰拉德将从克利夫兰一座废弃的西屋灯泡厂加入GeekWire播客，分享他们的见闻，以及这对西雅图未来的意义。请在Apple Podcasts、Spotify或您收听的任何平台上订阅GeekWire。

英文来源：

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A century ago, this city was booming.
By 1920, it was the fifth-largest metropolis in the United States, fueled by manufacturing, immigration, industrial innovation and entrepreneurs who transformed it into a center of invention and business creation.
And then, seemingly overnight, it all changed. The economy shifted. Jobs dried up. Corporate headquarters moved.
Cleveland’s history is a cautionary tale for Seattle, which is at its own inflection point as we move from the software era to the AI era or what’s next. But the modern story of Cleveland is one of inspiration: a lesson in what becomes possible when business, civic and public leaders pull in the same direction.
That’s why GeekWire contributing columnist Charles Fitzgerald and I spent several days in Cleveland this week — speaking to philanthropists, developers, entrepreneurs and even Mayor Justin Bibb and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. This mini fact-finding mission started four months ago after Charles, a tech veteran and Seattle angel investor, wrote a provocative column for GeekWire titled: A warning to Seattle: Don’t become the next Cleveland.
Mayor Bibb was on the phone with us the next day, making the case for his city. He invited us to explore Cleveland — its rise, fall and rebirth — and get to know another story about a rebounding Midwest city.
We came to learn about Cleveland. We left with new insights about Seattle and what’s needed to foster a prosperous future.
From the moment we arrived in northeast Ohio — where Mayor Bibb’s voice welcomes airport visitors to a city built on “grit and innovation” — to the moment we left, one thing stood out. While not everyone agrees on every issue, there is a palpable sense that Clevelanders are “all in” — rowing in the same direction like a crew quietly propelling its shell along the Cuyahoga River.
Here’s what we learned from Cleveland:
Sandra Morgan is the mayor of East Cleveland, a small city bordering Cleveland with one of the highest poverty rates in the U.S.
Her advice to Seattle: count your blessings.
“The City of Cleveland, and by extension, East Cleveland, rode a wave of innovation and industry and growth that was unparalleled, really, just about anywhere in the country for quite a while,” she said. “And then when we took a dip and a turn, it was a pretty dramatic turn of events. And it has taken probably the better part of 50 years to right the ship and turn things around.”
For East Cleveland, she said, “that ship has yet to be righted. We’re still working on it.”
But Morgan wasn’t telling Seattle to fear growth. “Chaotic growth, it’s fun, but it’s not necessarily the best way to grow,” she said. “And always with growth comes some unforeseen issues and problems, but growth still is better than no growth, in my opinion.”
She also extended an invitation: “When you get tired of being in Seattle, come to East Cleveland, Ohio. We’ve got plenty of space for you.”
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who has led the state since 2019, was in Cleveland announcing a $300 million workforce development program through JobsOhio.
“I don’t give advice to other areas,” he said in response to our question. “But my advice to people is, come to Ohio. Come work in Ohio. You will not find a better place, better people, quality of life. Cost of living is low compared to the two coasts.”
He pointed to the companies betting on the state. “There’s a reason why we are getting companies like Anduril that are relocating at least part of their new business to Ohio. There’s a reason why Joby is here. There is a reason why Sherwin-Williams stayed here.”
“Look, this is our time. It is the Midwest’s time in history,” DeWine said. “We do not wish anybody to not be successful, we want everybody to be successful in this country. But we know we have something special here in Ohio.”
Justin Bibb is the 39-year-old mayor of Cleveland. When we asked him what advice he would give Seattle and its new mayor, Katie Wilson, he started with the fundamentals.
“You’ve got to focus on the basic plumbing and tackling of good city governance,” he said. “At the same time, as former mayor Pete Buttigieg always says, the job is part pothole, part vision. And that’s kind of been my duality of, hey, the cops gotta get paid, the streets have to be safe, the potholes have to be fixed. City government has to function well.”
But running the city well is only half the job, he said. “You have to chart a vision for where the city is going to go. Because in this economic environment our customers, our residents and our businesses can choose like that, so we have to make sure that our value proposition is sticky and compelling. And to me that’s the job of mayor.”
Chris Ronayne is the Cuyahoga County executive, the top elected official in the county that includes Cleveland, and a former planning director for the city. His advice draws on that planning background: figure out what’s working in your community, and invest in it.
“Support what’s working. Organically grow what you got,” he said, contrasting that approach with the economic development strategy of chasing the next big company. “The cavalry’s not coming,” he said. “That’s the lesson for Cleveland, and it’s a lesson for Seattle.”
He also pointed to immigration as essential to growth, noting that immigrants have been the Cleveland region’s only source of population gains in recent years. “Metros have to lead the way on strategies to bring newcomers to your city,” he said, acknowledging that it’s “a complicated task” for any metro region in the current environment.
His third piece of advice: don’t fixate on the giants. Cleveland was once known for its Fortune 500 headquarters, as Seattle is now, he said, but “the real lifeblood is small business.”
John Nottingham is co-founder of Nottingham Spirk, the Cleveland innovation lab behind products like the Crest SpinBrush, with nearly 1,600 patents to its name. The firm operates out of a renovated former Christian Science church overlooking the city’s University Circle district.
His advice: “You have some pretty high-powered entrepreneurs in Seattle. You should appreciate your entrepreneurs.”
Nottingham reached back a century for his cautionary tale: John D. Rockefeller, who built Standard Oil into “the first multi-national company, driving everything else,” he said. But the oil baron’s success bred resentment in his hometown. “He was almost pushed out of Cleveland, and there’s a lot of stories about that.”
Rockefeller decamped to New York, and later in life directed a massive gift that built the University of Chicago. The lesson for Seattle, where prominent tech leaders have been leaving the region, wasn’t subtle.
Brad Whitehead is managing director of site readiness for the Good Jobs Fund and developer of The Midline, an industrial district taking shape on Cleveland’s near east side, including the former Westinghouse light bulb factory where he gave us a tour.
Cleveland’s mistake, he said, was complacency. The city had reinvented itself so many times that its leaders trusted it would simply happen again. Seattle can learn from this.
“Where the next thing has always come along, you can’t assume that that’s going to happen,” he said. “For many years, we had this sense of who we are, and because we had the great names, that it was all going to continue to work well.”
The region learned too late that prestige and payrolls are different things. “Just because somebody has a corporate headquarters doesn’t mean that’s where they’re producing. We’ve got fabulous companies that figured out how to adapt and survive, but that meant the jobs often left and went to other places.”
Michelle Tomallo is co-founder and chief people officer at FIT Technologies, an employee-owned IT managed service provider in downtown Cleveland.
Her advice echoed a theme we heard repeatedly: success has a way of narrowing your vision.
“Be very thoughtful about what the future is holding,” she said, “because I think when we have grand success, sometimes we are far away from what’s coming next.”
Josh Rosen is co-owner of Sustainable Community Associates, a real estate development company that’s converting abandoned gas stations, dry cleaners and industrial sites into housing in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood.
Looking at Seattle from the outside, Rosen sees concentration risk.
“It feels like Seattle is dependent on a sector, and in a lot of ways very few companies within that sector,” he said. “And that allows for a certain type of growth. But as things change, if you don’t develop a framework of interdependency of all the different stakeholders, that change can be sudden and not what you want it to be.”
The lesson, he said, “is to start to build an ecosystem of working together, so when there are shifts or there are changes, the community is prepared for that next phase.”
As a developer, he pointed to real estate as the place where that fragility shows up first. “You have all these buildings that are built based on a certain amount of income being produced. And that’s how those mortgages and those loans are being serviced. And what if that changes by 20 percent?”
Yvette Ittu is president and CEO of Cleveland Development Advisors, which channels investment into real estate and redevelopment projects in Cleveland’s neighborhoods.
Her advice was less about any single policy and more about how a city works together.
“The collaboration between the business community, the civic sector and the public sector are imperative for anything you are going to do in your community,” she said. “It really takes connectivity with all of those sectors, collaboration and communication.”
Nathan Kelly is president of Playhouse Square Real Estate, part of the nonprofit that operates one of the country’s largest performing arts districts outside of New York.
His advice gets at a prerequisite for everything else: “I think safety, real and perceived, is the most important factor for building a place or growing a place,” he said. “And I can only impact the perception of safety. But we do it with small things, like I require all of my tenants on the retail and second level to have their lights on 24/7 so that that light sheds out onto the street. We do a lot of things with color and paint that make things feel vibrant, even if you’re alone.”
It’s not just cosmetic, he said. The district works with the city and economic groups on uniformed officers and safety patrols, while addressing deeper human service needs. “I know who to call when somebody is having an episode that doesn’t require a police intervention. I think that’s the most fundamental.”
Chris Adams is president and CEO of Park Place Technologies, an IT infrastructure services firm with more than 500 employees at its Cleveland headquarters.
Cleveland’s problem wasn’t a lack of warning signs, he said. It was the speed of the response.
“When the world started changing, we needed to, as a community, adapt quicker. I really think it is the bureaucracy that lets people down. Your job is to provide for the constituents,” he said. “We are doing well now as a community environment, but it took some time for people to pivot.”
He described the danger this way: “You are always looking in the rearview mirror and you are riding that wave, and you don’t see the land in front of you that you are about to crash into. You can only surf the wave so long. Fundamentally, people need to look forward, not behind.”
“Just because it has been a boom town out there for a long time, that only gets people overconfident,” he added. “If you get too confident in what you have, you can lose it.”
Baiju Shah is president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, which has organized the region’s comeback effort around a shared 10-year plan called“All In.”
His advice for Seattle is the strategy behind that name.
“You need to get your business leadership and your public leadership heavily engaged and committed. We call it ‘all in,'” he said. “There’s got to be an economic vision for the region that everyone can get aligned behind and start to work hard on these types of priorities, whatever those might be.”
Freddy Collier is senior vice president of strategy and new initiatives at the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the region’s chamber of commerce.
He pointed to the trait that carried Cleveland through its hardest decades: “One of the key things that makes Cleveland special is resilience. It continues to evolve, and reinvent itself. And that’s one of the things I love about this town. It’s a big city with a small town feel. People know each other, and people are connected.”
His advice for any city navigating change: invest in the things that bind people together. For Cleveland, that starts with geography: “Our natural assets I think are our superpower: our waterfront, riverfront, our trails,” he said. “And those are the things that connect people, no matter what walk of life you come from, no matter what your demographic situation is, no matter what your economic situation is.”
“We have things in this town that are unifiers, that are equalizers,” he said, “and I am really proud of that.”
Coming Saturday: John Cook and Charles Fitzgerald join the GeekWire Podcast from an abandoned Westinghouse light bulb factory in Cleveland to share what they learned, and what it means for Seattle’s future. Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.