Leadership Vacuum in Northeast Ohio

[mjkuhns]

I wrote about this when the local chattering classes went through the same drill three years ago. Little has changed since.

In terms of a regional economic turnaround, my sense is that the necessary resources aren't coming from the outside. State government seems unlikely to help any time soon. Even if there's eventually some kind of national "infrastructure bill," I suspect it won't really approach game-changing scale, here or overall.

Maybe in theory there are enough resources here in northeast Ohio for a DIY renewal, but I don't see any plausible mechanism for aligning and directing them to that purpose in significant volume.

• Substantial capital has already moved out into adjoining counties.
• Dramatic county-level leadership seems unlikely, given that county government elections may as well not even take place.
• Even if Cleveland had the juice to act alone, its leadership seems just about as deeply entrenched as the county's.

In general, local civic structures seem to be near terminally sclerotic. And if things aren't going to turn around absent some incumbent interest being disrupted, that's a problem.

Disruptive change seems to be largely thwarted by one-party politics, a political machine that values hierarchy above all, a turned-off electorate, and successful repeated efforts to thwart the last-resort of citizen initiatives and referendums. It doesn't help that the watchdogs have been largely defanged, between the death spiral of local journalism, and the proliferation of foundations hostage to private funding. As someone observed a couple of days ago, "So many early career ppl can't be honest and critical for fear of jeopardizing their current project & future prospects."

Going up against this even on a one-step-at-a-time basis calls for a lot. Energy, bravery, mental sharpness, personal skills, near-foolhardy determination… and at least a bit of luck, with or without personal financial resources (though they would help too).

Applicants are welcome to PM with a brief resume any time…

[Stan Austin]

Matt-- an excellent analysis expressed exquisitely as usual. Let me try another comparison. We inherited a substantial base of community assets-physical and psychic which have unfortunately been withered away by dime store accountants. The Lakewood educational experience, public and private, remains as the only lasting legacy. I am, however, optimistic by newcomers into our government and civic life.
Stan Austin

[Mark Kindt]

When an expert (economist?) was asked about what it would take for Cleveland to reach its economic goals he said something like (to paraphrase), "I don't know an effing thing. If I had that answer I would win a noble prize".

That's an honest answer.

One of the conceits of local politicians is that they think that Columbus or Seattle or San Francisco or Washington D.C are economic success stories because of the cleverness of local politicians. While local leadership can do a lot of damage or do some small things to secure economic growth they are mostly powerless.

When Xerox and Kodak where economic giants employing hundreds of thousands of people the politicians in Rochester, New York, thought it was because of all of the great things local government did. When Xerox and Kodak collapsed up State New York collapsed as well.

If Bill Gates was born in Cleveland this town would be booming. If Columbus was NOT the State capital it would still be a cow town.

Is Northern Virginia booming because it's people are so clever or is it booming because it is home to the largest company in the world, the US Government?

There are things that government can do that can make a difference. If 50 years ago the federal government made the Lewis Research Center a priority, if the federal government invested $100 billion in Case for research and development ( think Sanford and Harvard) things here would be a lot different. If Ohio elected Senators and Congressmen and women who actually fought for the State things might be different.

If the Cleveland area worked with local corporations like Revco, Revco might still exists as the biggest drug store chain in the U.S. Instead we elect leaders who think industry is the enemy (think Kucinich) or that business is a cash cow (think the Cuyahoga County progressive Caucus).

I wonder, what if 30 years ago we hadn't decided to invest in sports stadiums and "downtown" development to the exclusion of all else? What would be different?.

What is the solution? If I knew that I would win the effen Noble Prize.

Of course, at the City level there are things that can be done to steal jobs and economic activity from other local cities. One is to fight for the only growth area in the region, the health care industry. Another is to spend $100 million in city assets on retail development and condominiums. Take your pick.

To amplify one of Mr. Call's points:

The federal research and development infrastructure of the United States was essentially built-out in the twenty years between 1940 and 1960. One of our U.S. Senators during the early part of that key period was Robert Taft. While pro-business, Senator Taft, as an isolationist, may not have foreseen the economic development potentials associated with public investment in (at the time) exotic advanced technologies.

We can contrast this with Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia who made sure (as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee) that every new federal project had a location in West Virginia. (This was, of course, at a more recent time period.)

Public investment in science and technology has a considerable knock-on effect that seems to be pretty well-understood.

Every day there is a group of highly-paid technologists remotely "driving" a vehicle on the planet Mars. Rightly or wrongly, this vehicle is also being "driven" by public investment. Historically, with some exceptions, Ohio has not been a leader in this arena.

It is difficult to leverage science and technology infrastructure that wasn't built-out historically in Ohio.

[Bill Call]

Any discussion about leadership and economic stagnation in Cuyahoga County should include a discussion about the cost of corruption. Not necessarily bags of cash corruption or campaign finance corruption but the corruption caused by the misallocation of resources.

We see that type of corruption play out in countries that should be economic success stories but seem to stumble from one crisis to the next. Think of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Italy, Greece, and Russia. Russia will be spending about $12 billion to host the World Cup. In a recent report on Bloomberg Radio the reporter was asked if Russia learned any lessons from spending $51 BILLION on the (now empty and decaying) Olympic site.

The reporter stated that spending all of that money is not meant to create economic growth. The spending is meant to give the politically connected a chance to make a lot of money. I thought that was a brilliant insight.

The Cleveland Convention Center and its attached hotel and “center for health innovation” is an excellent example right here at home.
https://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga-coun ... ernor.html

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-he ... these-days

We have an excellent example here in Lakewood. The Hospital debacle had nothing to do with healthcare or development. It was all about transferring $75 million to private foundations staffed by the FOM (friends of Mike).

Long after the Hospital is a distant memory the Foundations will be handing out money to the politically well connected. In a recently released email Mayor Summers broached the idea of merging the Three Arches Foundation with the Healthy Lakewood Foundation. When the Healthy Lakewood Foundation is eventually merged with the REGIONAL Three Arches Foundation all that will remain is an anonymous group secretly passing out money.

What was the cost of that corruption?

Just for fun:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... doned.html