Cleveland's Mayor, Seattle's Future: What happens when a city's economy shifts
GeekWire
GeekWire
4.8 • 127 Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
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Summary
GeekWire brought Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Seattle tech veteran Charles Fitzgerald together on the phone Thursday after a guest column warning Seattle not to repeat Cleveland's past mistakes sparked a big response — including from Bibb himself. What followed was a constructive conversation about what cities should do when the economic ground shifts beneath them. Plus: a Seattle-to-Cleveland trip may be in the works.
Related Links
- A warning to Seattle: Don’t become the next Cleveland
Cleveland mayor responds to GeekWire guest column, calls Ohio city a ‘case study of what’s possible’ - Mayor Bibb on LinkedIn: "For decades, national narratives have framed Cleveland as a cautionary tale. But that framing misses the bigger story."
Note: This is a special bonus episode. Our regular weekly show, recorded live Thursday night in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood, will be out Saturday morning.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, everybody. It's Todd Bishop from Geekwire. Before we get into this special bonus episode, |
| 0:05.2 | I want to say thanks to everybody who came out to our live podcast recording Thursday night in |
| 0:11.0 | Seattle's Fremont neighborhood at Fremont Brewing, hosted by the Fremont Chamber of Commerce. |
| 0:15.9 | We had a great time. It was a great crowd, and my colleague John Cook and I had a lot of fun talking about this |
| 0:21.8 | week's news and testing everybody's knowledge of Fremont and Seattle Tech Trivia. Our regular show |
| 0:28.0 | from that event will be out Saturday morning as usual, so stay tuned for that this weekend. |
| 0:33.1 | I think you're going to enjoy it, whether you were there or not. And again, thanks to everybody |
| 0:37.3 | who came out. |
| 0:38.0 | It was so much fun catching up with regular Geekwire podcast listeners and everybody from the |
| 0:43.4 | Seattle Tech community. But I wanted to get this episode out to you today because basically |
| 0:49.2 | I never thought I would end up on the phone with the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, talking about a piece |
| 0:55.7 | that ran on Geekwire. Here's what happened for anyone who didn't follow this particular thread. |
| 1:01.8 | Earlier this week, we published a guest column on Geekwire by Seattle Tech Veteran and Angel |
| 1:07.4 | Investor Charles Fitzgerald. The headline was, a warning to Seattle, don't become the next |
| 1:14.3 | Cleveland. Charles argued that Seattle, like Cleveland in the 1950s, is a prosperous city that risks |
| 1:21.9 | losing its economic edge if local leaders don't wake up to the challenges of the AI era. |
| 1:28.0 | And the piece really hit a nerve. |
| 1:30.5 | We heard cheers from the Seattle tech crowd. |
| 1:32.9 | There were tons of people who agreed with Charles. |
| 1:35.3 | And let's just say we got some very spirited feedback from Clevelanders in our inboxes. |
| 1:41.5 | And then on Wednesday, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb posted a response on LinkedIn, |
| 1:48.0 | pushing back on the framing of the piece and making it clear that Cleveland's comeback story, |
... |
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