Cleveland mayor responds to GeekWire guest column, calls Ohio city ‘example of what’s possible’

Cleveland Mayor Justin M. Bibb responded Wednesday to a GeekWire guest column in which Seattle tech veteran and angel investor Charles Fitzgerald warned the Pacific Northwest tech hub not to repeat the mistakes that led to the Ohio city’s decades-long decline.

The real lesson, Mayor Bibb argued, lies not in the city’s past but in its ongoing comeback.

“For decades, the national narrative has cast Cleveland as a cautionary tale,” he wrote on LinkedIn. But that frame misses the bigger story. Cleveland never stopped. Cleveland is rebuilding.

In his response, he pointed to Cleveland’s institutional anchors, including the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University, as engines of a growing health and research economy. “This is the Cleveland ERA,” he wrote, citing billions in infrastructure and development investments.

Bibb, 38, is a Cleveland native with degrees from American University and Case Western and a background in social engineering and racial equity advocacy. He took office in January 2022 and was re-elected in November last year with nearly 74% of the vote. He recently completed his term as president of the Democratic Mayors Association.

Seattle, he wrote, “should study Cleveland as an example of what can happen when you tackle old problems with bold and urgent leadership.”

In many ways, Fitzgerald and Bibb seem to be on the same page.

Fitzgerald accepted Bibb’s response and, in his LinkedIn comments, sought to clarify: “This is not about Cleveland today.”

He explained, “My point is how cities should respond when their world changes. Deindustrialization came to Cleveland 75 years ago. Seattle punched above its software weight, but that time is coming to an end. We have to face that reality and, like all cities, adapt to the broader AI wave.”

Fitzgerald also acknowledged that Seattle has a lot to learn from Cleveland.

“The people of Seattle complain about the problems of being a successful city,” he wrote. “They have to experience firsthand what it means to manage a city that was once very successful, but lost that success. You play the game the hard way. We can learn from that.”

In his original column, Fitzgerald drew parallels between Seattle now and Cleveland in the 1950s, when it was the seventh largest city in the US, home to industrial giants like Standard Oil and Republic Steel, and with a household income equal to that of New York.

Within twenty years, the city’s fortunes had changed dramatically. Cleveland has since dropped to 56th in population, with a median income less than half the national average.

Fitzgerald’s concern is that Seattle, which has ridden decades of success fueled by Microsoft, Amazon, and the broader software industry, may be approaching the same point as the AI ​​era reshapes the tech landscape. He is worried that local leaders are not paying attention.

In addition, he argued, legislators in Olympia treat the technology industry as an endless source of income instead of working to increase the economic future of the region – a force that he says reflects Cleveland’s mistakes during the Rust Belt, when the state of disagreement in local government made it easy for companies to leave.

Bibb’s response revealed specifics including a $100 million investment to convert 1,000 acres of industrial land, a $1.6 billion airport upgrade, and nearly $5 billion in reconstruction of the city’s lake and Cuyahoga River.

The mayor’s position received strong support from Clevelanders, many of whom opposed Fitzgerald’s proposal. “My god, what a lazy, outdated trope,” one commenter wrote. Others point to Cleveland’s strengths in health care and the arts, as well as cultural diversity.

The original column also drew spirited responses from GeekWire’s inbox, with no shortage of insults from Cleveland contributors.

One LinkedIn commenter noted the juxtaposition of the “scary, black and white sky” image paired with the headline “Don’t be the next Cleveland” and the author’s closing sentence: “I want to make it very clear that I am not saying no offense to Cleveland.”

(By the way, the photo in the column was selected by GeekWire editors, not Fitzgerald, so we’ll own it. Note the blue sky in the lead photo in this follow-up clip!)

Others offered a very different view. One spokesman who moved to Cleveland from the Pacific Northwest wrote that the city “should be afraid of repeating the mistakes that have failed over and over again across the country,” adding that Cleveland’s real opportunity lies in raising economic prospects for working people rather than the wealthy.

Eventually, the mayor invited Fitzgerald to visit and see the progress for himself.

Fitzgerald seemed open to the idea, in his inimitable way. He has emailed the mayor, and noted in his LinkedIn comments, “I’m waiting for my junket tickets to arrive.”

Meanwhile, GeekWire contacted Bibb’s office to see if we could set up a follow-up interview, and raised the possibility of Fitzgerald joining the call. Stay tuned.