<This is a quick and very incomplete post as I’m about to get on a plane>
The City of Seattle has finally acknowledged there is such a thing as an economy, publishing a report entitled Seawall: Building a Resilient Seattle Economy.
No businesses were involved, but that seems to be the norm hereabouts on economic matters. Maybe we really can learn a lot from economic development efforts in Cincinnati! (but I’m not doing that trip).
Some things that caught my eye in a very quick skim (starting with paragraph two of the executive summary):
This story cuts against the prevailing narrative, captured in headlines suggesting Seattle could be “the next Cleveland.” Seattle has real economic challenges, but it is not in decline. Indeed, the analysis in this report suggests that Anthropic’s expansion should be entirely unsurprising. Continued prowess in tech should not, however, be mistaken for broader economic resilience. Seattle may not be in decline, but it is in danger – not because it is losing its place in the industry, but because the industry could undergo a radical change, and arguably already is, that shifts what kind of talent, capital, and real estate are valuable. Such a shock could trigger an outflow of workers, firms, and know-how from which it is extremely difficult to recover.
The Cleveland debate gets its own sidebar! (p51)
What Economic Decline Looks Like – It’s Not Just Cleveland
Claims that Seattle could become the “next Cleveland” are likely hyperbolic (although they caused quite the stir this past winter). But there are other examples of regions like Seattle that have fallen into a period of economic stagnation, if not a slow downward spiral.
(I’ve been called worse things than hyperbolic.)
Even the City admits they’ve gone too far on taxes:
Even most staunch proponents of the taxes that the City of Seattle and State of Washington have passed since 2020 would concede that the City is now reaching the limits of how much it can tax the industries and people that it is depending upon to drive its growth.
The main threat comes from the differential between Seattle and Bellevue, and the fact that Seattle’s taxes are designed in a way that discourages hiring high-wage employees.
An understated “Like, bye”
Headquarters and top-tier tech jobs are very hard to replace.
No acknowledgement of just how badly the City has screwed up on public safety, housing, homelessness, and local taxes and regulation impacting affordability. Those are the baseline, and certainly come before city hall tries to pick (politically correct) winners.
UPDATE: GeekWire took a detailed look at the report.
More to come!
