World-class not "merely boasting how darn great we are."

If I were the egocentric type, I'd probably think that none other than the P-I's Bill Virgin is a Seattle Bubble reader. A mere five days after I dispelled the notion that Seattle is "world class," Bill delivers the exact same message to a broader audience in today's column: So what makes a world-class city?

Is Seattle a world-class city?
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During the heady days of No. 1 livability rankings and magazine covers and pop-culture references in music, movies and TV shows, Seattle got to thinking of itself as not just world-class but world-centric.
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So should anyone care about whether Seattle is world-class?

In fact, there is an aspect to world-class status that goes well beyond meaningless exercises in civic pride (or, some would argue, overly and unjustifiably inflated ego) that does matter, at least in the realm of business and economics.
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Which brings us to the question of how Seattle stacks up as a world-class city in the business sense.

The answer: Maybe not as well as we used to believe.

Just about every discussion of the economic fortunes of this region focuses on two companies: Boeing and Microsoft — with considerable justification.
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And after that, what other sectors are there of which we can boast world-class status? Natural resource businesses like timber and fishing no longer figure prominently in the regional economy, much less nationally. Seattle never did emerge as a biotech center the way boosters hoped.

Interestingly, one sector in which Seattle has emerged as a leader is one in which it had not traditionally been a significant player — retailing. Such is Starbucks' status that it has influenced the direction of another giant, McDonald's, while Costco on a national level has forced none other than Wal-Mart to react to it.

Still, the portfolio is a little thin in terms of making Seattle a world-class business center. That's probably just fine with a lot of people. But if Seattle does aspire to world-class status as an economic development strategy, it's got some work to do, beyond merely boasting how darn great we are.

If you have to tell everyone you're world-class, maybe you really aren't.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner. Bill "gets it." Seattle is a nice city, but any way you look at things, it falls short of the "world class" title.

(Bill Virgin, Seattle P-I, 04.16.2007)

2007 Optimism, Part III: Some Cracks Appear

This is the last post in this impromptu series. There were just so many articles out there full of "expert" quotes and predictions about the Puget Sound's economic outlook for 2007. Here are three more articles that discuss the interaction of the local housing market with the greater local economic picture. Surprisingly, the housing affordability elephant in the room is actually not completely ignored:

The Good Ride Continues in 2007
Because of relatively high rates of in-migration and household formation, the regional housing market will continue to do better than its national counterpart in 2007 and 2008.

Dick Conway, (Washington CEO)

2007: A Sound economic picture
The one sector no one sees much of a lift from is housing, either in new-home construction or resale activity and prices. Pedersen says in-migration and employment growth are counterbalanced by the deterioration of affordability.

Bill Virgin, (Seattle P-I)

Area's solid economy vulnerable to cracks showing up elsewhere
So even if the local real-estate market holds up better than its national counterpart, "if the U.S. housing market pulls the country into a recession, then we have a problem," Conway said.

Drew DeSilver, (Seattle Times)

I'm keeping this post short because I've said about all I feel like saying on the topic for now. We'll see how things pan out.