David Morganthaler, founder of Morganthaler Ventures, spoke Thursday at the Levin College Forum, beginning the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs’ 30th Anniversary Forum Series.  This series has been put together to celebrate the College and explore the title of our series: Our Place in the Urban Age.  What is it that cities and urban cores are doing and what is their future in everyday society?

Mr. Morganthaler addressed the history of cities and how they evolve specifically focusing on northeast Ohio.  When Morganthaler graduated from MIT the hottest jobs in the country were in Detroit, Pittsburg and Cleveland.  Manufacturing was the best job one could have.  Automobile manufacturing and metal production was one of the greatest waves of innovation that the country has had.  Cleveland had it all.  Manufacturing afforded our region great institutions like universities and hospitals.  Now, looking back on the history of manufacturing in our region the unionization of manufacturing made this one of the best places to work, yet simultaneously hurt our economic competitiveness.

Northeast Ohio has moved away from manufacturing.  Everyday there are plants closing. What is the cause of this?  Morganthaler posited a couple reasons he has heard repeatedly cited: well, maybe if the river didn’t catch on fire; or if we only had a good advertising and marketing program for the city; if only the Plain Dealer didn’t publish all the downtrodden stories they come across.  “Things like this are a pile of garbage, none of these things make a difference,” he said.  What makes a world-class city, Morganthaler asked?  Innovation.  Respondent Ned Hill summarized it well stating that what we’re talking about is ‘the importance of being distinctive.’

Morganthaler went on to speak about his friend, Richard Florida, whose book The Rise of the Creative Class seems to make everyone believe that the creative class will save us.  Yet, Morganthaler explained, coffee shops, orchestras and the arts aren’t the saviors, jobs are. “50 Starbucks in a row will not pull in the creative people that will save us.”  The bottom line is we must create jobs that are high paying value added jobs.  Industry has a clear cycle when industries mature they slow and the region’s growth slows, and next businesses become less competitive, lastly they die.  Politely reminding us that global competition is not going away, Morganthaler made an important point, one that many of us don’t think about.  He said, “Core parts of the world are studying and emulating us and we are not paying enough attention to this.”

Ending the conversation, David Morganthaler went on to say that perhaps he’s a pessimist, but he is not too positive about the future of downtowns.  He left us with a couple book titles that he implored we read.  The first being "Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley" by Margaret Pugh O'Mara and "Building High-Tech Clusters: Silicon Valley and Beyond" by Timothy Bresnahan and Alfonso Gambardella.  Summing up his experience he said, “As the great CEO of Intel said, ‘In the world of today only the paranoid survive.’”

The video of this forum will be posted soon at www.urban.csuohio.edu/forum