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Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, October 3rd, and I'm Molly Walsh, a member of the City Club board of directors.

I'm pleased to introduce today's forum, the Peter de Leone Endowed Forum on Local Politics, featuring Biju Shor president and CEO of Greater Cleveland Partnership, or GCP.

Baiju Shah joined GCP in 2021 with more than 12,000 members.

GCP is the largest metropolitan chamber of commerce in the nation, guided by a board of corporate and entrepreneurial CEOs.

The organization advances growth and prosperity through strategic initiatives, business services, real estate, and advocacy.

Before joining GCP, Shah was the Senior Fellow for innovation at the Cleveland Foundation, where he focused on catalyzing economic growth.

He also previously served as CEO of Bio Motiv and as co-leader of the Harrington Project for Discovery and Development, a national drug development initiative, and he was CEO and co-founder of Bio Enterprise, an accelerator and industry growth initiative focused on strategic alliances with pharma companies, health institutions, universities and foundations.

In addition to his role at GCP, he currently serves on numerous civic and corporate boards and has been named one of Cleveland's most influential leaders.

In an essay for Crain's Cleveland Business last year, Baiju cautioned that in recent history, our region has approached major opportunities with an either or perspective, asking, for example, do we focus on the lakefront or the riverfront?

Develop housing in the downtown area, in neighborhoods or in the suburbs, grow research, or grow businesses?

This limiting mindset has certainly created tension in our region, but perhaps the time has come to embrace an abundance mindset and approach also put forth by bestselling authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their book Abundance.

Today, we will learn how a mindset change might help create a brighter future for Greater Cleveland.

How can the region's business and civic leaders work together to unlock the region's full potential and step away from an either or mindset?

A reminder for our live stream and radio audiences.

If you have a question during the Q&A portion of the forum, you can text it to (330)541-5794, and City Club staff will try to work it into the program.

Now, members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Baiju Shah.

Thank you Molly, and thank you to the City Club for hosting this forum.

I want to begin by once again recognizing and congratulating our Board Chair, Paul Dolan, and the Cleveland Gardens, on a great and historic season.

It was an easy applause line, so I figured I should start with that back to back Central Division champs.

It's good to see so many fans and passionate Clevelanders here.

I also want to thank our other board directors, team members, GCP members, partners, and most importantly, my wife for joining us here today.

Friends, if you haven't seen the news, Greater Cleveland is on the rise.

One of the top regions for college graduates.

Among the best cities for young professionals.

A top ten city for new college graduates.

One of the best states to start a business.

One of America's hottest housing markets.

An excellent choice for Gen Z home buyers.

Number one in the US for growth at home buying power a city every art lover should visit.

One of America's top travel destinations ranked among the world's best cities.

So yeah, this is Metropolis.

But actually it's Cleveland, which, coincidentally enough, is the birthplace of Superman.

The new center of the world is Cleveland.

Now.

Now, I know we've got an audience full of engaged civic individuals.

How many of you have seen at least half of those headlines?

Okay, good.

That's great.

Those stories are all from national media, and they're evidence of our momentum.

We are indeed a region on the rise region whose companies and institutions lead through innovation and make things that matter.

We're a region with world renowned health care, world class arts and culture, global diversity and creative energy.

And we're a region with nationally recognized parks.

A national park and a great lake.

What we have is unmatched and enviable.

This past spring, I hosted my peers from around the country here in Cleveland.

They were stunned by all that we had to offer.

And that was before we took them over to see Craig Hassall, who bedazzled them with the story and the glory of Playhouse Square.

Every visitor sees it, and every newcomer treasures it.

My friends, Cleveland is back.

It's taken decades of work and partnerships, building companies and our community.

But that resurgence is visible and palpable.

I want to give you two examples.

First, the Cleveland Index, created by Bob Smith and survey partners, which tracks all of our public companies, and it compares them to how the market's doing as a whole.

When you see the index, you can see that Cleveland companies have been outperforming the market since 2010, but espec Businesses are thriving across our region.

But it's also visible downtown, a downtown.

It's transformed from what it looked like in my childhood to today's glow up, a shining skyline of our progress.

While we celebrate that, we must strive for more because as good as it is, we know it can be greater to realize our full potential.

We now need to address three challenges.

First, we need more people.

Second, we need everyone to be super skilled.

And third, we need people to embrace an abundance mindset.

This mindset, Smalley said, means rejecting either or frames.

It's embracing our collective strengths.

We call this all in.

Honoring our Cavs championship mantra and taking aim at a bold and inspired vision.

A vision of a great region on a great lake where business income and jobs growth is top tier of our peers, where opportunities expanding and where our region is not only a place we are all proud to be from.

But Greater Cleveland is a place where people want to come to work, to prosper.

To engage, to belong and to live better lives.

That's the overview.

Let's unpack it.

Let's start by saying, when we say Cleveland, we mean the whole region where we live, work, and play.

We mean the region that centers on this city but stretches from Sandusky to Ashtabula.

And from where we're seated here today to canton, 3.7 million people, a $275 billion economy, the largest region in Ohio, the third largest in the Midwest, the top 20 in the United States.

No matter where we live, we are all Clevelanders.

It's our global brand, a brand that we proudly display and powerfully defend.

Greater Cleveland Scale is driven by the success of our businesses.

Private organizations, large and small, account for over 85% of our jobs, and GCP, with over 12,500 companies, is members.

It is the region's chamber of commerce.

Our CEO only board includes leaders from our largest businesses as well as entrepreneurs.

And they, like their predecessors, recognize the vital role that their companies play in our community.

They come together to grow a region where businesses and people can thrive.

Developing a vision.

Strategies to support it, and bringing the leadership, the resources and partnerships needed to drive results.

Our board members actively guide strategies and the GCP team.

They commit resources and make connections to others, and they advocate for policies and funding.

And these CEOs engage in the work personally and directly, directly with their peers and with government leaders locally in Columbus and in DC.

Always in partnership with each other and always all in with partners to turn strategies into impact.

As a team, we have the privilege of seeing that engagement and that commitment every day, even as they manage complex local and global enterprises.

It's their involvement in the involvement of their teams that provide us a platform to convene, to catalyze and advocate on behalf of the business community to accelerate the region's growth and prosperity.

Three years ago, we shared our all in vision and plan for this decade a great region on a great lake, a place where businesses and people thrive together.

The plan has metrics and sets targets to become a top growth region this decade.

And most important, we shared the way to get there.

We had to work all in in mindset, spirit and values that describe Cleveland at its very best.

All in with the relentless focus on execution.

Because, as Thomas Edison once said, visions without execution are just hallucinations.

Thanks to the leadership and efforts of many across the private, public and civic sectors working together, the region is seeing results in Cleveland.

This rising, it's showing up in the data.

The index is the best leading indicator.

We have also risen in the rankings of business growth and income growth, especially in income growth, where we now rank as the third fastest in the Midwest.

The all in approach and plan are having impact.

I want to share just a few examples to demonstrate of how this applies in practice.

So one focus has been growing the advanced materials and manufacturing sector.

Organizations work on this individually and they also work on this collectively to grow individually.

Sherwin-Williams creating not only a global headquarters, but a global R&D center that they're moving into this week.

Avery Dennison shifted their headquarters in North America from California to Cleveland.

Aviat expanding their R&D center, Case Western, growing their research and building a new $200 million science and engineering center.

Those are just a few examples.

All leading through innovation, all focused on making things that matter.

And each of those actions, and those of many other companies and organizations alone, is great, but it's amplified by what they're doing together in initiatives like the Polymer Tech Hub, a $100 million efforts centered in Akron, but including companies across our region and institutions and the NIO smart engine, led by Case Western.

Both of those efforts bringing together over 30 groups to focus on materials and manufacturing innovation.

And that gets amplified further by magnets work with small companies, the Bounce Innovation Hub and manufacturing technical and degree programs at places like Tri-C, Lakeland, Lorain, and degree programs at case, Cleveland State, Akron, Kent and more.

And that gets amplified further by Team Neo.

Team neo is our region's jobs Ohio partner that focuses and leads on business attraction, expansion and retention, and are focusing on the sector that gets amplified further by a regional site strategy and energy policy at the state to support it.

And all of that.

It's been all in.

It's a coordinated effort of industry, institutions and civic groups, each of us leveraging our strengths, each of us collaborating, not competing.

Working in unity for our community.

All to position Greater Cleveland as a hub for industries such as materials, automotive, energy and aerospace.

Speaking of aerospace, leading through innovation, of course, applies to NASA Glenn, a 3000 person powerhouse for our region.

Our business and civic community lobbied for that center's establishment in 1941.

And we have proudly advocated for it ever since.

We have an all in plan and effort now to expand the center every week.

GCP jobs Ohio team.

Neo.

Governor's office.

Senators.

Offices.

Representative.

Miller.

Staff need leadership meets every other week to coordinate actions.

Our board is met directly with the governor.

Senators Moreno and Houston.

Reps.

Miller.

And just last week, Representative Brown all talking about NASA Glenn.

We also advocate to NASA leadership on group led visits to DC.

And also when NASA leadership visits Cleveland, most recently in Ohio Space Week hosted by Team Neo.

We're headline this year, of course, by the astronaut Sunita Williams, American hero and true global Clevelander of Indian and Slovenian heritage.

All of this is to position the center to lead on technologies, technologies that enable space exploration, but also applications here on Earth.

Hopefully, you saw the recent news that NASA Glenn will lead development of nuclear power technologies to support lunar bases and future missions.

These are technologies that could also power factories and data centers right here on Earth.

And we're excited about that because that news could mean billions to this region for technology development, but also companies attracted here to support it.

All of our partners are all in to secure this and to keep pursuing more.

Similar success happens when leadership comes together for community development.

Our real estate affiliate is called Cleveland Development Advisors.

It's the Business Communities Impact Investment Fund that today as nearly $300 million of assets under management.

We always work all in with partners on catalytic neighborhood projects.

In the last few months, we've had openings of Central Villa, 2580 ninth Street Rising project, the Hawthorne School redevelopment, and the CIA's Interactive Media Lab, all funded in part by the Business Communities real estate arm.

We also elevated the beginning of the West Side Market transformation, a standout project for its scale and its impact.

And we know this is an iconic institution which serves locals and also attracts visitors.

It also supports food businesses, many of whom are members of cozy or small business arm, led by the city and the county and the Market Corporation, and fueled by $28 million from our funds, including via PNC.

The first phase of the transformation is underway.

The development also includes large scale projects, projects like Sherwin-Williams, Cleveland Clinic's Case Western, Bedrock River ballpark renovation, our new football stadium, the airport, and more.

It takes different types of partnerships to make those happen.

It was important to the city and to the business community that these transformative projects also transform the broader community.

That was the focus of one of our annual meetings, after which the mayor, city council president, CEOs of these projects and GCP met several times, and our teams worked diligently together on developing a system to ensure that small businesses have the opportunity to become large businesses.

Through these projects, led by the city.

A community benefits ordinance.

An MoU was signed not only by GCP and our companies, but many partners.

Last year.

And that has resulted already in over $100 million in new contracts to minority and small businesses, and a collaborative to help even more entrepreneurs participate in this growth.

So thanks to decades of hard work and continued all in collaboration.

Cleveland is back from the headlines to our skyline.

That momentum is clear.

My friends, we have a new growth challenge.

People, people and people.

First.

We need more people.

As some of you may disagree.

You don't want to ruin a good thing.

You don't want traffic.

But we need some more people and we have the infrastructure to support it.

Our population has barely grown, but there's already a lot happening.

We've been net gaining degreed workers for a long time now, but not enough to keep up with that business growth that you're seeing.

So GCP and Destination Cleveland are leading an alliance working to attract more talent to the region, with the first focus being young professionals like spending internships, organizing summer events and career fairs.

We now have a pool of over 6000 interested individuals in Cleveland.

And we target them.

We target them with peer stories.

We connect them to peer ambassadors because we know peers can be persuasive in a way that parents cannot.

And we've also built a platform to connect them now to employers.

And that's starting to move the needle.

Increasing the number of young professionals coming to the region, as you saw in the headlines.

But even more is needed.

And we need to attract all talent degreed and non-degree.

And we need to attract all talent from all backgrounds, including attracting and welcoming immigrants.

We applaud and support the work of the county and Global Cleveland and similar organizations in these endeavors.

So we need more people.

But our second people challenge is we need to super skill the people we already have.

Last week, I gathered again with my peers from around the country.

The big topic was I. I is both a disruptor and is an enabler to companies and to communities.

We met with representatives from OpenAI and anthropic.

We also met earlier in the week with Palantir.

There's just a few nuggets ChatGPT in three years has grown to over 700 million daily users.

More than 10% of the world's internet users.

McKinsey estimates that 30% of our work hours are going to be dramatically reshaped.

You heard Walmart's CEO last week, he said.

Every job will be impacted, and AI experts will tell you that at least 10% of jobs, at least 10%, are going to be fully replaced.

From customer service to coding to more.

At our AI summit this past spring, Accenture presented an AI in by to.

Two weeks ago, we had our best of tech event.

CIOs were describing a very near future where people are managing teams of AI agents.

Agents that do that learn itself, improve, self execute without explicit instructions.

Now, if that sounds like sci fi, it's not.

It's already here.

And that technology is advancing very, very quickly.

All of that seems daunting.

And our task is not just to describe it.

Describe its impact, but to position the region to grow because of it.

Because like all technologies, AI is a platform and an enabler.

Challenge.

And our opportunities to ensure employees and entrepreneurs rapidly learn these technologies and leverage them.

We have strong policy support programs like tech Grants that make super scaling easy.

In our region, over 43,000 people have earned a credential.

Sounds like a lot.

It's only 2% of our workforce.

We need to scale rapidly.

We need to focus, especially on older workers, to keep them in the labor force.

We also recognize AI's power for small businesses because it's not just about instant insights.

AI can do the work.

They can do the marketing.

It can do the finance inventory, the supply chain, customer service, and more.

And that reduces the cost and the barriers to entry for small businesses.

This year, more than 2000 people have attended one of our AI focused sessions.

But we need and we will be doing much, much more.

We expect our partners across the system, groups like Tri-C and Jumpstart and others will do the same.

Because whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur or just an individual, AI is empowering.

It creates the opportunities to do more and to do it better.

And importantly, as Paul Rasor, our friend and a global AI guru, says, to do it in less time.

Time that we can use to live better lives.

So we need more people and we need to super skill the people we have.

But our third people challenge is we need a mindset shift, mindset shift to embrace aspiration and to embrace abundance.

We've had several energized board conversations about this across the street.

As one of our CEOs observed.

Too many people here fear striving for excellence.

Fear wanting to win.

Maybe it's a legacy from some tough times that we've gone through as a region, but whatever the cause.

It's time to shift.

Last years, Morley said, we called for an a Cleveland abundance mindset.

We did that because we were constantly being asked a question can we do everything that's being envisioned?

In our answer has been a resounding yes.

We have the leadership.

We have the resources in the private and public sectors to do so.

We can grow the large businesses and strengthen small business support.

We can focus on more than one industry.

We've got a diversified economy.

We can develop all of our talent and attract new talent here.

We can invest in downtown, our city neighborhoods and our suburbs, and we can develop the riverfront and the lakefront and create world class parks, stadiums, arts, entertainment and a 21st century airport.

This is a new moment for Cleveland.

It's a moment of opportunity.

And the risk is not overextending.

The risk is missing.

This moment.

I want to close where we started.

Cleveland has always been a place where the world looks for what's next.

Innovation is in our DNA.

And now we are leading again.

And we're making the things that matter.

And advanced materials and manufacturing and healthcare and energy and aerospace.

We're doing it for here on Earth, and we're doing it to explore the universe.

We have a strong insurance and finance sector and professional service firms that provide the expertise to support the growth.

We've got tech savvy entrepreneurs and creatives that fuel our neighborhoods in Cleveland.

We are a region of winners.

Our companies and institutions lead their sectors nationally and globally.

Our health care is world class.

Our arts and cultural organizations are world renowned.

Our men's and soon women's professional teams compete and win in the major leagues.

We have a national park and a nationally recognized park system, and we have a great lake.

Cleveland is back.

Resurgence is clear.

We now need to aim boldly to be a great region.

Not just a good region, but a great region on a great lake.

This is Cleveland's moment to lead again, to invent the future, to be a top growth region, to prosper together.

And to win.

All of this is possible when we have inspired aspirations, when we embrace abundance, and when we work all in.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You all in for Cleveland?

We're about to begin the audience Q&A.

For those just joining us via our live stream and radio audiences.

I'm Molly Walsh, member of the City Club board of directors.

Today we are joined by Biju Shah, president and CEO of Greater Cleveland Partnership.

We welcome questions from everyone City Club members, guests, students and those joining via our live stream at City club.org or live radio broadcast at 89.7 KSU Ideas Stream Public Media.

If you'd like to text a question for Biju, please text it to (330)541-5794.

Again, that's (330)541-5794.

And city club staff will try to work it into the program.

May we have the first question please?

Hello.

My name is Jonesborough.

I work for the Literacy Cooperative as director of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library for Cuyahoga County.

My question is, at what stage of life does the workforce or talent pipeline begin?

Grade school.

High school?

College?

Perhaps.

Birth?

We know a child who begins kindergarten prepared is seven times more likely to be proficient in reading, and nine times more likely to be proficient in math.

In third grade.

Thank you.

That's a deep question, John.

You know, I don't love to think of children as workers.

Children or children.

Children are humans.

That human development is very important.

I think your points are great, and I think we focus on some of you may know we've got a shared, initiative called Ohio Excels.

Ohio Excels is the business community's efforts to really support education and workforce development all the way from those early childhood years.

John, through the adult workforce.

Literacy, as you said, is key.

Literacy, numeracy.

Also digital literacy as early as possible.

We have been strong champions for standards at the state level and resources to support the development of children, to get to those standards, to make sure that early in their development, they're mastering those basic skills that enable learning for life.

Thank you.

Hello.

This is a text question.

A February cleveland.com article pointed out challenges Northeast Ohio continues to have with respect to collaboration.

In comparison to our peer Ohio cities when it comes to economic development.

The article also quoted you as saying that bringing new businesses to Cleveland isn't part of Gcp's scope.

Can you please help clarify what Gcp's role is in economic development?

If that has changed since you took on the role and how you see collaboration going and considering also the more recent communication from the city and county suggesting that they have stopped working with GCP subsequent to its endorsement of the Browns, moved to Brook Park.

All right.

Lots of good questions and all right.

It was going to come up.

We knew it was going to come up.

I want to thank Felton for wearing the Browns hat.

Probably triggered that.

So let me let me unpack it.

Maybe in the order in those questions received.

So first and foremost, team Neil, the jobs Ohio partner for the region, is the lead on all business attraction, retention and expansion.

That has been the case ever since I've been CEO of the Greater Green Partnership.

We support Team Deal.

I sit on the board of Team Deo, our company support team Neo, and we assist them as requested by them or Jobs Ohio on pursuing any opportunity, whether it's in region or from outside of the region.

So to clarify in that article, when you think of economic development is just the transactional component of bringing companies or expanding companies in the region.

Team neo is the lead.

They are our partner and we strongly support them.

But if you think of economic development or economic strategy more broadly, it's about everything.

It's about the sites.

It's about the sectors we target.

It's about the innovation initiatives.

It's about the talent.

It's about the supportive policy.

And that's where we work in partnership with Team Neo and many others.

But we take the lead on some of those longer term environmental factors that make our region ever more competitive to attract or to expand businesses.

So that's the first question.

The second question that was asked is relative to the city in the county.

We continue to support the county in the city.

We want to see the city be very strong.

It's critical to the region that the city and the county are successful, and we support the success of the mayor and the county executive and the councils that they both lead.

We also know that it's critical to support the growth of the region, because it's the size of the region is equally critical to the success of the county and the city, and we continue to work with them on the types of projects that we just described here, whether it's around NASA, Glenn community development projects, some of the major initiatives that are going on, in terms of development and of course, the innovation initiatives and sector building initiatives that we described.

Yes.

Can you tell, talk about the role that immigrant entrepreneurs have had in Cleveland?

Success.

If not our immigrant population as a whole?

I love that question.

It's a it's a tip.

So this city in this region has always been a place of welcome for immigrants.

It's what's grown our region.

And that's been successive waves of immigrants and migrants from around the world and around the country that have built us to where we are today.

Entrepreneurs, as well as immigrants that are professionals and working in other capacities, have been critical not only for Cleveland's history and growth, but continue to do today.

I'll give you some examples right on our board.

Just we've got a board and I think probably about 20 to 25% of our board are probably immigrants.

Some of them lead very, very large organizations.

Organizations like the Cleveland Clinic or Eton or Cleveland Cliffs, all led by immigrants.

Right.

Aviat that we talked about.

All of these are led by immigrants, but we also have immigrant entrepreneurs.

Doctor Hiro Fujita comes to mind.

Head of QED.

How many of you have heard of QED?

Okay, good.

This is definitely a much more informed audience than many audiences.

I speak to you, but er.

Fujita has grown QED to the point where it was partially acquired by Cannon Health Care.

And because of that acquisition, Doctor Fujita has then been critical in recruiting Cannon Health Care to relocate its US operations to right here in Cleveland.

And there are many, many, many more examples of that type of success of entrepreneurs, whether they're immigrants or not.

Immigrants in our community.

I, I've heard it put forth at least semi seriously in recent years.

I think the Brookings Brookings Institute did a did a study about it, but it was sort of the idea that perhaps, certain federal agencies might fare better outside of Washington DC than inside of Washington, DC.

And the one that always seems to come up with Cleveland in mind is potentially moving the National Institutes of Health to Cleveland.

I was curious if GCP thinks about those types of potential developments, has a position on them, or if you just have sort of your own individual thoughts on potential opportunities for Cleveland like that.

Well, I've got a lot of personal thoughts on that, and I'm sure there's a lot of federal workers that would want to be outside of DC these days as well.

You know, I don't know if we can move entire agencies because they're rooted in their established.

They're of significant scale.

But we'll use NASA as an example.

You know, this administration has said that they want to distribute more of NASA's leadership functions, across the country.

And that's something that galvanized us to work again with the governor or senators or entire federal delegation, all elected officials in our community and many other partners to go after as many of those opportunities that we could bring to NASA.

Glenn.

As possible, because there are a lot of those functions that would function better in proximity rather than being distantly managed via headquarters.

So any time we see an opportunity to do that, we rally with our federal delegation and our state leadership in particular, to go after things that are there.

There are some examples in the military as well, that our region has been involved with in recently, and bringing some, military functions to the Mansfield area.

We're going to keep looking for each and every one of those opportunities across different federal agencies and departments.

Okay.

My name is Linear, Colonel.

I go to Georgia Early College.

I appreciate being here, and I appreciate it.

My teacher let me come here, but, it's a lot of people.

But, I wanted to know, like, I'm a senior now, right?

Yeah.

So I was wondering, like, I then I like Division.

I like that we're trying to improve like Cleveland as a whole and, like, try to make it a better place.

But I wanted to know, like us as, like, students that are like young men and young women that are becoming adults, like, what can we do as like the future generations like create this Cleveland that you're like trying to build.

So I love that question.

And I love the fact that you had the courage to ask it, and the desire to want to be a part of creating the future Cleveland.

I think the most important things, that individuals can do, besides what you're doing in terms of your schooling and, you know, whatever might happen after you graduate is to bring the ideas.

Because one of the things that we are really curious about is, what is your generation looking for in the community?

Can you talk about how climate impacts business decisions and what you're seeing from your vantage point in terms of Cleveland and our region's relative stability in terms of fire, flood, etc.?

Yeah.

Thanks, Kyle.

So two years ago, well, let me back up one step further.

So three years ago, our CEOs put on our radar the importance of sustainability.

The important part put it on our radar because they said sustainability is a growth opportunity.

Companies that embrace it, that pivot their products in a way that have a lighter environmental footprint are going to be in greater.

They're going to have greater success.

That's what customers are looking for, not just consumers, but B2B customers.

And so we started a sustainability initiative that has blossomed into a whole range of work.

Two years ago at our sustainability summit, our keynote speaker was a woman who led sustainability investing for Blackrock in Caitlin.

When she was there, you know, in a private conversation we had with our CEOs and chief investment officer for, chief of air for our companies.

We talked about sort of when will climate risk become more of a decision factor for companies when they choose places to operate right.

Her thought was it's probably in the next 3 to 5 years because things are happening in the insurance market.

If you cannot get business insurance, like we read all about home insurance, right?

In places where you can no longer get home insurance or no longer get flood insurance, because there's no way to make money as an insurer, if you're constantly being subject to the risk of having to make these payouts.

That's also true in other insurance markets, business operations, insurance.

It's going to become increasingly hard to get business interruption insurance in certain markets, because the risk models aren't going to enable companies to insurers to price it in a way that companies are going to offer it.

And that's when you start to see the trigger.

You know, one of the things that we've thought about, and it gets back to I think one of the first questions is strategically, how do we evaluate who's got operations in those geographies that are most likely to start to lose that type of support, to start?

And how do we start having conversations with those companies today to talk about before you do your next major capital investment in a facility in Florida or a facility in the Gulf Coast, or a facility in Southern California, or a facility in Arizona, before you go and put more money in.

Let's talk about what that future looks like.

And do you really want to make that investment there, or do you want to come to more of a climate stable region like Greater Cleveland?

So I do think it becomes an advantage for us.

I do think it's something that we'll work on strategically with Team Dio and with Jobs Ohio to say, how do we go after opportunities as it becomes more and more of a decision factor for companies?

Good afternoon.

We have a text question.

Cleveland is great.

It has a great highway system, which makes it very easy to travel from the lake to any direction.

I worked downtown.

I parked downtown at work for entertainment purposes, and I walked to see the Guardians and Cavs to the south, Voinovich Park to the north, Playhouse Square and City Club to the east, Tower City to the west, etc.

I feel comfortable and safe.

So my question is, how do you respond to politicians such as Max Miller, who describe downtown as dangerous?

Yeah.

So, you know, we work across the street.

We're here every single day.

We two, like the questioner, you know, come in frequently for entertainment.

I don't know that I've ever described the City Club as a place for entertainment, Dan, but, you know, one of our entertainment venues here in our community, and we do feel safe.

But there are issues that need to be addressed not only in downtown, but across our city, in some of our suburban neighborhoods as well.

And so more action is needed.

Hello, just a brief introduction.

My name is Christopher Salvi.

I'm over here at MC squared Stone.

My question for you is, as a student athlete, you said you wanted to bring more different talents into Cleveland.

So how exactly what you do that for?

Moreso college athletics and stuff like that.

That's a great question.

I don't I don't have a great answer for you in terms of how to do it for college athletics.

It was great to see Tri-C recently expand some of their offerings in terms of athletic sports.

But the college athletics scene I know has got all sorts of financial challenges.

And so it's led to changes at some of our other local institutions in terms of what their offerings are and what their offerings are not.

One of the things we're very excited about is what, the Cleveland Clinic and the Cleveland Cavaliers are putting together here on the riverfront, because it's going to be a complex that's really focused on, performance human performance, but really for athletes, right from high school athletes like yourself all the way to adult athletes or wannabe athletes as adults.

Whatever the case might be.

And that will hopefully create all sorts of additional recreational offerings.

We have another tax question.

You mentioned that the region is now ranked third in the Midwest for income growth.

How well distributed is that?

How are people doing at the low end of the labor market, and are people able to move out of poverty?

Yeah, these are great questions, right.

So that is a median number.

It is not a distribution type of number.

And I think it would, be obvious to state that we still have significant pockets of inequality throughout our region, similar to other regions.

So it's not different than other regions similar.

We've got places of deep economic division.

One of the things that we have to do a better job of doing is connecting those individuals to support and the opportunities that exist.

And that's really a it's a complex set of things that all need to come together.

The first is making sure individuals have an awareness that the opportunities or even opportunities that they can access, Cleveland has a long history of being siloed instead of collaborative, and having a scarcity mindset versus the abundance mindset you mentioned.

Other than talking it up, what practical steps and actual tactics are in place or plan to make a sustainable difference?

Yeah, that's a great question.

And we have been, as a region, siloed and parochial for far too long.

Right.

We think small.

It's wonderful to have pride in your neighborhood or your city.

But we need to realize that when we go to market and when we're looking at a company from anywhere, we compete together as one big region or one big region as Cleveland.

And so we are trying to first walk the walk, right?

Collaborating in partnership with our friends at the Greater Akron Chamber Star Development Board, our friends at the Greater Sandusky Partnership.

You know, across this entire region, working as a single unit, a single team work that we displayed in the materials and manufacturing is a great example of that, because it's companies and it's community organizations from across that entire footprint working together in unity for the region in which we work, live and play.

That's really important.

The second is, as leaders and as individuals and organizations, just continuing to find ways to develop real partnerships so that we are working with each other on other important community aspects or community initiatives.

The question before was around sort of the divisions that we have in terms of income inequality.

That's an opportunity for us to think about that not just in a small geographic way, but really to think about poverty across our region.

We've got concentrated poverty right here in the city of Cleveland and some adjacent, suburbs of the city of Cleveland.

We also have concentrated poverty in Lorain and in Akron and in Painesville and Canton, and we've got to work on that together instead of working on it just in micro geographies.

We have another text question.

You mentioned our people problem, but neither the cause nor the solution seem obvious.

Can you clarify your approach and can we really solve the problem with internships and parties?

You know, just be we like to say we don't just throw parties, we throw parties with purpose.

So, the challenge on the people front, you know, we've started to see again the real impact of the work we're doing of internships, of experiences like parties and then connecting that to ongoing messaging and connecting.

One of the greatest challenges we have for bringing people to Cleveland is getting them to consider it in the first instance.

And a part of that, especially for young professionals, is it's not just about the job, but it's also about the experience of living here as a 20 year old.

We thought that that's why we led to that summer initiative that we now call Summer in the land with all of our partners, so that these students come together.

Just some interesting statistics from this past summer.

We had 1800 students together at a Guardian scheme.

Those 1800 students came from 215 different colleges and universities.

They were all interning here this summer, and over 472 different companies.

And we still think we're only getting about a third of the interns that are actually here, because for whatever reason, we cannot get the kids out of the labs at case in Cleveland Clinic to show up downtown, right.

So there's this mass of students that are already here.

Art.

Our job is to show them what living here looks like as a 20 year old, because the companies are giving them great internship experiences.

They're going to exciting them professionally.

But these students, they have choices.

All of us have choices as to where we're going to live, where we're going to invest, where we're going to build a business.

We need to show them what living here is like so that they choose here, and then we need to replicate that for other talent groups, whether it's non-degree individuals, whether it's immigrants and a conversation.

We're starting now with a number of our companies.

As for senior level talent, how do we bring more senior level talent here?

So to the questioner, it is absolutely possible.

We're seeing the impact, even in just the three short years of the Cleveland Town Alliance, of moving the needle and getting more of our local college graduates to stay here when they graduate.

But we need to sustain it to see the full effect.

This is a text question.

Perhaps the most significant portion of the abundance movement is housing and zoning reform to make building easier.

Yes.

How is GCP using its advocacy in Cleveland and Ohio to overhaul the processes and regulations in development?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So, you know, as we think about sort of our strategy, the questions all around housing and housing has been great in our region because housing has been accessible.

But it's slowly becoming more and more pricey, and it's becoming less and less accessible.

And one of those big challenges has been how do we create more housing product that individuals want to live in?

What people want today is different than maybe what they wanted 20 years ago, or 40 years ago or 60 years ago.

We need to keep updating our housing stock so we reflect what the market wants to answer the listeners questions.

This is an area that we're actually looking at internally to say, is there a way that we can create some, best practices?

Because a lot of this happens in local municipalities.

It's not something that, can be done, you know, across large geographies.

How do we create best practices to speed the ability for developers to develop different types of housing product so that they are more easily able to construct it in our market?

That's something we're certainly looking at.

The second thing we're looking at, we've put in place a little bit of housing policy or housing stimulation policy at the state, but there's a wide open door to put in much, much more at the state because this is not just a regional issue, but it is a statewide issue.

Housing accessibility and affordability is a critical thing.

And that could become an Achilles heel if we don't move on that real quickly.

Thank you, Biju Shah.

That was a party with a purpose for sure.

Thanks again.

Forums like this one are made possible thanks to generous support from individuals like you.

You can learn more about how to become a guardian, a free speech at City club.org.

Today's forum is the Peter de Leone Forum on Local Politics.

An attorney and labor expert, Mr.

DeLeon was a member of the City Club for 68 years.

In 1967, Mr.

DeLeon defended segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace's right to appear at the City Club, and then he also felt obligated to picket in protest of Wallace's speech outside of the venue.

For that reason, among many others, he became the first person to be inducted into the City Club Hall of Fame while he was still living.

It's a story that is integral to the City Club's history and mission.

We appreciate the Owens families.

Long term support of the City Club.

The City Club would like to welcome students joining us from Cleveland Early College High School and from MC squared Stem High School.

We would also like to welcome guests who welcome guests at tables hosted by Case Western Reserve University, Charity partners, Cuyahoga Community College, Greater Cleveland Partnership, Huntington Bank, PNC, and University Circle Incorporated.

Thank you all for being here.

Coming up next week at the City Club on Friday, October 10th, we welcome Phyllis seven Harris as part of the City Club's local heroes series.

She will discuss pride, progress and purpose of the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

And then on Friday, October 17th, we will be joined by Idea Stream Public Media's Kevin Martin.

And Tim is great with public media company.

They will discuss how stations are adapting in a new era of uncertainty, and unpack the future of public media.

You can learn more about these forums and others and get your tickets at City club.org.

Thank you once again to Bessie Shaw and to our members and friends of the City Club.

I'm Molly Walsh.

This forum is now adjourned.

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