This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
Guest bloggers
Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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I am reading an article by Richard Florida in The Atlantic that suggests that the financial crash will not only alter economic policy, the business landscape and personal finances, but also where people live.
Florida is the guru of the "creative class" theory of economic development. He preaches that the world's smartest, most talented young professionals gravitate to cities that cater to them. He came to Tacoma in 2006 to help the city work on initiatives to enhance Tacoma's creative appeal.
In his piece for The Atlantic, Florida opines that the financial meltdown will have disparate geographic effects. "Some cities and regions will eventually spring back stronger than before. Others may never come back at all."
What caught my eye was his suggestion that New York, a global financial center, isn't likely to be as affected as lesser financial outposts like Des Moines, Iowa, that depend even more heavily on financial jobs. (In Des Moines, they make up 18 percent of the total employment.)
Des Moines, you will remember, is the old stomping grounds of Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson. He and others are hoping to do for Tacoma what succeeded in Des Moines – becoming a Mecca for financial services companies. The Tacoma City Council last year created an International Financial Services Area in Tacoma's downtown in the hopes of keeping Russell Investments and attracting more Russell-like companies.
Had we jumped on that bandwagon sooner, Tacoma might have been in direr straits. Financial services jobs – which represented almost 5 percent of Tacoma's total employment in 2007 compared to Des Moines' 18 percent – are indeed desirable in good times. But when you live by the market, you also die by it.
That doesn't mean the strategy is necessarily doomed. As Florida notes, some of smaller financial centers are using the crisis as an opportunity to grow their market share. And others might not be in as bad as shape as, say, older manufacturing regions in the interior of the country and newer Sun Belt communities whose booms relied on the housing bubble.
