My observiation is only a small number of real estate developers are really pushing for gambling and big box but in desparation the rest of the econ dev community is taking whatever they can get. The area I hear most core econ dev folks pushing is healthcare and banking, for good reasons. What not enough are talking about is fixing the heart of the community - Mayor Brewer suing industry over lead poisoning our citizens and so destroying the economy in the core is the first step in the right direction. In that sense, Brewer is the most progressive economic development leader in Ohio! BTW, I spoke with a top leader of the City of Columbus last week and asked him what he thought would happen with the gambling vote - his opinion from Columbus is it doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell of passing, so I wouldn't worry too much about that coming to Cleveland.

Disrupt IT