Flywheels: How Cities Are Creating Their Own Futures

296 Pages·2021·2.316 MB·English

by  Tom Alberg

C I T I E S ARE CR
W E
A
O O WN F TI
H E I R UTU N
H R G
T E
S
FLYWHEELS
TOM ALBERG
FLYWHEELS

publication supported by a grant from
The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven
as part of the Urban Haven Project

Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2021 Tom Alberg
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Alberg, Tom, author.
Title: Flywheels : how cities are creating their own futures /
Tom Alberg, Columbia Business School Publishing.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2021] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021017376 (print) | LCCN 2021017377 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780231199544 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231553186 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Cities and towns—Effect of technological innovations on—
United States. | Urban renewal—United States. | Technology—United States—
Sociological aspects.
Classification: LCC HT167 .A5738 2021 (print) | LCC HT167 (ebook) |
DDC 307.760973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017376
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017377
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design: Noah Arlow
To entrepreneurs, inventors, and all
who are working to build a better world.

contents
Foreword by John Stanton ix
Part 1
Prelude to Jeff Bezos’s Day 1 1
1
Opportunities and Challenges of Cities 17
2
Foundations of the Economic Flywheel 30
3
Seattle’s Flywheels Begin Spinning 41
4
Microsoft and Amazon Innovate to Success 60
Part 2
5
On the Precipice of the Future 79
6
Investing in the Future: Talent and Capital 96
7
New Models for Success: Oklahoma City, Tulsa,
and Kansas City 116
viii CONTENTS
PART 3
8
Livable Cities 141
9
Public Safety and Privacy 149
10
Homelessness and PreK–12 Education 162
11
Transportation and Environment 183
PART 4
12
Government and Business: Conflicts and Cooperation 199
13
The Future of Cities 214
Acknowledgments 231
Note on Sources 235
Notes 239
Index 271
foreword
I first met Tom Alberg in 1987 when I was trying to purchase shares in a
small, struggling tech company. Tom was the managing partner of Perkins
Coie, the largest law firm in Seattle. He had done work for the tech com-
pany, and when it could not pay its bills, Tom agreed to take stock instead.
Over lunch in Kirkland, I got to know this curious, fiercely intelligent but
gentle man, who had stewarded Boeing and several other Seattle corpora-
tions through various legal challenges. Tom told me that he liked small
companies, and he thought Perkins Coie would hang on to its stock. His
insights in that early stage company were prescient, and Tom went on to
found the largest venture capital firm in the Pacific Northwest, demonstrat-
ing similarly keen instincts for the next three-plus decades.
In 1990, Tom left the practice of law to join McCaw Cellular, where
I was the vice-chair. As Tom recounts in the book, we met to talk about his
compensation package, which included stock options, again demonstrat-
ing Tom’s belief in betting on the future. Since that time we have served
together on several boards, both public and nonprofit. More recently my
Trilogy Equity partnership has invested in nine businesses with Tom’s
venture capital group, Madrona, and I have personally invested in every
Madrona fund. It is not too much to say that Tom, still providing leadership
and guidance to enthusiastic young entrepreneurs, is at eighty, an éminence