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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe.

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Speaker 3: Why isn't Joe?

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Speaker 2: Do you ever discover little cultural blind spots that you

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Speaker 2: had in your life?

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Speaker 3: I'm like, where are you going with this?

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Speaker 2: So I discovered one recently and it kind of led

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Speaker 2: to a minor epiphany for me. But I had heard

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Speaker 2: the Billy Joel song Alan Town. I had never watched

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Speaker 2: the video, and in preparation for this episode, I watched

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Speaker 2: the video and suddenly a bunch of Simpsons references made

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Speaker 2: sense to me.

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Speaker 4: Interesting.

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Speaker 2: And I don't mean to be I don't mean to

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Speaker 2: be very grand millennial by making Simpsons references.

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Speaker 3: Simpsons reference to like someone younger in the office, they

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Speaker 3: look at the blank stare. I know, it's reallyressed. I

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Speaker 3: just don't do it anymore because it's so depressing.

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Speaker 2: I know, and here I am doing it on the podcast.

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Speaker 3: But I actually, you know, we're the same generation, so

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Speaker 3: we could do it.

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Speaker 2: We can do it.

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Speaker 3: This is a safe listeners might not get it.

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Speaker 2: So the reason I bring it up, though, is for

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Speaker 2: kind of a serious point, not just to talk about

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Speaker 2: Billy Joel music, although now that I think about it,

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Speaker 2: he has a lot of songs about like the political

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Speaker 2: economy of America. But it is because Allentown, Pennsylvania basically

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Speaker 2: became a poster child for de industrialization and the hollowing

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Speaker 2: out of American manufacturing in the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 3: It was a great intro and thank you and of course, right,

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Speaker 3: so we know, and obviously over the years on odd lots,

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Speaker 3: we've talked a lot about industrialization, de industrialization, reindustrialization, great,

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Speaker 3: all very interesting themes. Everyone maybe like feels in their

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Speaker 3: gut somehow that they're like pro reindustrialization, whatever that means. Right,

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Speaker 3: But then the gap between like somehow like we feel

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Speaker 3: good about producing physical things, we want more of that,

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Speaker 3: What does that actually look like in practice? What are

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Speaker 3: these jobs? What are these potential industries? Then it suddenly

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Speaker 3: gets much more hazy. Right, people don't know what that

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Speaker 3: actually looks.

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Speaker 2: Like in practice? Right, how do you actually go about

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Speaker 2: implementing industrial policy on a local scale. And I have

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Speaker 2: to say, the other thing I found out in researching

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Speaker 2: for this podcast. I had no idea, but Allentown, Pennsylvania

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Speaker 2: was also the site of the first some of the

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Speaker 2: first mass produced transistors, yeah, which are like the precursor

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Speaker 2: to semiconductors of today.

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Speaker 3: Can I say what random thinking about Billy Joel before

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Speaker 3: we go further, you know, because obviously you mentioned he

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Speaker 3: talks about, you know, a lot of political economy things

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Speaker 3: and including of course, and we didn't start the fire.

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Speaker 3: The final line of that song is like something about

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Speaker 3: the Cola wars, and he's like, I can't take it anymore,

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Speaker 3: and I just think it's really funny that the Cola

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Speaker 3: wars coke vers pepsi is the thing that tip to

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Speaker 3: over edge like a Vietnam War. All these things happened,

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Speaker 3: and finally the thing that tipped them over the edge

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Speaker 3: was the cold anyway sidechrick, but I just had to.

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Speaker 4: Get that out.

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Speaker 2: We should do a whole episode on Billy Joels songs

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Speaker 2: at some point, including my favorite karaoke standard, which is

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Speaker 2: down Easter Alexa, all about the decline of the fishing industry.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, Allentown, Pennsylvania, let's focus. We do, in fact

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Speaker 2: have the perfect guest. We're going to be speaking with

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Speaker 2: the Mayor of Allentown, Matt Turk. So thank you so

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Speaker 2: much for coming on all thoughts place.

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Speaker 5: It's a huge pleasure to be here.

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Speaker 3: It actually helps because we are we are at the

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Speaker 3: conference in Madrid, right and.

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Speaker 2: We just saw you have a medal from me from

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Speaker 2: the marathon over the weekend. Tell us about that.

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Speaker 6: I landed on Saturday, went right to the marathon expo,

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Speaker 6: picked up my bib. Twenty four hours later I was

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Speaker 6: starting the Madrid forty two k not twenty six miles,

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Speaker 6: forty two kilometers marathon. It was hot, it was hilly,

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Speaker 6: it was beautiful, great crowd support, phenomenal marathon fun finished

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Speaker 6: the marathon and then went right to a reception for

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Speaker 6: Bloomberg City Lab and I've been NonStop since then.

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Speaker 2: That is dedication to both Cardio and city Bustling. So

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Speaker 2: congrats on that. I mentioned Allantown the song and the

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Speaker 2: video in the intro, and I discovered there's some controversy

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Speaker 2: about this because apparently the steelmaking was more in Bethlehem

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Speaker 2: rather than in Allantown. So should Billy Joel have been

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Speaker 2: talking about semiconductors instead of steel?

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Speaker 6: I mean, there's he could have been talking about Max trucks.

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Speaker 6: He could have been talking about silk manufacturing. That's like

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Speaker 6: the local controversy is that like he's talking about you know,

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Speaker 6: Bethleem but he didn't rhyme as well with shutting factories down.

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Speaker 6: But then there's you know, I was surprised.

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Speaker 5: I thought that.

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Speaker 6: Everyone in the country felt like not great about the

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Speaker 6: song Allentown. Then I met the mayor of Toledo and

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Speaker 6: he was like, that's a great song. It's about the

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Speaker 6: working man and blah blah blah blah blah, And I

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Speaker 6: was like, what are you talking about, Like this is

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Speaker 6: the song that like everybody in our region and the

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Speaker 6: Lehigh Alley just like dreads hearing because it's about this

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Speaker 6: like different era that maybe was like felt right in

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Speaker 6: the moment in eighteen eighty two, like that maybe kind

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Speaker 6: of captured the moment, But in twenty twenty six, it's

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Speaker 6: like it doesn't sound further from it couldn't sound further

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Speaker 6: from the truth.

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Speaker 3: Give us like a little Allentown history, Like what is

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Speaker 3: the timeline when we talk about these sort of key

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Speaker 3: industries that were once associated with the city of Allentown.

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Speaker 3: What was the sort of peak of it and when

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Speaker 3: was the sort of trough.

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Speaker 6: Maan, Yeah, I mean so, I mean the city was

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Speaker 6: founded back in seventeen sixty two. It had its revolutionary moment.

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Speaker 6: We hid the liberty bell there, but it really picked

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Speaker 6: up and incorporated in eighteen sixty seven for the kind

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Speaker 6: of reconstruction, and that's when the industry really started to

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Speaker 6: It started to industrialize. Like many American cities, early industry

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Speaker 6: was cigar manufacturing, so tobacco that was growing in Lancaster

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Speaker 6: was shipped to Allentown for production into cigars. Silk manufacturing

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Speaker 6: became a pretty big deal in that area. It was

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Speaker 6: a place where silk could be brought in and then processed.

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Speaker 6: In the early kind of nineteen ten, sort of around

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Speaker 6: the First World War, mac truck moved to Allentown from Brooklyn.

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Speaker 6: This was like nineteen fifteen, and industrial production of those

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Speaker 6: vehicles started. We manufactured volty bombers, a particular type of

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Speaker 6: bomber for World War Two. This is all coincident with

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Speaker 6: Bethlehem's steel industry rising up. The industrial work continued through

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Speaker 6: I think you guys must mentioned the transistor in Western Electric.

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Speaker 6: That was kind of a big story. But then, like

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Speaker 6: a lot of places, manufacturing started to decline, not as

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Speaker 6: strongly in Allentown as other parts of the country. But

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Speaker 6: the Western Electric plant eventually shut down. The year were

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Speaker 6: we talked about with that Western Electric was.

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Speaker 5: In the seventies.

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Speaker 6: It actually it morphed into something else that eventually became Broadcom.

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Speaker 6: So there's still some manufacturing. It didn't necessarily exist in

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Speaker 6: the city. It spread out into suburban parts of the region.

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Speaker 6: There's still some chip manufacturing occurring or wafer polishing occurring

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Speaker 6: in the area. We still have the kind of muscle

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Speaker 6: memory of semiconductor manufacturing. But again, the industry evolved and changed.

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Speaker 6: The Volta aircraft shut down when there's no need to

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Speaker 6: produce bombers anymore. MAC Trucks continued operations in Allentown, but

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Speaker 6: in the eighties shifted most of its production to a

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Speaker 6: plant in Mcunjie that still operates today. A lot of

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Speaker 6: those old MAC plants were acquired by an organization that

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Speaker 6: I used to work for, the Allentown Economic twelve in Corporation,

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Speaker 6: and repurposed. Initially repurposed for this is the eighties. The

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Speaker 6: thought at the time was that it could be an

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Speaker 6: incubator facility, a business incubator. It did become that, but

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Speaker 6: it is more of a manufacturing incubator. These were old

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Speaker 6: sawtooth roof buildings with twelve to eighteen foot ceilings, so

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Speaker 6: some big spaces but not a lot of clearance. They

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Speaker 6: weren't suited for modern manufacturing. And that's what a lot

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Speaker 6: of the building stock in all the time looked like.

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Speaker 6: But the production was still occurring in some capacity in

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Speaker 6: the city, definitely in the region. When the steel shut

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Speaker 6: down in Bethalem in eighteen ninety eight, I think was

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Speaker 6: when they did their last cast. That's when leading up

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Speaker 6: to that, the region had already started to think about

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Speaker 6: how to diversify, how to build on the Western electric

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Speaker 6: The semiconductor manufacturer Lehigh University was a source of engineering talent.

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Speaker 6: They started to diversify out into life sciences. So there's

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Speaker 6: some precursor drugs that are manufactured there, some medical supplies

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Speaker 6: that are still manufactured there bibraun Another one that I

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Speaker 6: didn't meant was air products. So it's an industrial gas manufacturer.

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Speaker 6: I know you guys were recently talking about helium. Air

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Speaker 6: products is like, it's.

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Speaker 4: So fun talking to a listener. That makes it so easy.

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Speaker 3: It's like a helium.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, the helium.

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Speaker 6: So helium was something that air products manufacturers. It's one

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Speaker 6: of those head scratchers when you're talking about a region's

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Speaker 6: industrial output to say, like we make like an element,

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Speaker 6: like an elemental element like the low Yeah, it's hard

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Speaker 6: to describe how that happens. But that was founded in Allentown,

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Speaker 6: actually was founded in Tennessee and moved Downlandtown in the fifties,

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Speaker 6: but a lot of that production was still occurring. The

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Speaker 6: kind of civic leaders of the time in the early

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Speaker 6: nineties as they could foresee the end of Bethelm Steel

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Speaker 6: when it was acquired I think it was acquired by

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Speaker 6: our store, Midal, But they could see the end in sight,

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Speaker 6: and so they made a conscious effort to diversify, working

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Speaker 6: with a commonalth of Pennsylvania to stand up some tech

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Speaker 6: led economic development, which had its It was successful in

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Speaker 6: a few places. The biggest sess in attracting investment or

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Speaker 6: the biggest kind of economic development story for the region

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Speaker 6: was in two thousand and six when the region convinced Olympus,

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Speaker 6: which is the manufacturer of surgical devices, to relocate its

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Speaker 6: North American headquarters too.

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Speaker 5: They were out in suburban Bethlehem.

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Speaker 6: But that's been the character right, there's it's a very

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Speaker 6: diverse fide economy today, it's still about seventeen percent of

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Speaker 6: the jobs or manufacturing jobs, so it's much higher than

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Speaker 6: many other parts of the country and it's held pretty steady.

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Speaker 5: So that's.

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Speaker 2: Well, that was a fantastic summary. But on that note,

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think a lot of cities and towns

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Speaker 2: in America, whether they're in the russ Belt or Pennsylvania

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Speaker 2: or the South or wherever, who have gone through this

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Speaker 2: de industrialization phase. They all say they want to build

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Speaker 2: back their manufacturing sector in some way. But it feels

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Speaker 2: like Allentown has kind of gone about it in a

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Speaker 2: slightly different way in that you've had to sort of

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Speaker 2: grand strategy or vision for how to do that rather

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Speaker 2: than try to attract just like individual businesses in a

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Speaker 2: piecemeal way. Can you talk about how you actually formulated

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Speaker 2: that plant.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, So I started working for the Economic Development Corporation

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Speaker 6: in two thousand and eight, and we had the manufacturing

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Speaker 6: incubator it's called the Bridgeworks and Manufacturing Incubator that was

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Speaker 6: in place at that time. It was trying to pivot

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Speaker 6: away from manufacturing.

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Speaker 5: When I got there.

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Speaker 6: We also had an industrial building that sort of funded

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Speaker 6: our existence, where we had a T shirt manufacturer an

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Speaker 6: industrial valvevest manufacturer and somebody who is building large scale

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Speaker 6: tents as tenants, and they were kind of keeping the

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Speaker 6: organization alive. There was this, you know, in two thousand

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Speaker 6: and eight. It was right kind of in the early

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Speaker 6: days of the global financial crisis. There is some concern

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Speaker 6: about how we would recover economically, what we would do,

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Speaker 6: but these early investments in manufacturing were, from what I

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Speaker 6: could see looking ahead, something we shouldn't turn our backs on.

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Speaker 6: There was this healthy manufacturing, seemingly healthy manufacturing economy in

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Speaker 6: place in the Lehigh Valley, and it felt like it

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Speaker 6: felt like there was an opportunity to build for the future.

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Speaker 6: I worked with our CEO or executive director at that

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Speaker 6: time to start thinking about how we might position the

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Speaker 6: area as a place where you could bring smaller footprint manufacturing.

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Speaker 6: We knew we had this building stock of buildings that

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Speaker 6: were smaller than one hundred thousand square feet, sometimes on

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Speaker 6: multiple stories. There was a kind of gravity flow model

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Speaker 6: of manufacturing where you would load in raw material at

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Speaker 6: the top of the building and as it gained weight,

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Speaker 6: it would drop down the building for a final finishing

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Speaker 6: on the ground floor and then shipping. We felt like

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Speaker 6: there was an opportunity to kind of leverage the existing

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Speaker 6: industrial inventory to attract manufacturers that were more boutique. I

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Speaker 6: remember reading an article in the Wall Street Journal in

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Speaker 6: maybe two thousand and nine or twenty ten about a

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Speaker 6: bag manufacturer in San Francisco who was like very proud

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Speaker 6: of being in San Francisco. I was like, this is

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Speaker 6: I think there's something here for us. I reached out

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Speaker 6: to the manufacturer. At the time, this was kind of

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Speaker 6: around the same time as the rise of like maker

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Speaker 6: spaces and three to printing was kind.

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Speaker 5: Of coming online.

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Speaker 6: It looked like you could do some stuff in a

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Speaker 6: smaller form factor, and we kept thinking like, this is

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Speaker 6: a chance for us, with these strong roots in manufacturing

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Speaker 6: to bring some of it back. And we got deep into.

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Speaker 5: It and really explored.

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Speaker 6: We formed something called the Urban Manufacturing Alliance and collaboration

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Speaker 6: with San Francisco and the Pratt Institute in New York

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Speaker 6: and our friends in the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation and

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Speaker 6: in Detroit to just kind of bring cities who were

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Speaker 6: interested in manufacturing together. We started talking about reshoring or

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Speaker 6: on shoring at that time, but it felt distant.

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Speaker 3: I'm glad you brought up the sort of maker of

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Speaker 3: three D printing phenomenon, because.

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Speaker 2: Such a thing around that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, but it's forgotten, isn't it. Because when

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Speaker 3: we talk generally about the tailwind or the growth of

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Speaker 3: the twenty tens, it's almost entirely people talk about tech, right,

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Speaker 3: software et cetera, the Internet and all that, and then

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Speaker 3: we talk about post COVID, this re you know, this

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Speaker 3: new enthusiasm for reshoring. But it was like this forgotten

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Speaker 3: chapter that within particularly the first half of the twenty tens,

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Speaker 3: the various maker spaces and the three D printers and

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Speaker 3: people were really excited about that kind of fizzled out

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Speaker 3: like that, like that mini movement.

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Speaker 6: You don't hear that.

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Speaker 5: It fizzled out for sure.

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Speaker 6: But so we did a reindustrialization strategy in twenty fourteen.

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Speaker 6: We worked with somebody to evaluate our total industrial stock.

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Speaker 6: I had at that point moved on to work for

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Speaker 6: the Regional Economic Development Corporation, but was still involved with

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Speaker 6: the Serban Manufacturing Alliance at the region. We could see

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Speaker 6: that manufacturing was still important. I had a better sense

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Speaker 6: of what other types of manufacturing was occurring in the area.

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Speaker 6: We developed a strategy kept thinking what I kept seeing

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Speaker 6: at the region was that there is real demand to

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Speaker 6: be in the Lehigh Valley and in these smaller footprint buildings.

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Speaker 6: So we saw inquiries all the time for buildings between

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Speaker 6: forty and eighty thousand square feet. But this is a

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Speaker 6: time when we have ALLYS pivoting its economy toward transportation

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Speaker 6: and warehousing, building million square foot buildings with twenty four

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Speaker 6: to thirty six foot ceilings. Really, as this other technological

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Speaker 6: trend of the e comms started to show up, this

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Speaker 6: was the high demand for industrial space. So we had

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Speaker 6: lots of interest from small manufacturers, particularly coming out of

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Speaker 6: places like Brooklyn where it was like not quite the

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Speaker 6: place to be, who wanted to spread their arms a

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Speaker 6: little bit and maybe have access to to talent they

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Speaker 6: were trying to be in that we have ally, but

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Speaker 6: we didn't have a ton of building space to meet

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Speaker 6: their needs.

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Speaker 5: So when we.

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Speaker 6: Built that reindustrialization strategy, a big part of it was

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Speaker 6: how do we position the built environment for this demand.

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Speaker 6: And some of that is, you know, rehabbing existing industrial

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Speaker 6: buildings as surprise surprise industrial buildings, so it's it's continued

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Speaker 6: on from there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is another thing I learned about Allentown.

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Speaker 2: I'm full of Allentown facts at the moment. But apparently

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Speaker 2: Allentown is within a day's drive of forty percent of

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Speaker 2: the population in the US. Is that true?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's over on many more than one hundred

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Speaker 6: million people, and that's what made it such a strong

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Speaker 6: destination for some of the e comm But it's also

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Speaker 6: like that, you know, you go back to, like why

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Speaker 6: it is a vibrant economic region is that it's a

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Speaker 6: great place for weight gaining industries.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 6: So the other big thing we worked on the Regional

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Speaker 6: Economic Development Corporation was we recruited Ocean Spray to make

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Speaker 6: most of its great cranberry juice in the weih Have Alley.

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Speaker 6: Sam Adams was brewing most of its beer in the

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Speaker 6: High Valley.

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Speaker 3: Was it weight gaining industry anything.

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Speaker 6: You add water to basically, right, So you when you

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Speaker 6: have the cranberries come into the plant like to become

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Speaker 6: cranberry juice, you add a ton of water. It doesn't

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Speaker 6: make sense to produce that far away and then ship

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Speaker 6: all that water. So because you're not just you know,

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Speaker 6: within a day's drive of forty percent of this population,

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Speaker 6: you're also close in New York so a lot of

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Speaker 6: like Curraig Doctor Pepper has a big production plant, there's

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Speaker 6: a lot of food manufacturing that occurs there as well.

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Speaker 6: And then on the manufacturing side, you also because of

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Speaker 6: the e COMM because of the food manufacturing, you saw

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Speaker 6: a lot of packaging and bottling UH manufacturing show up.

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Speaker 6: So one of our most recent in Allentown successes was

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Speaker 6: recruiting a company called Schless Bottle that manufacturers bottles for

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Speaker 6: beverages and they wanted to be close to the production point.

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Speaker 6: So the manufacturing bottles in Allentown, filling it with beverages

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Speaker 6: and serving it back to New York.

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Speaker 3: This is so core like Ricardo Houseman coded stuff, like Okay,

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Speaker 3: you have this one industry and then you have innovation

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Speaker 3: in an adjacent industry. Super monkey swinging from China. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: I'm also just like learning all these terms. You know,

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Speaker 3: gravity based manufacturing I hadn't or weight gaining. This is

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Speaker 3: all fantastic stuff.

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Speaker 2: Weight gain industry is I think what we're both doing in.

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Speaker 3: Maderia, That's what we're both doing in Madrid. Yeah, we

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Speaker 3: should have run a marathon and then and then we

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Speaker 3: could have compensated for all that. What are like you know,

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Speaker 3: obviously this is all against the backdrop of this vortex

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Speaker 3: of manufacturing going to China largely, et cetera. When people think,

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Speaker 3: you know, you're at a conference like this and probably

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Speaker 3: a lot of mayors are interested in reindustrialization, et cetera.

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Speaker 3: What types of industries are good candidates generally for thinking

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Speaker 3: of like what should be built locally, Like it's something

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Speaker 3: like plastic bags or bags. It's like, well, I don't know,

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Speaker 3: maybe that could be offshore. What are like strong candidates

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Speaker 3: for what is durable here?

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Speaker 6: It's that you mentioned plastic bags because one of the

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Speaker 6: things we recruited as was kind of leaving the.

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Speaker 5: World of economic development and going into politics.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a Turkish plastic bag manufacturer, So that

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Speaker 6: was kind of interesting. So one of the things that

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Speaker 6: distinguished the region. And I think it's good for onshoing

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Speaker 6: and I want to go back on the onshore for

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Speaker 6: a second. When we developed this strategy, when we're talking

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Speaker 6: about onshoing and reshoring, back in the early twenty tens,

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Speaker 6: there was no like we didn't know a global pandemic

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Speaker 6: was going to come and disrupt supply chains. We were

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Speaker 6: thinking about like the logistics of making things in close

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Speaker 6: to the customer. And and I was I was thinking

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Speaker 6: a lot about the theft of IP in China and

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Speaker 6: how it was kind of like those components of globalism

370
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Speaker 6: didn't make a ton of sense. You're like kind of

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Speaker 6: giving away your most precious resource. So a lot of

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Speaker 6: it was driven by like, how do you kind of

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Speaker 6: capture the spirit of a manufacturer of American manufacturing? Now

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Speaker 6: COVID hit and all of a sudden, That's what brought

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Speaker 6: into stark relief. That's what made it make sense. So

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Speaker 6: one of the things that I think makes a ton

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Speaker 6: of sense. And we still see a lot of in Allentown,

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Speaker 6: whether it's the transistors, or it's the bag manufacturing or

379
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Speaker 6: Westport axle manufacturers axles for Mac trucks in Allentown area,

380
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Speaker 6: it's components, right, It's how do how do you de

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Speaker 6: risk the supply chain by diversifying your component manufacturing? That

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Speaker 6: makes a lot of sense in cities because you're not

383
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Speaker 6: building the whole truck there, right, And to build the

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Speaker 6: whole truck you need something like Lordtown or Lordstown, you

385
00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:05,920
Speaker 6: need River Rouge, you need the enormous factories when you're

386
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Speaker 6: building the components whatever those components might look like you

387
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Speaker 6: can exist in a much smaller form factor, something as

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Speaker 6: small as forty thousand square feet, but even like to

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Speaker 6: get down to what we were calling craft manufacturing at

390
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Speaker 6: the time, you might be able to exist in a

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Speaker 6: much smaller space and perhaps the ground floor of a

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Speaker 6: mixed use building. And that's what the next step for

393
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Speaker 6: us was and what more cities should be doing, I

394
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Speaker 6: think is making sure that your zoning allows for light

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Speaker 6: industrial to take place in residential neighborhoods, so that you're

396
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Speaker 6: not kind of you have to make sure that you

397
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Speaker 6: allow this stuff to happen in your city and the

398
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Speaker 6: new manufacturing. We think about Pittsburgh in the early part

399
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Speaker 6: of the twentieth century as being so thick with smog

400
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Speaker 6: that you couldn't even see across the river. You know,

401
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:58,600
Speaker 6: you still see pictures of I remember being in tangent

402
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Speaker 6: and China in two thousand and seven teen, and like

403
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Speaker 6: you couldn't see as you're going across the bridge. That's

404
00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:06,760
Speaker 6: not what manufacturing really looks like anymore. So you can

405
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:10,159
Speaker 6: kind of do that in cities. So as cities are

406
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Speaker 6: thinking about what type of manufacturing you might try to attract,

407
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Speaker 6: I think high value component manufacturer, light touch, but high tech.

408
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Speaker 6: Again taking advantage of the resources that we have in

409
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Speaker 6: American cities and taking advantage of the fact that people

410
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Speaker 6: now are choosing where they're going to be first and

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Speaker 6: then what they're going to do second. And the cities

412
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Speaker 6: that have a vocational advantage on cost of quality of

413
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Speaker 6: life can attract those industries if they set themselves up

414
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Speaker 6: to do it.

415
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Speaker 2: I say more about the rezoning process because if there's

416
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Speaker 2: one thing I remember from playing some city for hours,

417
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Speaker 2: you know, in the late nineteen nineties, it was that

418
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Speaker 2: if you zone industry next to residential, your population is

419
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Speaker 2: not going to be happy. So I'm very curious like

420
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Speaker 2: how much that has actually changed and what the rezoning

421
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Speaker 2: part is like now versus say, ten years ago.

422
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Speaker 6: So a lot of cities, because of the housing crisis,

423
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:12,240
Speaker 6: are exploring more aggressive zoning policy that allows for denser housing,

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Speaker 6: allows for different types of housing. We just passed in

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Speaker 6: the beginning of twenty twenty six reform to our zoning

426
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Speaker 6: code and a reform to our zoning map that is

427
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Speaker 6: a form based code, so it's really focused less on

428
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Speaker 6: what's happening inside the building and more on what the

429
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,880
Speaker 6: buildings will look like interesting, so that can allow that's

430
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Speaker 6: the type of thing that can allow. For now in

431
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Speaker 6: some city, when you built, when you zoned industrial, you

432
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Speaker 6: were going to get like the tire manufacturing plant. Not

433
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Speaker 6: a great idea for cities to have tire manufacturing plants

434
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Speaker 6: in their downtowns, but great idea to have like craft

435
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 6: brewing or like small garment assembly, something that is kind

436
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Speaker 6: of like bespoke manufacturing. I think what cities can do

437
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Speaker 6: as they're investigating the limitations of their zoning code to

438
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Speaker 6: build towards the cities that they want to be is

439
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 6: dig in and understand exactly what you might allow. I mean,

440
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:11,200
Speaker 6: in zoning, you have to allow for all uses somewhere

441
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:15,399
Speaker 6: in in the jurisdiction. So if you can allow for

442
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:19,360
Speaker 6: certain types of manufacturing uses, you create flexibility that can

443
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:22,840
Speaker 6: add some vibrancy to the neighborhood. I go back to

444
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 6: like one of my big points when I was in

445
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,119
Speaker 6: the Urban Manufacturing Alliance that I don't know what it

446
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 6: looks like now, but we talked about the lack of

447
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:34,760
Speaker 6: interest in young people working in manufacturing, and that's always

448
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 6: been one of the challenges and one thing that occurred

449
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 6: to me is that when Mac Trucks moved to Allantown

450
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 6: in nineteen twenty three, they built a plant right next

451
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 6: to well, they built the plant and then they built

452
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 6: the worker housing right next door to the plant, and

453
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:53,840
Speaker 6: people would walk to work all day. And what we

454
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,880
Speaker 6: knew then is that it sounds amazing, and that's people

455
00:24:56,920 --> 00:24:59,719
Speaker 6: would like to do that whatever they're doing for work.

456
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:04,119
Speaker 6: When young, when children saw people walking to work with

457
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 6: the lunch box and knew that that person was going

458
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:10,159
Speaker 6: to work on in the silk plant or in the

459
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:15,439
Speaker 6: truck plant, they saw a person working and a person

460
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 6: who was like connected to manufacturing. When we moved all

461
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:20,679
Speaker 6: of the production out to the suburbs and people were

462
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:23,639
Speaker 6: getting in a car to drive to work, the like

463
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 6: rando kid on the street who's just you know, hula

464
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 6: hooping or whatever, doesn't get a chance to see workers

465
00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 6: and doesn't get a chance to see the dignity of

466
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 6: work in manufacturing and lose his interest in it. And

467
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 6: so we're so far removed now, and we've tried to

468
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 6: do things, whether it was to three D printing or

469
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 6: like kind of get kids excited about manufacturing, but fundamentally

470
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 6: it's still the work is removed from everyday life, and

471
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:50,640
Speaker 6: so if you can get back to that point where

472
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 6: you can add manufacturing back to everyday life, I think

473
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,640
Speaker 6: there's an opportunity to rekindle the interest in the careers.

474
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 4: We need to do an episode how sim City?

475
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 3: Right, Like we were internalizing all these lessons from a

476
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 3: video game and then oh, then suddenly all of the

477
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:11,399
Speaker 3: main factoring goes out into the exerbs, and then no

478
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 3: one sees the workers, and then suddenly how City ruined?

479
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 4: Sim City ruined?

480
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 5: I would love that.

481
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 6: I would have loved to see that, honestly, Like the

482
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 6: I think the mayor, like any mayor who has played

483
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 6: some city, like the minute you sit down at the desk,

484
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 6: you're like, oh my god.

485
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 5: This is totally this amazing.

486
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:30,159
Speaker 3: Were now I really actually want to do this episode.

487
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 3: Post COVID, you get this re enthusiasm for manufacturing just

488
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 3: supply chain reasons, also national security reasons. We get the

489
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 3: Chips Act, we get the Inflation Reduction Act. What did

490
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 3: that look like from the perspective of these big programs,

491
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 3: these sort of the Biden euro programs.

492
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 4: What did that look like from your perspective?

493
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 6: So for us, one thing was it was like a

494
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 6: return to an industrial policy right like previously the United

495
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:00,439
Speaker 6: States is like the industrial policy didn't make a lot

496
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 6: of sense for an economic development professional. Now we saw

497
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 6: like this the federal government was pushing in a particular direction, right,

498
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:11,120
Speaker 6: and it was like, let's start making stuff again. When

499
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:14,479
Speaker 6: I became mayor in twenty twenty two, when you were

500
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 6: sworn in as mayor, you come in with a bunch

501
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 6: of campaign promises, you sit in the seat and you realize,

502
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:22,920
Speaker 6: like all of a sudden, there's a completely new set

503
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 6: of challenges.

504
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 5: That you have to unlock.

505
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:26,919
Speaker 6: Right, So all this stuff you wanted into do in

506
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 6: the campaign, it's nice, but there's more pressing needs. Among

507
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,199
Speaker 6: the things that I could see in the city was

508
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 6: that we were well, we didn't know what we didn't know,

509
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 6: so we had a lot to learning. We had to

510
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,439
Speaker 6: dig in and understand the city a little better and

511
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 6: understand what was going on.

512
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 5: We also didn't like.

513
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 6: We had to let some relationships fail, and so we

514
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,360
Speaker 6: needed to get back and make sure that our partners

515
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 6: were on the same page as us, and we kind

516
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 6: of lost the capacity to innovate, to get creative and

517
00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 6: do new things. So I was great that I entered

518
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:05,879
Speaker 6: into the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative at just the

519
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 6: right moment when when I was feeling desperate, and they

520
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 6: kind of invested in that capacity. Through doing that, I

521
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 6: was able to attack one of the things that was

522
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 6: clearly an issue, which was road safety.

523
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 5: We had.

524
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 6: There was a federal grant, the Safe Streets for All

525
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 6: program that was helping cities plan for safer streets. I'm

526
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:28,400
Speaker 6: going to get to the point, I promised, so we

527
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 6: I was a bicycling and running guy, so I wanted

528
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:34,880
Speaker 6: to like and I felt like we could do better

529
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 6: for our city if we had safer streets. Bloomberg stood

530
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 6: up with some partners, the Local Infrastructure Hub.

531
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 5: It helped me.

532
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 6: Teach my team how to use data to apply for

533
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 6: federal funds. It helped us think about how we could

534
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 6: work with partners to accomplish good outcomes for residents and

535
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 6: try some new things.

536
00:28:55,880 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 5: We're lucky. I also got right in Secretary Boudajes his

537
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 5: face and said.

538
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 6: I need help, and we're lucky to get a planning

539
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:09,720
Speaker 6: grant through that program. That experience helped us understand how

540
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 6: to as a city returned to federal grants at the State.

541
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 6: About right after we were awarded that Safe Streets grant,

542
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 6: the Economic Development Administration announced its Recompete Pilot project and

543
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 6: it was focused on areas that were I think it

544
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 6: was this June of twenty twenty three. It was focused

545
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 6: on areas that had a high prime age employment gap,

546
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 6: and so prime age employment gap is people between the

547
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 6: ages of twenty five to fifty four. Prime age employment

548
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 6: gap as people who are either unemployed at higher than

549
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 6: average rates.

550
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 5: Or out of the labor force.

551
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 6: We looked and saw that Allentown, in fact had a

552
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 6: high prime age employment gap. Ours was like at six percent.

553
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 6: We dialed into a particular neighborhood and saw that in

554
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 6: that area is about twelve percent the region of about

555
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 6: our neighborhood of about twenty three thousand people that were

556
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 6: just disproportionately out of the labor force or unemployed. And

557
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 6: we started to dig in on that group of people

558
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 6: and how could we at the same time prepare as

559
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 6: we're thinking about like these changes and the changes to

560
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 6: the demands of the workforce, how can we make sure

561
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 6: that our people could work right? And that was where

562
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 6: these two things came together, is we knew that through

563
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 6: working with our partners that we have Valley Economic Development Corporation,

564
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 6: there's still a high demand for manufacturing labor as well

565
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 6: as healthcare. We knew that the barriers to getting people

566
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 6: to good jobs sometimes were a lack of available resources,

567
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 6: things like flexible and affordable childcare. We knew that people

568
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 6: were sometimes challenged by transportation, that if those jobs are

569
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 6: out in the suburbs and they didn't have a car,

570
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 6: it's hard to get to them. And we also knew

571
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 6: that if we wanted to make sure that people without

572
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 6: cars could get to work, went to build industrial sites

573
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 6: in the city. So we put together an application and

574
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 6: submitted it to EDA, and again, because of the work

575
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 6: that we had done in the past, we're successful and

576
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 6: we're able to So we landed a strategic development grant

577
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 6: in December of twenty three and then we got a

578
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 6: twenty million dollar investment for implementation. So our team right

579
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 6: now is working to make sure that as we work

580
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 6: to bring these manufacturing jobs to not just the city

581
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 6: but to the entire region, that Allentonians are well positioned

582
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 6: to get to those jobs. And that's that is, you know,

583
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 6: a big piece where cities have to be able to

584
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 6: play a role is making sure that people have the

585
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 6: tools they need to access the good things that are

586
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 6: happening in the economy.

587
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 2: Have you got all the grant money, the Biden aer

588
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 2: grant money, that all of it so okay, So there's

589
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 2: no make.

590
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 5: Sure or like.

591
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 6: As soon as the November fifth, twenty twenty four, like,

592
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 6: we went into overdrive to just make sure that we

593
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 6: weren't at risk of losing anything. And that came through

594
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 6: the Chips and Science Act, and it was a relatively

595
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 6: small programs so and you know, practically speaking, our region

596
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 6: is intensely political, so it would not make sense to.

597
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 5: Go back some of that.

598
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 6: I had to fight for some other stuff to make

599
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 6: sure that we got it, including us I wrote a

600
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 6: letter to Secretary Rawlins and the USDA about how important

601
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 6: trees were two cities across America. We've worked to make

602
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 6: sure we didn't lose the street funding. But you know,

603
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 6: we're for some of the funding for things that you

604
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 6: do in cities. It's like very practical, it's it's good

605
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 6: for residents, it's it should be nonpartisan as long as

606
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 6: you like, are not exclusively focused on the various different

607
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 6: things the administration is focused on.

608
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 2: So speaking of practicality. I sometimes get the sense that

609
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 2: there's like a bit of a disconnect between how people

610
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 2: in DC are thinking about industrial policy, whether it's Trump

611
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 2: or the Biden administration, versus like mayors such as yourself,

612
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 2: you actually have to implement the stuff and figure out

613
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 2: exactly how to spend the money. Like what's the biggest

614
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 2: area of I guess, like tension that you see or

615
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 2: what could DC actually do to make using those federal

616
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 2: funds easier for you?

617
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: Oh?

618
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 6: Wow, so there is tension for sure, right, And I

619
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 6: think that a recognition like the biggest thing that DC

620
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 6: could do is make sure that people are not worried

621
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 6: about their healthcare or not worried about putting food on

622
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 6: the table, or not worried about a thousand other things,

623
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:46,720
Speaker 6: and can worry about just like being part of this

624
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 6: American dream, like and building towards something, and that they

625
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:54,959
Speaker 6: could you be part of the dignity of work. And

626
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 6: so there's some things that they could just focus less

627
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 6: on or like trying to cut us of I think

628
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 6: that cities probably don't think as much about immigration from

629
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 6: that perspective as an economic driver, but I think that

630
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 6: we have to continue to bring new people in bring

631
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 6: new ideas in make American cities places that can receive investment,

632
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:21,319
Speaker 6: and knowing that somewhat that investment is like it's intellectual capital, right,

633
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 6: So we want people to come in and feel comfortable

634
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 6: making stuff and making new technology in our cities. I

635
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:30,720
Speaker 6: would to say, I think it's not uncommon for mayors

636
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 6: to be pretty bipartisan in Allentown, where one of my

637
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 6: senators is Senator Dave McCormick, who's on the the He's

638
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 6: a Republican. I'm a Democrat, but I appreciate Senat McCormick's

639
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 6: interest in competitiveness and trying to attract industry and particular

640
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 6: manufacturing to Pennsylvania. And I think my conversation with Senat McCormick,

641
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 6: he is somewhat agnostic about where that happens. I think

642
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 6: he's he'd be happy if the manufacturing investments happened in

643
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 6: the suburbs or in the cities. It doesn't matter to

644
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 6: him as much as Pennsylvania remaining competitive. I know he

645
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 6: was involved with one of the big kind of future

646
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 6: thinking or future looking manufacturing investments that occurred in our

647
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,839
Speaker 6: area is Eli Lilly announced the three and a half

648
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 6: billion dollar investment that is just outside of the city limits,

649
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 6: but their three and a half billion dollar investment will

650
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 6: create like eight hundred and fifty jobs. I want to

651
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:33,839
Speaker 6: make sure that all of the residents of the city

652
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 6: of Allentown are capable of accessing those jobs. I also

653
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:40,399
Speaker 6: want to make sure that any of the supply chain

654
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 6: that goes into that Lily golp one manufacturing can be

655
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 6: produced in the city. If it can be, we want

656
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 6: to make sure that that we're capable of.

657
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 5: Connecting to that.

658
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 6: So that's one thing I think continuing to make sure

659
00:35:56,719 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 6: that the country is head of The other thing is

660
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 6: and this is one that we're kind of going back

661
00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 6: and forth with we you know, Governor Shapiro has launched

662
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 6: a very aggressive economic development strategy that wants to attract

663
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 6: more investment and lots of different types of investment. I

664
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 6: think there's and I've spoken with Bruce Katz formula of

665
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 6: Brooking is about this, is that Pennsylvania seems like it's

666
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 6: well situated to be a center of defense manufacturing in

667
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 6: this new world. Clearly, like there's based on what's happening

668
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 6: in Iran, there is like there's still need for munitions,

669
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 6: right and how we can play a role in that

670
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 6: is I think part of our future. That was what

671
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 6: we proudly tell the story of how Bethlem Steel helped

672
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 6: win the war in World War two by building the

673
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 6: the ships that helped us when the war. I talked

674
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 6: about VOLTI bomber is helping us when the war. I

675
00:36:57,239 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 6: think that there is we have. We're home to mac

676
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 6: Defense in Allentown. Mac Defense makes giant like heavy duty

677
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 6: trucks for the US military. We can compete in that

678
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 6: area as well, and that is manufacturing. So I think

679
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:17,800
Speaker 6: there's as if the federal government focuses on creating opportunities

680
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 6: in cities and the states to host manufacturing and it

681
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 6: makes it easy for that to happen and makes it

682
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:26,799
Speaker 6: easy to hire people and train people to be ready

683
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:28,920
Speaker 6: for that work. I think that's that's where we need

684
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 6: them to play.

685
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:32,440
Speaker 3: You're already sort of alluded to this, but does it

686
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:34,840
Speaker 3: feel good to be in a state where it's like

687
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 3: every national election is just geared towards making the citizens

688
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:43,600
Speaker 3: of Pennsylvania happy? Like all like that is You're you're

689
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 3: talking to some mayor from another you know, from Florida.

690
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:49,359
Speaker 3: It's like try being a swing state. Try being the

691
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 3: most important state for the electoral college.

692
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 5: It must be nice. It can be.

693
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:57,240
Speaker 6: It also turns you into like, like I have given

694
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 6: tours of my city to foreign press.

695
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 3: Every country borders that they get the diner in Pennsylvania.

696
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 4: Right, that's the classic.

697
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:10,279
Speaker 6: Trop Yeah then, so I mean it's it's nice to

698
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 6: be the center of attention for that way in the

699
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:15,840
Speaker 6: like in that politicians kind of want.

700
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 5: To make you happy.

701
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 6: But practically speaking, you know, there's like, as a mayor,

702
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 6: your job is to just meet the needs of your residence, right,

703
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:25,919
Speaker 6: Like that's what you dial in on, and so whatever

704
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 6: they're doing nationally, like you're just worried about residents.

705
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 3: One reason that people are very excited or that people

706
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 3: are have an affinity towards manufacturing is the jobs, right,

707
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 3: and you mentioned the jobs and people seeing.

708
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 4: People go to work.

709
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 3: Another reason, particularly over the last several years or the

710
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 3: last post COVID, is for national security reasons, not wanting

711
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 3: to rely on China or other countries for really critical things. However,

712
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 3: some of these most advanced industries they're they're not particularly

713
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 3: going to be job heavy, right. There's a lot of

714
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 3: robotics and increasing automation is there a disconnect between the

715
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 3: sort of again maybe emotional maybe like the sort of

716
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 3: romantic notions that people have about manufacturing versus the reality

717
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:14,280
Speaker 3: of the actual labor intensivity of some of these industries.

718
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 6: I think that from the mayor's perspective, I probably am

719
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:20,320
Speaker 6: more in that kind of romantic world, right like where

720
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 6: we're just kind of like, yeah, you know, we envision

721
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 6: a world in which people will always be putting their

722
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 6: hands on stuff right one way or another. And when

723
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:31,240
Speaker 6: you get into a higher technology where like we already

724
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 6: have robots doing like precision surgery, presumably some of the

725
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 6: precision manufacturing is going to be better done with a

726
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 6: robotic hand than the steady hand or strong back of

727
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 6: somebody on the line.

728
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:47,280
Speaker 5: I do think that, as you like, there's.

729
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 6: Still and this is a vibe that I'm starting to

730
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 6: get mayors tend to pick up, like because we're on

731
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 6: the ground, Yeah, we start to hear the vibes before.

732
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:54,800
Speaker 5: They become national vibes.

733
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 6: But I think that there's there's a very strong at

734
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 6: least in in my city and some other cities that

735
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 6: have visited, there's like a strong like handmade or like

736
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 6: a rejection of the robots and AI, whether it's art

737
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 6: or like the produced goods, I don't know if anybody,

738
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 6: I don't know what the the logical end to that is,

739
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 6: but I think there's on on the consumer side, there's

740
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:24,800
Speaker 6: there's still a desire. I think people romanticize some of

741
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 6: the product, right, and they'd rather have something that that

742
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 6: people have made. On the jobs side of it, I

743
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 6: think that there's there's still this belief that we need

744
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 6: to preserve the dignity of work, that there's always going

745
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:39,400
Speaker 6: to be that we're going to have to find some

746
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 6: way to allow people to continue to work. That maybe

747
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:46,399
Speaker 6: you don't need the robots running the whole warehouse, right,

748
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 6: that maybe you need, you know, somebody to be involved.

749
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:53,760
Speaker 6: And we've seen that, Like this is my first job

750
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 6: out of grad school was working in the billboard industry

751
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:01,720
Speaker 6: and in Panama, and I remember vividly talking to somebody

752
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 6: who has, you know, introduced myself. This is in my

753
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 6: economic development days, and I was like, oh, you know,

754
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 6: at first I started in billboards and the guy was

755
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:11,839
Speaker 6: in private equity and he was like, that's great, man,

756
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 6: billboards are awesome. The only thing better than billboards is

757
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 6: coin up landromats, and I was like, I was like, dude,

758
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:21,279
Speaker 6: you're in the wrong business now, because like maybe in

759
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 6: private equity, like that was a great idea, like the

760
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:26,719
Speaker 6: fear of your jobs, like down to self storage, which

761
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:29,440
Speaker 6: I think is the worse than the cities. But like

762
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 6: weird job creators, like we have to find ways to

763
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 6: create jobs, to create opportunities for people to be dignified

764
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:39,280
Speaker 6: by their work. So while there may be some value

765
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 6: to like squeezing out every single nickel of cost from

766
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 6: some operation, there's a lot to benefit cities and to

767
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:51,799
Speaker 6: benefit society of having people, you know, actually putting their

768
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 6: hands on things.

769
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 2: Can you talk specifically about how you're thinking about data centers,

770
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 2: because this is like the example of what we're getting at,

771
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 2: and in the theory, you know, Allentown, you got a

772
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,720
Speaker 2: bunch of big warehouses and things like that.

773
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 3: That presumably, yeah to that needed energy at one point.

774
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:12,359
Speaker 6: Yeah, I have lots of sophisticated and unsophisticated thoughts about

775
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,319
Speaker 6: data centers we as a city and as a mayor.

776
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:16,879
Speaker 6: I'm thinking about them in a couple of ways. One

777
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 6: like they're very clearly a political issue now, and they're

778
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 6: a political issue for hate saying both sides, but for

779
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:24,400
Speaker 6: both sides, right.

780
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 4: Like we there really are.

781
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 2: It's kind of crazy.

782
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:28,759
Speaker 5: There's legislation, so I think that.

783
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 6: So we amended our zoning Right after we amended our

784
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 6: zoning ordinance, we then we made an amendment to the

785
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 6: ordinance with reference to data centers. The reality for a

786
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 6: city like Allentown, in most cities in the country, is

787
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 6: that we don't really have any space for data centers.

788
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:49,320
Speaker 6: It's unlikely that a hyperscale one. It's not just unlikely

789
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 6: a hyper scale er cannot locate in the city of

790
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:57,839
Speaker 6: Allentown unless they acquire a bunch of homes and demolish them.

791
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 6: But it is reality in place like Phoenix, right, So

792
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 6: we amendedor zoning code to just set up certain requirements

793
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 6: around the establishment of a data center, just to make

794
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:14,840
Speaker 6: sure that our backs are covered. The worst thing that

795
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,840
Speaker 6: happens in any municipality is like something shows up that

796
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 6: people don't want and your hands are tied because your

797
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 6: zoning allows for it. So we make sure that we

798
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 6: are covered in that respect.

799
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:25,799
Speaker 4: Sorry, just be clear.

800
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 2: Covered like you've data center proofed you're zoning is.

801
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 6: That we're in the process of review right now to

802
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 6: make sure that any proposed data center has to demonstrate

803
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 6: not just the highway use or the water use, but

804
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 6: also like energy sources. So we're making sure that data

805
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 6: centers have proposed for the city have can demonstrate their

806
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 6: compliance basically.

807
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:53,760
Speaker 5: So it's it's political as.

808
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 6: I understand the technology, and this is probably the less

809
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 6: sophisticated side of the thought. It's getting smaller and smaller, right.

810
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 6: The data centers do not have to exist at this

811
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:05,319
Speaker 6: incredible you know, to take up lots and lots of land.

812
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:08,360
Speaker 6: They can exist perhaps in downtowns. I don't know what

813
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 6: their energy needs are going to be. I know that

814
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 6: most mayors are concerned about data centers, not because they're

815
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 6: worried about land use or a lack of jobs, but

816
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:21,760
Speaker 6: because utility bills are significantly rising. At the same time

817
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 6: that food bills are rising and gas bills are rising

818
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 6: and housing is getting more expensive. Now people are also

819
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,400
Speaker 6: seeing their utility bills rise, so that that's been driving

820
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 6: a lot of the concern for mayors.

821
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I know someone I heard about it.

822
00:44:35,080 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 3: There's a startup in New York City that is doing

823
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 3: something that's like, I don't know exactly what it is.

824
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:42,799
Speaker 3: I was hearing about it from a friend. But they're

825
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 3: like training some Nvidia chips or doing something and it's

826
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 3: just with like a normal like sort of like residential

827
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:54,360
Speaker 3: connection to the electricity. It's fairly small scale. It's not mega,

828
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 3: but like, yeah, to your point, like it does feel

829
00:44:57,000 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 3: like the footprint there at least it's some potentially new

830
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 3: applications the footprints. You hear about the giant things, but

831
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:05,439
Speaker 3: the footprints are also potentially coming down.

832
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 6: That was what was what I was here. You know,

833
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 6: I'm an AI skeptic as a mayor. I've been talked back.

834
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:14,560
Speaker 5: I keep going back this.

835
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 6: Yeah, but I was talking to somebody at Hopkins, at

836
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 6: Johns Hopkins who is like, hey, you shouldn't be so skeptical,

837
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 6: because it's going to open It might result in some

838
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 6: somewhat fewer human human react interactions, but it's going to

839
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:34,560
Speaker 6: open the door for humans and city government specifically to

840
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 6: participate more and more in helping people out. And she

841
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:39,960
Speaker 6: was the one who mentioned like, and it's also like

842
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:43,480
Speaker 6: all of the like the fear about data center might

843
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 6: be misplaced, like there is we are I'm not necessarily

844
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 6: a great believer in technology figuring out a way to

845
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 6: get us to like save our bacon for forever. But

846
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 6: it does seem like this is one that there's short

847
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:00,880
Speaker 6: term concern about and I don't know what what it

848
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:04,319
Speaker 6: really stems from, but whenever politicians are involved, you have

849
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:05,240
Speaker 6: to raise an eyebrow.

850
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 2: I have one more question, and it's a very important one.

851
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 2: What's the deal with Yakos? If I google allanown controversy,

852
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 2: Yakos comes up.

853
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 5: Yeah. I think there's probably a couple of Yako's controversies.

854
00:46:20,719 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 6: The very local one is like you got to pick

855
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:26,920
Speaker 6: a sort. You gotta choose between Yakos or Pots. Apparently

856
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:31,239
Speaker 6: they eat pots hot dogs, and Bethlehem. I guess we

857
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:34,760
Speaker 6: should say Yako's is a hot dog hot dog. Okay, Yeah,

858
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 6: the folks in Bethlam like, I love my neighbor, but

859
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 6: I would never eat a Pots dog.

860
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 5: Yakos.

861
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 6: There's one of the deals is like you have to

862
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:46,319
Speaker 6: know how to order it right. So the order is

863
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 6: like you just get two dogs. I order two dogs

864
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 6: with everything and a chocolate milk. Some people get perogies

865
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:54,879
Speaker 6: with it too. One of the there was a few

866
00:46:54,960 --> 00:47:00,440
Speaker 6: years ago a guy named Gary Eyakoca, whose family owned Yako,

867
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:05,360
Speaker 6: has talked about how his Yako is on Seventh Street,

868
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:08,759
Speaker 6: which is in center city, Allentown couldn't exist anymore because

869
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:11,759
Speaker 6: of the demographic changes that we've seen in Allentown. So

870
00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:14,319
Speaker 6: Yako's I think is he and I went back and

871
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 6: forth a little bit. We're very good friends now, but

872
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:20,319
Speaker 6: we were we struggled a little bit because I'm the

873
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:22,680
Speaker 6: first Latino mayor of Allentown. So the other thing that

874
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 6: makes the Billy Joel song so wrong in twenty twenty

875
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 6: six is that in nineteen eighty two, it was like

876
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 6: it was a very homogenous. Basically everybody in Allentown was

877
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 6: white European. Today we're fifty five percent Latino, like we

878
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:43,879
Speaker 6: are a very different city. And his case was like, well,

879
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 6: you know it isn't it ain't like it was, And

880
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:49,560
Speaker 6: you know it was kind of it felt to me

881
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:51,719
Speaker 6: like kind of a rejection of our new city that

882
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 6: I just love. So we went back and forth a

883
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 6: little bit on that. There's probably other Yako's controversies out there.

884
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 6: There's like he has like a big hot dog statue

885
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 6: that roves around a little bit, but it's a good

886
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:09,759
Speaker 6: hot dog. If you come to Alentine, I will treat

887
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 6: you to Yaka is hot dog, and.

888
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 2: You'll teach us how to order it.

889
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 3: Teach you how to order like the politicians get a

890
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 3: huge scandal they ordered it the wrong way, like you know,

891
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,239
Speaker 3: it is like John Carrey, like ordered whether you get

892
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 3: like Swiss cheese instead of something else.

893
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's our version of the cheese steak.

894
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 5: And there's a special like Lee Have Valley version of

895
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:29,520
Speaker 5: the cheese steak.

896
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,799
Speaker 6: As well that the Philadelphians would want nothing to do with.

897
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 4: What makes America great.

898
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 3: Like these niche these niche loyalties towards certain orders and

899
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:39,919
Speaker 3: certain hot dog.

900
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, Maryturk, thank you so much for coming

901
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:43,840
Speaker 2: on all thoughts.

902
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:45,879
Speaker 5: That was great, Thank you. It really had a good time.

903
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 2: So that was super interesting. There are a lot of

904
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:03,080
Speaker 2: things to pick out from there. But one thing that

905
00:49:03,120 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 2: stood out was that sort of twenty tens era of

906
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:11,280
Speaker 2: like made in America craft manufacturing. I remember that really, Yeah.

907
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:14,439
Speaker 3: No totally. It's actually pretently kind of depressing because those

908
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,400
Speaker 3: maker bought festival or the maker body. I think it's

909
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:20,400
Speaker 3: different than the maker festivals. But there was that culture

910
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 3: of people doing tinkering and.

911
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:25,240
Speaker 2: The printing story.

912
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:25,919
Speaker 6: Remember that.

913
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:28,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it was like a thing, and it's like

914
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 3: all sort of fizzled out, but there was just like

915
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 3: a forgotten part of post GFC artistical manufacturing, cynical manufacturing

916
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:38,480
Speaker 3: and people just building weird stuff.

917
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 4: Things aren't weird enough anymore.

918
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 2: But yeah, I might get weird with AI.

919
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:43,479
Speaker 4: No, they're gonna get weird.

920
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 3: But I'm glad he brought that up because I I

921
00:49:46,239 --> 00:49:49,359
Speaker 3: it doesn't get discussed enough. Yeah, just generally though, like

922
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 3: I thought it was great and like, first of all,

923
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 3: just learning a bunch of new things. You know, I

924
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:56,719
Speaker 3: hadn't heard of weight gaining manufacturing, but that makes a

925
00:49:56,719 --> 00:49:59,560
Speaker 3: lot of sense, right, Like if there's some process that

926
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 3: adds a lot of weight, such as water to a product,

927
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 3: you want that to be at the last mile of

928
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 3: the supply chain rather than early on. Also fascinating to

929
00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:11,640
Speaker 3: think about, like, okay, what a strategic advantage it is

930
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 3: to be within a day's drive of one hundred million people.

931
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 3: So therefore it makes a less sense to put various

932
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:20,840
Speaker 3: you know, e commerce warehouses in so much interesting stuff there.

933
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 2: Also the mixed zoning I found really interesting, but because

934
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:26,440
Speaker 2: it is true if you think about industry, you know,

935
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:29,439
Speaker 2: even ten or twenty years ago, it was much more

936
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 2: polluting and noisy and disturbing than it is now. And

937
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:36,920
Speaker 2: so you can have in an era of high tech manufacturing,

938
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 2: you absolutely could have mixed use neighborhoods and buildings.

939
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 3: Why not, right, So you just have to update the

940
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 3: zoning to reflect the reality that it's not going to

941
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 3: be automatically repellent to the neighbors.

942
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 2: And then everyone can walk to work with their lunch boxes.

943
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right?

944
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 3: Shall we leave it there for the bike to work?

945
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:54,000
Speaker 5: Yeah?

946
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 2: Or bike to work?

947
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:55,359
Speaker 4: Yeah?

948
00:50:55,440 --> 00:50:55,800
Speaker 3: Okay.

949
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:58,320
Speaker 2: This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast.

950
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:01,480
Speaker 2: I'm Tracy Allaway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

951
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:04,080
Speaker 3: And I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.

952
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:07,319
Speaker 3: Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen armand dash Ol

953
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:11,520
Speaker 3: Bennett at Dashbot, Calebrooks at Kelbrooks, and Kevin Lozano at

954
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:14,360
Speaker 3: Kevin Lloyd Lozano. And for more Oddloss content, go to

955
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 3: Bloomberg dot com slash odd lots, where The Daily News

956
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:19,439
Speaker 3: learned all of our episodes and you can chat about

957
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,040
Speaker 3: all these topics twenty four to seven in our discord

958
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:24,839
Speaker 3: Discord dot gg slash odd Loss.

959
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:26,759
Speaker 2: And if you enjoy Odd Lots, if you like it

960
00:51:26,800 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 2: when we talk about weight gaining industry, then please leave

961
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:32,960
Speaker 2: us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember,

962
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:35,400
Speaker 2: if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to

963
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:38,359
Speaker 2: all of our episodes absolutely add free. All you need

964
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:40,920
Speaker 2: to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts

965
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 2: and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.