What do Munich and Cleveland, Barcelona and Seattle, Turin and Philadelphia, and Seoul and Minneapolis-St. Paul have in common? According to syndicated columnist Neal Peirce, who pens this editorial for the Seattle Times, these cities all have faced moments of serious economic challenge but then devised ingenious recovery strategies.

The recent Global Metro Summit, held last month in Chicago and sponsored by the Brookings Institution, celebrated the comeback efforts of the above cities, including those of Cleveland.

In the editorial, Peirce writes that "Seattle, the Twin Cities and the Cleveland area are even in the midst of what Brookings is heralding as a new era of applying modern business-style planning to the economic-development potential of entire citistates."

Touting "highly participatory planning processes that create vision," Peirce points to numerous examples of cities experiencing remarkable economic turnarounds.

"Could a U.S. region such as Cleveland and its sister cities of Akron and Youngstown -- erstwhile continental champions in steel, rubber, chemicals and auto assembly, now on the economic ropes -- produce similar results?" he asks rhetorically before offering the following encouraging words.

"Spirited Northeast Ohio efforts to coalesce and stop internecine warfare among the region's local governments have led to a business-type planning initiative, the "Fund for Our Economic Future." Spearheaded by more than 50 regional foundations, with an unprecedented collection of the area's local governments, business, civic and academic leaders signed on, it has developed an extensive data set, market-based intelligence and a new initiative based on boosting productivity of the region's 1,600 small to midsized manufacturing firms."

"The idea is that many Ohio firms that have traditionally worked in polymers, chemicals and metals could translate well into such current high-demand areas as global health, flexible electronics, transportation and clean energy."

Read the rest here.