Spokane’S Limitations Are Mostly Self-Imposed

Almost 30 years ago our oldest son would try to explain his refusal to try something new by saying “I can’t want to.”

This toddlerism spoke volumes beyond its deft phrasing. It captured a fundamental human quality - the reluctance to leave our comfort zones to explore the risky world of our potential. Communities, too, have comfort zones.

I often think of this when I hear explanations and defenses as to why Spokane is slow to take its potential place among communities creating a better life for their residents. Much has been said of our deficiencies, difficulties and defeats, which repeating will not mellow.

The secret to excelling is to really “want to.” Want to step out of our comfort zone and do something differently than we have always done it. Want to take risk, even if there could be failure instead of a great reward. Want to stick our neck out knowing that it may receive a chop rather than be hung with garlands.

In the almost 40 years since I went away to college, Spokane has made changes but it still is moving and thinking much as a toddler. Letting old styles limit our future. Letting narrow thinking keep us from trying. Letting what is societally correct hem us in. Letting fear of failure become fear of doing.

It is not enough for a person or a community to simply grow older; toddler comfort zones must be expanded to real-world opportunity zones. By the way, old, used and confining comfort zones can be dropped off next Tuesday at the area’s recycling centers. They make excellent straightjackets and tombstones.

Needed are the energy and enthusiasm of a teen who really wants to, coupled with the wisdom and care of an adult who also really wants to.

When I brought Packet Engines to Spokane and subsequently created World Wide Packets, it was with optimism, some might say naivete, that despite its reputation for being a little old fashioned and behind the times, Spokane was ready for the great new opportunities before it. While I am not easily dissuaded from my views, I have to say that I have been a little bemused by some of the response of Spokane’s leadership.

At one time, the Silicon Valley was far less, in terms of its people and its products, and certainly its wealth, than our Valley is now. From its dusty and inauspicious beginning, the Silicon Valley became the capital of the high-tech world. We don’t want to be another Silicon Valley, exactly. But think about the possibilities created by combining Spokane’s superlative environment and people with the enabling potential of its nascent high-tech industry.

Having spent many years in the technology industry, I have known and fostered many startup ventures. Understanding what that market requires, I hoped to create a high-tech office park that could accommodate the feverish growth of startups longer on creative juices than ready cash.

Instead, I ran into a wall with a county government that created policy well beyond what was legally its right. Routine subdivisions were fought vigorously. Further complications came about through myriad fees of doubtful legitimacy that rendered projects unworkable.

Other obstacles were friendly local bankers and helpful developers who failed to grasp the dilemma of startups: A startup can’t afford to lease today the space it will need tomorrow. A startup needs to be able to expand in a modular fashion, as it gains ground. Elsewhere, developers understand this and devise agreements to accommodate the growth as it occurs. In Spokane, a 10-year lease was a minimum requirement.

And finally, while people were well-intentioned, business leaders were complacent. Rather than a desire to embrace new ideas and a will to overcome obstacles, there was passivity and an institutionalized conviction that Spokane never will be more than it has been.

I still believe in Spokane. That belief is rekindled every time a new employee, an employee who could work anywhere in the world, visits Spokane and agrees to move his or her family here.

You see, newcomers don’t know that Spokane can’t “want to.” I’m betting that someday soon, Spokane will want to very much - enough to really do.