In a recent interview with the Seattle Times, Dan Rather commented on the importance of Seattle in the 21st century.
Recent trips to China and to North Korea taught him, he says, that Seattle is regarded as a sort of subcapital of the United States, "which surprised me." He came away perceiving the historical center of gravity has shifted from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and specifically the Northern Pacific.
"Whether you are talking about the 21st-century economy or, God forbid, a new world war, it is in the Northern Pacific," he says. "A great deal of the pages of this century will be written on the axis of Seattle-Vancouver to Tokyo, Pyongyang and Beijing."
Seattle as the new New York? Very interesting.