Why won't high tech companies open offices in Detroit? (Ann Arbor: appointed, credit)

[NOLA101]

Originally Posted by y2c313

You'd be surprised. All of the investment isn't just happening downtown and midtown.

Data, please.

Detroit is one of the fastest shrinking cities in the U.S., both in terms of population and economy.

If you're claiming there's some secret start-up boom in Detroit, even though every data point for Detroit is pointed south, it's your obligation to show some evidence of this boom.

[NOLA101]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

Not sure where you get that statistic. Is it less than 5 years old?

U.S. Census Bureau. In the modern day, Detroit has never been smaller, poorer, or had fewer businesses.

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

In any event, we are talking about businesses, not neighborhoods. Clearly you have not been Downtown in a few years.

I'm downtown all the time, and downtown is still pretty dead. Downtown was much busier in the 1980's and early 1990's when the stores were still open.

And that's 5% of the city. The remainder of the city is much worse.

Detroit, at least the city, is one of the few major cities on earth that gets worse over time.

[y2c313]

Originally Posted by NOLA101

Data, please.

Detroit is one of the fastest shrinking cities in the U.S., both in terms of population and economy.

If you're claiming there's some secret start-up boom in Detroit, even though every data point for Detroit is pointed south, it's your obligation to show some evidence of this boom.

Census: Detroit's population may be stabilizing | Michigan Radio

Detroit leads nation as highest-yielding apartment market*|*REJournals.com

Detroit emerging as investment and destination gem after bankruptcy

[y2c313]

Outside downtown:

Detroit's Avenue of Fashion Comes Back to Life

[Texamichiforniasota]

Originally Posted by SageCats

Why won't new high tech companies open up offices in Detroit instead of the Silicon Valley? And why won't other companies relocate to Detroit? Wouldn't corporate taxes be lower in MI than in CA? And wouldn't it be the responsible thing to do in order to help rebuild Detroit? It would also ease the overpopulation in the SF Bay Area and would also help stop the "brain drain" of losing highly skilled workers that head for "greener pastures" in California from the mid west.

Most tax breaks hurt the places that grant them more than they help. In any event, its irrelevant because the taxes are not so much higher in California than the rest of the US that businesses are failing. When you are choosing where to locate a business within a country, you primarily look at raw materials and labor pool. If you look at the US auto industry 110 years ago, there were initially start-ups throughout the Midwest. However, once a critical mass of companies consolidated in SE Michigan, that became the place to go for the auto industry where you knew you could find the people with the know-how to build a car/manage an auto company (Although I realize things were not managed or built well for many years). Everything except the lower skill manufacturing aspect of the car business consolidated in Detroit.

Silicon Valley is mostly a management, research, development, and design center; almost all the actual manufacturing occurs in Asia. So, there is no need for raw materials, only a need for business/financial people, engineers, software developers, and art/design people to create products. All of these fields require a large amount of education, and Detroit just doesn't have a big enough talent pool for businesses to relocate. Also, Silicon Valley depends on a huge amounts of venture capital, and those markets are developed in the Bay Area but don't exist in Michigan. There will always be branches of tech companies in college towns like Ann Arbor or Madison, because those places have people with the skills needed for tech, and some are going to want to stay close to their family/where they grew up. But tech companies aren't charities, and all the cheap office space in the world isn't likely to attract them if they can't find the people they need to do the job. It's not just tech companies, Michigan is unlikely to be able to recruit energy startup from Houston either, for the same reasons.

[MS313]

Originally Posted by NOLA101

Detroit isn't really a traditional center city. It isn't really denser/more urban than the older suburbs.

If you're a lover of hard-core urbanity, you aren't going anywhere in Michigan, which doesn't really have any "cool" urban locales. Detroit, compared to most cities, is very sparse and auto oriented, with almost no urban feel.

Detroit compared to most cities has almost no urban feel? ummm of the top 50 largest cities in America there are only 14 cities with a population density higher than Detroit. 28% is far from "most". Actually, it's quite the opposite... Detroit is denser than 72% of the top 50 largest cities in America. And Detroit wasn't even built to be a super dense city.

As far as the inner ring burbs, most that are denser than Detroit on paper only because they are bedroom communities that has very little industry, parks, or anything else that takes up land like Detroit does (ex Chrysler plant, Palmer Park, Rouge Park, and not to mention some neighborhoods that are almost empty). Also, the most densely populated neighborhoods in Detroit are much higher than anywhere else in the region with the exception of Hamtramck.

That being said, if your a lover of hard core urbanity your options are pretty limited in America period. But that wasn't even the point the poster was trying to make, Detroit is still the central city in Metro Detroit no matter how hard some people try to deny it. Lincoln Park and Hazel Park while technically "denser" than Detroit, it doesn't even come close to offering the same lifestyle and amenities as neighborhoods like downtown, midtown, mexicantown, springwells, east riverfront, ect. That's the point he was trying to make.

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by NOLA101

U.S. Census Bureau. In the modern day, Detroit has never been smaller, poorer, or had fewer businesses.

I'm downtown all the time, and downtown is still pretty dead. Downtown was much busier in the 1980's and early 1990's when the stores were still open.

And that's 5% of the city. The remainder of the city is much worse.

Detroit, at least the city, is one of the few major cities on earth that gets worse over time.

The census bureau does not decree that 90% of the city is in decline. Nor does the census bureau address businesses, only population. The current national census is from 2010 SIX YEARS AGO. Once again, in case you were not aware, we are discussing the recent changes in Detroit and its condition in 2016. I would agree with you that in 2010 things were pretty abysmal. Today is a different Detroit altogether.

The statement that Detroit has never been smaller poorer or had fewer businesses is patently false. Four years ago Detroit was poorer and had fewer businesses. The city was bankrupt, now it is much more financially healthy. I can walk around my office area for ten minutes and point out to you at least 100 businesses that were not here in 2010. In fact, I can point to a dozen or more fully occupied towers that were boarded up in 2010. Geographically, it has not gotten any smaller and as to population, that is an unknown given the last census was six years ago. The last projected (guess) population I can find is for 2012 and that was a guess based on the 2010 census and the trend shown by that census. However the trend has changed.

Have you been downtown all the time in the past two or three years? I look out my window and i see hundreds of people at lunch at least a thousand out shopping, eating and working. In the evenings, I sometimes have to stand in line to cross the street to get to my truck.

Perhaps you have only been downtown in the winter. Like almost every northern city (excepting Manhattan), there are very few people out and about in the winter. If you think there were more stores in the 1980s than now in midtown, you need to check whatever you are using to count with. I was in midtown every day in the 1980s. The number of businesses could be counted on one hand (maybe two hands). Midtown has outreached royal oak. Today you need a calculator. Downtown in the 80s or 90s, I do not know for sure, but I can tell you the number of stores and restaurants/bars and apartments downtown is massively increased since 2005.

No, the remainder of the City is not much worse. At least not worse than a few years ago. Many areas of the city including some neighborhoods are improving, some are staying the same, some are declining. One example, A Corktown house I looked at in 2009 that was $14,000 was recently listed for $90,000. It sold fairly quickly, but I do not know the amoutn That is improving, at least as to property values. Property values tend to be one indicator of how an area is doing.

Sorry. I know there are people who so passionately hate Detroit they cannot accept the possibility the City is improving. However it is improving. I would love to live in areas that in 1984, I was afraid oto walk trough.

[usroute10]

Originally Posted by NOLA101

Detroit isn't really a traditional center city. It isn't really denser/more urban than the older suburbs.

If you're a lover of hard-core urbanity, you aren't going anywhere in Michigan, which doesn't really have any "cool" urban locales. Detroit, compared to most cities, is very sparse and auto oriented, with almost no urban feel.

Detroit was originally a dense city. In fact, its peak population density in 1950 of 13,300 people/sq mile, exceeds the peak population density of the following cities: Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Seattle, Portland, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. In addition, it was only slightly less dense than St. Louis' peak population density (13,800)

Now would you call all of those cities sparse and auto-oriented??

Detroit is no Philly or Boston or San Fran in terms of dense built environment. But if single family-home dominated cities like Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Oakland, etc can be magnets for young professionals looking for an urban lifestyle, so can Detroit.

"If you're a lover of hard-core urbanity", besides a few east coast cities and San Francisco, where else in the U.S. are you going to have this hard-core urbanity???

About Detroit not being any denser than the older suburbs, I would say about 25% of the city is more densely built than even its older suburbs. You are not going to find these densely-built blocks in Ferndale or Redford or Lincoln Park.


The North End

Near Westside

West Village

Russell Woods

[North 42]

I refuse to respond to any of his negative posts about Detroit or any other subject, it's just an exercise in futility. He pretends to know everything about anything and will argue his point, even when it's blatantly incorrect. It's obvious that he hasn't been to Detroit in a long time from his posts, regardless of what he says.

[Indentured Servant]

The thing that I have learned is that humans have a herd mentality, so to speak, where they follow trends and the crowd. The thing about trends is that you have to get in on them early to maximize the return. If you are the first one to note an industry trend and invest or bring to market that growing trend, you are likely to get the biggest return. However, if you get in on the trend when everyone is doing it, it becomes harder to profit from it and if you are getting in on it at the tail end, you are likely going to experience losses. It’s best to be the first victim of a Ponzi scheme, then get out early, than the last.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AegLdB7UI4U

For the last 50 years the trend has been that Detroit is declining and people are moving from Detroit. A parallel trend is that many Sun Belt cities have been booming and many ex Detroiters and Northerners in general have been relocating there and to the suburbs. Again, remember that many people are conformist who follow the herd behavior. The factors that made the Sun Belt and suburbs attractive in the beginning (40 years ago) are not so much true today and the factors that drove people and businesses from the Great Lakes, like Michigan, are not so much today. However, the momentum of trends are powerful and people still see Detroit as a place to flee and Atlanta as the place to be, even if one makes the move and the quality of life differential negligible.

Trends have a lifecycle. The best way to kill a trend is for too many people to start doing it. When there is massive influx or exodus, the laws of supply and demand changes the nature of opportunity and quality of life. Eventually what is old then becomes new (due to opportunity...value)….again….and what is new then becomes old.

One has to know a trend when it’s in its infancy and not simply just be a follower. I believe, Michigan, including the city of Detroit proper, are in the infancy of a positive trend, notwithstanding the masses of people still caught up in the paradigm of past trends. I think far too many people are like the lady in the video. You go along with trends to fit in.....creating self fulfilling prophecy.