[jusben1369]

I guess the question is what makes for a good techhub/incubator. It seems to me embracing of a counter culture lifestyle is the key early differentiator. Certainly the Bay Area once had that. Austin. Seattle. Even Durham NC where I'm based now and is having a (relative) boom rose out of abandoned tobacco warehouses that could afford to support all types of people. I haven't been there in 8 years but I hear Detroit has that going for it now too. Houston with it's established booming energy sector probably doesn't draw in the right type of culture. (Although I have no response for Dallas vs Houston so you've got me there)

Sure you need good universities and cheap accommodation etc but it strikes me there has to be something unique and alternative to draw in the igniters of a new hub.

[ryanmarsh]

Oddly Houston has always been a wildcatter's town. People come here specifically to make money. I promise they're not here for the climate. People here are more entreprenurial than other places I've lived. People here have their own style of counter culture that more resembles a lack of f*s to give. Texans feel like they can do whatever they want. You'd think that would be great for business, and it is, the state and specifically Houston have done great during the recession. However tech just lags here.

[humanrebar]

How do you explain the pushback against Uber then?

[CoachRufus87]

Fyi, San Francisco just sued Uber.

The interests of a business community don't necessarily reflect that of a local government.

[bluedino]

One thing that San Francisco has that somewhere like Detroit doesn't, is the affluent residents with the ability to sustain a service like Uber or startups such as food delivery. Those kind of services are viable to create a startup focused on in SF but not in Detroit.

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

I've been told that the suburbs immediately outside Detroit city limits are rich as Croesus.

[phkahler]

>> I've been told that the suburbs immediately outside Detroit city limits are rich as Croesus.

Yup. Oakland County was once the 4th richest county in the US. Michigan leads the nation in families with second homes. Everyone around here has a second home (cottage, cabin, etc) on a lake from 1-3 hour drive away. OK, not everyone. Part of it is that there are so many lakes that they're relatively cheap. I even knew a guy who bought an entire lake - property was like 100 acres and lake was within that. This cost him less than a two bedroom place in SF.

[valarauca1]

Northern Michigan (extreme north) is dirt cheap. Yes your looking at a 8+ hour drive to get there, but excellent winter sports, and out doors stuff.

[karpodiem]

What? What are you start/end points?

Northern suburbs (Royal Oak) to Traverse City is 4.5 hours.

[valarauca1]

Bloomfield is nowhere near the city limits. Its a suburb. Detroit is all about the suburban sprawl. Its total area is massive. I think we're at about 200 miles east/west 250 miles north/south.

Its gotten to the point that some suburbs are big enough to develop their own suburbs. Notable Troy, South-field, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Sterlining Heights.

These started out as satellite cities to Detroit, but since Detroit suburbs grew, the satellite cities suburbs grew. Its just a massive sprawl.

[jerf]

The thought has crossed my mind more than once that while Detroit may well pull out and survive that it will be a very long time before it leads the area again, because in the meantime a lot of the surrounding area has learned how to survive and even thrive again without Detroit qua Detroit. On a long enough timescale its geographical positioning theoretically gives it an edge (Ann Arbor will simply never have a port, for instance, Southfield can't have an international border without a lot crazier things than the collapse of Detroit happening), but that might be a while before it dominates.

[Igglyboo]

Grosse Pointe doesn't count? IIRC it has a literal boundary with Detroit.

[akgerber]

Not quite. Here's a huge house right off a lakefront park in just such a rich suburb: http://www.trulia.com/property/3172627452-736-Bedford-Rd-Gro...

You could buy two of them for the monthly cost of a nice 1-bedroom in SF.

[Igglyboo]

Grosse Pointe is immediately outside of Detroit and multi million dollar houses are the norm there.

[jerf]

"One thing that San Francisco has that somewhere like Detroit doesn't, is the affluent residents with the ability to sustain a service like Uber or startups such as food delivery."

On the other hand, one thing Detroit has that San Francisco doesn't have (or at least not to the same extent) is ready access to a lot of industry, especially automotive (even now), and the recovering Midwestern manufacturing base, in Michigan, easy access to Toledo, and feasible driving to several other industrial cities. If Detroit doesn't produce the next WhatsApp I'd guess it would be because the attraction of more business/industrial opportunities would be too great to ignore.

[jusben1369]

I think these are both great points. San Francisco seems well suited to launching consumer/mobile focused startups. The risk is we assume those are the only types of startups that need launching due to gravitational pull of all things Bay Area. But there are exciting new opportunities in drones/electric transport/manufacturing that a place like Detroit with much cheaper real estate and a different type of local skill set could excel at.

[ryanmarsh]

The valley and SF also have VC with vision when it comes to software.

VC here are willing to fund a liar standing next to a hole in the ground, but lax to fund a software venture.

[heurist]

Startups also don't have to be consumer-oriented, there are plenty of businesses in the midwest that need better tools and solutions than they have.

[Igglyboo]

Detroit has a ton of affluent residents within 30 minutes of the city that regularly venture down there for various sporting events, gambling, and other events like NAIAS. Getting them to actually move to the city is the problem.

I live 30 minutes from detroit and come from an upper-middle class household.

[emcrazyone]

and why would you? Detroit has problems picking up the trash, snow removal, and keeping the lights on. Who would pay taxes for no services coupled with the crime stats.

See my post further up. I grew up 30 minutes in what many around here call the down river area (Riverview) and when I bought my first house, I went north. I'll happily pay more taxes for blue ribbon schools, trash pick up, snow removal, and be able to take an evening bike ride under street lights in a safe neighborhood.

Why would anyone trade any of this for living in Detroit. The bad areas are where people go who can't afford to live anywhere else. A hard cycle to break.

[karpodiem]

I live on Virginia Park St., just a couple blocks north of the Fisher building, between Second and Woodward (New Center). I grew up in Troy, MI - went to school at UofM. Hometown guy, I've seen a good portion of the metropolitan area.

You are spot-on; until it's safe to raise a family in Detroit (which, based on the lead and heavy metals residing in the soil from the torn down structures, this may never happen) I can't see myself raising a family in the city. I'll be moving to the suburbs, if I'm still living Detroit.

D3 and Loveland are doing a great job documenting the upcoming housing apocalypse - and I don't care how geneous the city gets with payment terms to the debtors, if there is no present or future income to service the debt, it's game over.

For as much building as going on in Midtown/Downtown along with the new entertainment megaplex that Illitch is constructing, there is a two factorial amount that's decaying in concrete/wood/basic raw building materials, because there is zero disposable resident income to upkeep the property.

The city will have to decompose fully to thrive. I've sometimes played with with the idea in my head to split Detroit into three or four separate cities (to help certain portions thrive), but this of course would be politically untenable.

ps - See the 'Detroit by Air' article from a few days ago.

[Igglyboo]

I wouldn't. But if those problems were alleviated I would in a heartbeat, I would love to live in a big city but do not want to move far from where I am now.

Also, the downtown area of Detroit is extremely nice and if the rest of it was even half as nice I would consider moving there.