[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.