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The simple fact of the matter is the great lakes can't support shipping the way the coasts can. The massive container ships can't get up the locks. Our shipping industry is, has been, and always will be primarily regional.
No one is delusional enough to think that Great Lakes shipping can displace the East Coast ports. But if a manufacturer in Cleveland can shave a few days off product transit time, and doesn't have to send a truck or train to New York Harbor or Philadelphia, then he can cut his costs *and* develop a new market in Europe. While Cleveland was developing this service, Detroit was debating how much money to throw at Mike Ilitch.
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of course, the sole reason detroit existed at all...and wasn't just another Lansing or Port Huron, is because of Fords, Fishers, Durants, Dodges, Hudsons, Whitneys, ....etc. if not for them, there is no Kahn buildings to look at or Derrick houses to live in. It's a sleepy backwater border town.
You're right. It had nothing to do with strategic location--the ability to receive shipments of iron ore, or raw steel, or access to highways and railroads. It was all dumb luck.