Dan Gilbert: WSJ - "Maestro of the Midwest"
Anyone seen the article in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal about Dan Gilbert? It discusses what he has done for both Cleveland [[LeBron) and Detroit [[Gilbertville).
http://online.wsj.com/articles/matt-...val-1414794678
A sample:
The business case is that young, educated workers want to work and live in a vibrant urban core. With this “underlying macro trend,” companies in the suburbs will have to adjust or suffer, he says. “Now the question will be: Do these Midwest cities take that trend and either screw it up and don’t take advantage of other things that would complete all that, or do they? Never before did you have that kind of opportunity as you do now.”
….<<snip>>…
Yet even if he does well, it doesn’t necessarily follow that Detroit will. Yes, cool bars and stores seem to be opening every other day, but the city will still have a hard time overcoming its urban ills, including dysfunctional politics, high taxes and crime.
Some of the highest property and personal city taxes and most intrusive regulations in the nation drove business and people out of Detroit, and they remain untouched. Policing is only slowly improving and the schools are bad. “I always think what are the things that can derail this,” Mr. Gilbert says. “Well, if you have government put in some crazy regulation stuff that makes no sense.”
