Class-Divided Cities: Detroit Edition

[TexasT]

'Only to this degree in Detroit'. I think it was just a matter of degree.

I think you'll find that most if not all major cities have been the relocation of many of their corporate offices to the burbs. [[from Grist: Suburban Corporate Campuses Going Out of Style)[/FONT][/COLOR]

Detroit also had the 'luck' of a few really big companies with early suburban presence. Ford, GM [[New Center & Tech Center). If these firms were downtown, things might have been a little better. But like a lot of things -- it wasn't one single factor. Lot of eggs in one basket [[auto), sparsely populated right after the war, rust belt, and so on.

Well yes, I'll agree that every city had some measure of suburban flight. But to say Detroit's is just a matter of degree ignores the outright decimation of downtown - that didn't happen anywhere else. Detroit's population began to decline well before the rise of the suburban corporate complex.

There was little in downtown Detroit that was essential to the region. Most of the offices in the large office buildings downtown were readily transportable to other areas of the metro. Gilbert is downtown because Gilbert wants to be downtown. His operation could function just as well in Southfield, Troy, or on Hall Road. Other cities had major financial centers downtown. Detroit had only the headquarters of local banks.

I think this is the mentality that the author was describing. Yes, the business could technically be run anywhere, but when you isolate yourself from the majority of the business community, you miss out on the benefits of a consolidated downtown, whether it's attracting talent, meeting clients, or the ability to collaborate with other businesses, visibility to customers, etc. You just don't get that when you spread your corporate HQs across multiple business "centers" across the suburbs.

I get that there's some benefit to locating in the suburbs, typically cheaper space, but that doesn't mean that placement in a central business district has no merit either.

[Hermod]

Well yes, I'll agree that every city had some measure of suburban flight. But to say Detroit's is just a matter of degree ignores the outright decimation of downtown - that didn't happen anywhere else. Detroit's population began to decline well before the rise of the suburban corporate complex.

I think this is the mentality that the author was describing. Yes, the business could technically be run anywhere, but when you isolate yourself from the majority of the business community, you miss out on the benefits of a consolidated downtown, whether it's attracting talent, meeting clients, or the ability to collaborate with other businesses, visibility to customers, etc. You just don't get that when you spread your corporate HQs across multiple business "centers" across the suburbs.

I get that there's some benefit to locating in the suburbs, typically cheaper space, but that doesn't mean that placement in a central business district has no merit either.

When I was a kid, the orthodontist that my mother took me to was in the David Broderick Tower. Part way through the four years of my treatment by him, he moved out to Seven Mile and Meyers. The office was larger and nicer, there was parking right by the front door, and the drive wasn't as difficult.

Employees prefer to work in a "campus" rather than a high-rise. If you visit someone in a high-rise on business, it is usually a royal PITA to get there and to get in and see him.

[TexasT]

When I was a kid, the orthodontist that my mother took me to was in the David Broderick Tower. Part way through the four years of my treatment by him, he moved out to Seven Mile and Meyers. The office was larger and nicer, there was parking right by the front door, and the drive wasn't as difficult.

Employees prefer to work in a "campus" rather than a high-rise. If you visit someone in a high-rise on business, it is usually a royal PITA to get there and to get in and see him.

Again, yes those are benefits to suburban campuses. That doesn't negate the fact that a) there are downsides to suburban campuses and b) there are upsides to urban settings. For example, in moving from a downtown location to a suburban location, a dentist misses out on thousands of downtown employees who are in walking distance who prefer a dentist that's easy to get to from work [[like me, my dentist is in the Ren Cen and I can walk there - I'd never go to a dentist in the burbs). In the suburbs in some complex, you're going to have to advertise more; you can't rely on just putting your sign outside of your office and having thousands of people walk by it as a part of their every day routine.

And a blanket statement like "employees prefer to work in a campus rather than a high-rise" is just wrong. Some do, sure. Plenty do not. In every city in which I've worked - Houston, Chicago, Detroit - it's always been in a high rise downtown. I can't imagine being isolated out in some suburban sprawly campus. To each their own; I won't make some ridiculous claim that everyone feels the way I do, but I do not agree with the blanket assertion employees as a whole prefer the suburbs.

[Eber Brock Ward]

Employees prefer to work in a "campus" rather than a high-rise. If you visit someone in a high-rise on business, it is usually a royal PITA to get there and to get in and see him.

How old are you and how often do you associate with "knowledge class" or "creative class" workers that are 35 and under? I think your lack of exposure to these folks is clouding your perception of what "employees" want.

The talented ones overwhelmingly want to work in an urban environment, be it in a high-rise or a low-rise, not out at 7 mile.

[TexasT]

How old are you and how often do you associate with "knowledge class" or "creative class" workers that are 35 and under? I think your lack of exposure to these folks is clouding your perception of what "employees" want.

The talented ones overwhelmingly want to work in an urban environment, be it in a high-rise or a low-rise, not out at 7 mile.

Yeah we constantly talk about Chicago pulling Detroit's young talent. Most of that talent is moving to neighborhoods like Lincoln Park and Lakeview and working downtown for the most part - they generally aren't leaving Michigan to move to Schaumberg. If it were suburb vs. suburb, Michigan could compete. But the great suburbs of Chicago are not why these workers are leaving.

[Wesley Mouch]

How old are you and how often do you associate with "knowledge class" or "creative class" workers that are 35 and under? I think your lack of exposure to these folks is clouding your perception of what "employees" want.

The talented ones overwhelmingly want to work in an urban environment, be it in a high-rise or a low-rise, not out at 7 mile.

I agree that there is a significant and growing cohort that wants an urban workplace. Its big enough to drive downtown development in cities across the USA.

But I don't know that this is the biggest cohort. A lot of young professionals I know are quite happy working in low-rise burbland and spending their evenings meeting friends in faux-old bars on Haggerty.

The urban return isn't however a return to the 1950's classic offices either. This is a new group with new ideas about workplace.

[TexasT]

I agree that there is a significant and growing cohort that wants an urban workplace. Its big enough to drive downtown development in cities across the USA.

But I don't know that this is the biggest cohort. A lot of young professionals I know are quite happy working in low-rise burbland and spending their evenings meeting friends in faux-old bars on Haggerty.

The urban return isn't however a return to the 1950's classic offices either. This is a new group with new ideas about workplace.

It's not just young workers though; it's the businesses themselves too. Any industry that needs corporate clients are going to want to be surrounded by as many corporate clients as possible. Businesses that seek corporate collaboration with related industries want to be around other businesses. Those things don't happen with an isolated complex out in the burbs. Those businesses can't function in isolation; makes sense that other industries in the Detroit area died off or failed to ever start without a strong core, leaving the city mostly dependent on the one remaining industry.

[Eber Brock Ward]

It's not just young workers though; it's the businesses themselves too. Any industry that needs corporate clients are going to want to be surrounded by as many corporate clients as possible. Businesses that seek corporate collaboration with related industries want to be around other businesses. Those things don't happen with an isolated complex out in the burbs. Those businesses can't function in isolation; makes sense that other industries in the Detroit area died off or failed to ever start without a strong core, leaving the city mostly dependent on the one remaining industry.

I think this is an excellent point. Suppose you run an accounting firm and you are headquartered in Troy.

If you have clients in Dearborn, Detroit, Southfield, Downriver, etc. it's difficult to get to them. Additionally, unless you share a building with someone, it's impossible to give the sort of service that high-end clients expect [["Hey, We have a fire that needs putting out. Can you be here in ten minutes?" <-- that is something I definitely recall hearing while I was still at a big firm).

However, if your firm and the clients are all within close proximity, it becomes a lot easier to service your clients and, of course, they are happier with the prompt service. And this goes without mentioning the time wasted driving between places [[an hour round trip to see a client is an hour that cannot be billed).

In some cases, these enhanced business generation opportunities and time/money savings outstrips the lower land/tax costs in the burbs, and there is a strong business case to move to or stay in the city. If it's not the case, there may be a stronger business case for the burbs. It's all dependent on facts and circumstances.

Interestingly enough, though, I wonder if this trend toward city cores will be reversed as and if telecommuting and videoconferencing become more common. At that point, the trend toward re-consolidation will be driven more by soft things like "vibe" and "energy" than numbers.

[Bham1982]

The talented ones overwhelmingly want to work in an urban environment, be it in a high-rise or a low-rise, not out at 7 mile.

I think this is debatable. I don't have a definitive answer as to whether talented younger folks prefer a traditional urban environment, or a suburban corporate campus, but there are enough concentrations of talented folks in both locations to make a decent argument.

Probably the two largest concentrations of U.S. under-40 talent are in Manhattan and Silicon Valley. Pretty different environments, and probably hard to gauge whether people prefer one or the other, given all the potential variables.

For example, maybe a worker prefers an urban loft, but does that preference come with an assumption of everything else remaining the same [[meaning will they still have easy and free parking, the same size workspace, the same support staff and the same income tax bill?). I think it would be hard to tease out all the variables to come to a definitive conclusion.

[TexasT]

Probably the two largest concentrations of U.S. under-40 talent are in Manhattan and Silicon Valley.

True but are they in SV because they prefer sprawl or because that's where the jobs already are? And SF is making inroads into SV because of what the under-40 crowd desires...

The venture capitalist Vinod Khosla recently described Silicon Valley as a state of mind, rather than a geographical place. If that's the case, that state of mind can increasingly be found in San Francisco.



Young tech companies have been flocking to the city at such a rate lately that, in the words of Peter Wendell, founder of Sierra Ventures, in parts of San Francisco "you can almost go door-to-door."


San Francisco, a short hop by train or car from the chain of towns that make up Silicon Valley, has long had some tech stars of its own. But the number of prominent tech startups that have opened new or expanded offices here lately is a break from the past. The technology center of gravity in the region seems to be drifting northward to San Francisco.

"When you're a young engineer and all the companies you're interested in are in the Valley, then you're going to work in the Valley. But suddenly if some of them start to have outposts in the city, then those become more attractive employers than the companies that aren't in the city," said Wendell. "There's kind of a tipping point," he said.


"Our downtown San Francisco campus gives us a recruiting edge when attracting top talent," said Monika Fahlbusch, senior vice president of global employee success at Salesforce.com, which has been in the city since it was founded in 1999, and which purchased 14 acres of land here two years ago to build a new headquarters.

http://www.itworld.com/software/2868...cisco?page=0,1