I have long been of the opinion that one of our greatest unexploited assets has been our status as an international metropolis. With the Amazon bid I am happy to see a major acknowledgement of that. Consider what Dan Gilbert said when asked for his one minute elevator pitch to Amazon's Jeff Bezos.
"You get a chance to come to a city that is not just a city but represents two countries. And those two countries have a vast and deep amount of talent and labor from Waterloo [[Ontario) all the way to drawing from Chicago."

"We have a path on the real estate to get you your 8 million-plus [[square) feet that nobody has because of the concentration of ownership we have and the land that we have and the developments that can happen," Gilbert said. "Your million [[square) feet that you need in 2019, we have it for you in beautiful, renovated, cool downtown buildings."

The only other recent sizable effort has been the Gordie Howe Bridge, although that has been largely one-sided [Canadian] and of much lesser potential impact.

The biggest set back has been the post 9/11 security frenzy. To really make this happen we need a joint security treaty with Canada to open the border, and redeploy security to our other international ports of entry.

How else could we use this advantage?