Crain's: Corporate campuses in twilight

[iheartthed]

Facebook currently leases space across a number of buildings scattered around Palo Alto. It makes sense that they would want to get the majority of their employees into one compressed area. Same thing with Apple. If an operating systems guy needs to talk to a hardware guy about some dongle that isn't working as expected, s/he just crosses the campus [[or across DeAnza Boulevard) and they can get the answers they need pretty quickly.

As much as I would love to see all the buildings of Detroit light up at all hours with business, it's going to be a very tough sell to get additional large corporations downtown. Thousands of employees won't fit into a single already-existing building in any downtown area. Maybe a couple buildings, yes. But Compuware had to build a brand new building for their headquarters [[and get some major concessions / incentives from the city), to get everyone in one place.

The businesses that Detroit should be trying to entice are medium sized businesses [[that can easily fit into the retrofitted UA building, for example) and emerging technologies [[the kind that brings lots of investments, dynamic people, jobs, etc.).

Well, the article pointed out that the idea that everybody needs to be clustered together on the same campus or under the same roof is outdated. From personal experience, I wholeheartedly agree. I have worked more closely with people scattered across the globe, from California to southeast Asia, than I have with some of the people whose desks sit within a 10 foot radius of mine.

[JBMcB]

Think of the big tech stories of the past decade. How many of the new innovations were originated by a company located on a big corporate campus in the suburbs?

You're conflating innovative products with innovative technologies. Start-ups often do create innovative products, and they are often sourced outside of large corporate campuses.

However, many of the technologies those smaller companies use come from the "dinosaurs" creating innovative technologies:

H.264 - Enables efficient streaming of web video - Mostly Motorola and Microsoft
AJAX - Enables interactive web applications, like Facebook - Microsoft
MapReduce - An important component of super-fast search engines - Google

Only three examples, but without them the web wouldn't look much different than it did in 2000. Especially for AJAX - nearly every website uses it - Facebook uses it everywhere.

[iheartthed]

You're conflating innovative products with innovative technologies. Start-ups often do create innovative products, and they are often sourced outside of large corporate campuses.

However, many of the technologies those smaller companies use come from the "dinosaurs" creating innovative technologies:

H.264 - Enables efficient streaming of web video - Mostly Motorola and Microsoft
AJAX - Enables interactive web applications, like Facebook - Microsoft
MapReduce - An important component of super-fast search engines - Google

Only three examples, but without them the web wouldn't look much different than it did in 2000. Especially for AJAX - nearly every website uses it - Facebook uses it everywhere.

I'm not so sure that the web wouldn't be doing what we do today without AJAX [[we might even be doing more if not for the limitations of it). It just became the defacto standard because MSIE was the overwhelming predominant browser at the time and that's what they chose to go with. It's like arguing the difference between whether we'll be driving cars powered by electricity or hydrogen fuel cells in 30 years -- we'll probably be driving something other than cars with gasoline powered combustible engines, but just what we will be driving will probably be decided by just a handful of industry giants.

[Bham1982]

I was there last month and was all over the city, from Wrigleyville, to Wicker Park, to Lakeview, to downtown, to Logan Square, to River North, and many places in between. The city is JUMPING with young people and youthful energy.

I'm not sure where you're disagreeing with me. I never claimed that Chicago lacked tons of young folks. I only rejected the assertion that this is a new phenomenon.

Chicago is a major city, and has a large concentration of young folks since basically forever.

Lively and vibrant is the only way to describe that town. There are surely poor areas that have declined, but most everything else is booming.

Chicago, as a whole, is in decline. This isn't really an arguable point. Population loss is second worst in the nation, trailing only Detroit.

Now it's certainly true that the core is doing quite well, but obviously the core is a small part of the overall city.

And, as you stated, you were only in the core 10% of the city. Those areas are as representative of Chicago as Bloomfield Hills is representative of Metro Detroit.

Chicago is categorized as an Alpha Global City, and ranks #6 on the global cities list, just below Hong Kong and above Los Angeles. Where does Birmingham, MI rank?

Ahead of LA? Uh-huh.

I have no idea what you're referencing, but there's no such thing as an official city ranking. Maybe some magazine or website claimed that Chicago is the #6 international city, but that's obviously absurd.

There are 20 cities in Europe that are more international than Chicago, and Chicago isn't even Top 10 metro in U.S. foreign-born %.

Visit Miami or Zurich and then tell me Chicago is international.

[Bham1982]

Regardless, Chicago makes the shortlist of an elite 40.

I agree with this. Chicago is indisputably Top 40 globally, if not higher. Certainly the global king of the U.S. interior, but IMO trailing the coasts and some Sunbelt metros.

When I think of the world's alpha cities, I think of cities like Tokyo, NYC, London, Paris. etc. Chicago would be in a second tier, with Frankfurt, Dallas, Boston, etc. Detroit would be in a third tier, with Denver, Stuttgart, Naples, etc.

[Detroitnerd]

There are some definite shifts taking place. Some of the more fevered exurban developments are most at risk for disinvestment, and regions with a willingness to repopulate and invest in their central cities and seeing gains, as in DC and NYC. The West Coast is going through a lot right now, but, behind the noise, the L.A. Times senses an end to the exurban construction boom and people increasingly moving into central cities.

"Demand will grow for urban rental units by the coast and shrink for single-family homes inland, resulting in fewer construction jobs and no boom for some areas hit hard by the housing bust."

http://www.latimes.com/business/real...,3144669.story

[iheartthed]

I agree with this. Chicago is indisputably Top 40 globally, if not higher. Certainly the global king of the U.S. interior, but IMO trailing the coasts and some Sunbelt metros.

When I think of the world's alpha cities, I think of cities like Tokyo, NYC, London, Paris. etc. Chicago would be in a second tier, with Frankfurt, Dallas, Boston, etc. Detroit would be in a third tier, with Denver, Stuttgart, Naples, etc.

This is all personal perception, but I don't think Dallas, Boston, etc. are on the same level as Chicago. And focusing on Chicago's foreign born population versus say Miami or L.A. is flawed because the foreign immigration to those latter cities is very region specific. Miami isn't like NYC or London, which attracts immigrants from all corners of the globe without a strong bias for one region or another. Maybe a good way to measure would be the diversity of the foreign-born population?

I do agree that Chicago is not on the same level as NYC, but that's not a point of dispute. I would say that NYC is the only top tier global city in the U.S. After that, L.A., Chicago, Washington, SF and to a lesser extent Miami would be on the second tier [[really Miami feels less major than Detroit, but it does have international notoriety). The third tier would probably be two-fold: I'd place the large major cities like Boston, ATL, Philadelphia, Detroit, Dallas, Houston [[generally cities with international notoriety) on the high end and other cities like Seattle, STL, Portland, San Diego, etc. on the lower end. After that would be everybody else.

[gnome]

And this article was reprinted in Crains? Crains? Who's campus has all the charm of bagdad's Green Zone. A walled fort with guard towers and an asphalt moat. Jeeze. Get over yourself.

[Scottathew]

Things are changing in Detroit too. With GM doing better, BCBS, and Quicken down here I've seen a lot more foot traffic than what we had before.

This all good news, but it's also impacting my commute! But that's a good problem to have. We need REAL mass transit.

[dtowncitylover]

I don't mean to quote Wikipedia, but here's what they're talking about Bham1982,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

[dtowncitylover]

Chicago, as a whole, is in decline. This isn't really an arguable point. Population loss is second worst in the nation, trailing only Detroit.

You could probably say that about New York City in 1985 and we all know how that city is today. One census says something and suddenly we're writing off Chicago!

[DetroitPlanner]

Did Compuware "need" space for 5000? aren't they leasing a large portion of their building to Quicken folks?

At the time Compuware designed the building they did. They have laid off much of thier staff since they built the building.

[Bham1982]

You could probably say that about New York City in 1985 and we all know how that city is today. One census says something and suddenly we're writing off Chicago!

I'm certainly not writing off Chicago. It's in relatively good shape considering the sorry state of most Midwest cities.

I'm just saying, there's a considerable gap between the urbanist hype and the Census-documented reality.

And I'm not old enough to know if there was urbanist hype about NYC in 1985, but NYC grew considerably during the 80's. In contrast, Chicago has been on a general downward population slide for basically 50 years.

[English]

I don't mean to quote Wikipedia, but here's what they're talking about Bham1982,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

Yay! We're Gamma minus!

[Red Devil]

[QUOTE=iheartthed;251940][QUOTE=JBMcB;251893]

So . But the biggest tech stories of the decade, Facebook, Myspace, Groupon, Youtube, Paypal, Napster... None of them were conceived of at a big company on a suburban campus.

Maybe not, but they were all conceived by products of the suburban culture that people on this board loathe so much LOL

[wolverine]

And this article was reprinted in Crains? Crains? Who's campus has all the charm of bagdad's Green Zone. A walled fort with guard towers and an asphalt moat. Jeeze. Get over yourself.

Their Chicago location is pretty bad-ass though. And their employees seem like a pretty happy bunch of people.

[rbdetsport]

And Facebook is building a massive suburban corporate campus in Silicon Valley.

Many of the urban corporations also basically have corporate campuses. Sometimes they're vertical, but it's the same concept.

IMO, there appears to be little correlation between location and economic success.

Silicon Valley may be a "suburb", but it is far from being suburban. It is fed by transit and is pretty dense in regards to workforce. Just look at an arial of the area.

[BrushStart]

Twilight? More like midnight: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...e-to-handle-gm

[Detroitnerd]

Well, in fairness, GM has been almost demanding that agencies it works with locate their offices near GM's headquarters. That was the case with Goodby Silverstein, and likely this move too. On one hand, GM's exigencies do not a national trend make, but they certainly are part of that trend.