Detroit collapsed, long ago. It was walled off, long ago. It was stripped, and the educated people moved outward, long ago. I worked at the Madison Building do

Detroit collapsed, long ago. It was walled off, long ago. It was stripped, and the educated people moved outward, long ago. I worked at the Madison Building downtown while rapt.fm was part of the Bizdom accelerator program so I saw a lot of this gentrifying effect happening. Dan Gilbert / Detroit Venture Partners / Bizdom have been establishing a tech ecosystem to help with the revitalization downtown. There were dozens of small companies at the Madison Building, a really nice place to have events on the rooftop, an auditorium, etc. And the urban area right around it has a lot of great restaurants and places to live. This startup scene was moderately big, but way, way bigger was the moving of Quicken Loans back downtown. Plus the updating of the sports stadiums. Plus the general hipsters from UMich building interesting stuff throughout the region. Plus the huge bailout of GM and other kinds of Federal support of industry in Michigan during the Great R. All of that is why Detroit's collapse is in the past tense, not to say that it is in good shape or anything. It was an interesting situation on the ground, it had the feel of re-taking, re-building, re-connecting. Downtown and the Wayne State area were way better off than the rest of town, in a highly visible way. But all kinds of folks who held on through the real decline were around, with stories to tell. One key thing that happened while I was there, and this is was the intention of key people at Bizdom I believe, was that business connected quite a bit with the outer community (i.e. across the freeway-moat around the gentrifying downtown). Lots of people got involved with the startups in the Madison, and were often introduced to us by Bizdom's leaders. Our company, which combined freestyle rap music with real-time web technology, collaborated with maybe a dozen or two people from around the area. Some were graphic designers, techies, or artists, others were local rappers or promoters. The town's presence was constant, it was there in the huge windows. You could drive down any major stretch at night, and randomly take a right into a post-industrial wasteland. A kid might zip by on a bike in the pitch dark. Because everywhere, nearby, there were also some homes with families inside. I can't even describe how much city there is, outside of downtown. Miles of infrastructure basically sits fallow or highly depreciated, and thousands mire in poverty, due to poor urban design, poor leadership, and historic fear. By hosting companies that draw from Detroit's huge creative energy and then bringing tech and business people to the core of the city, Gilbert will have a major positive effect in the long run. Call this effect gentrification while the city collapses, but you can also call it the shaky beginnings of a return to normalcy.