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Why? The city was HQ to the 3 auto companies. Oakland County, in the "Metro Detroit Area" is still one of the nicest + wealthiest counties in the Country. It

by jeffepp 16y ago

Why? The city was HQ to the 3 auto companies. Oakland County, in the "Metro Detroit Area" is still one of the nicest + wealthiest counties in the Country. It was in the top 5 a few years back, I am sure it's gone down a few spots since then. Check out this video, pretty cool referencing the rise and fall (and rise again): http://vimeo.com/11021663 http://vimeo.com/11021663

baguasquirrel 16y ago
Does anyone else here this and then think about Silicon Valley? Maybe it's just paranoia...
- VladRussian 16y ago
  bust is the natural stage in the boom town life cycle. What can be worse scenario for the Valley? People leaving it for high-tech jobs in some new Silicon Valley in China or India? I.e. mostly salaried employees will leave and founders/investors or just rich people will have the Valley for themselves and will plot apricots on the emptied lands, ...
- rmason 16y ago
  I've long maintained that Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the first half of the twentieth century. It was where enterpreneurs that wanted to make things settled. My dad tells me stories of when he was a little boy in the twenties when the city was the best place on the planet to start a company and it was just bristling with entrepreneurs. Sadly the city lost its way but it's starting to get it back. The destruction of Detroit is the easy story for the media however and the city's rise isn't being widely reported.
  - SwellJoe 16y ago
    "the city's rise isn't being widely reported." Where is the evidence of its rise? I'm honestly curious. I plan to buy a plot of land, maybe a house, somewhere in the next year or two, and Detroit has been in consideration because of its incredibly low prices (I don't plan to live there full-time; I live in a motorhome and travel, but it'd be nice to have a plot that I own and know I can always go park on for as long as I like if I feel like settling somewhere for a month or two). Detroit has a cool history, in terms of music. But, it also seems to be a bad investment, right now...no matter how cheap something is, it can always go lower, and Detroit seems to still be trending downward.
    - rmason 16y ago
      If you want to get a taste watch this video series: http://bit.ly/aO1wFm http://bit.ly/aO1wFm There are a lot of entreprenurial groups and funds that just weren't there twelve months ago. If you want a more boots on the ground feel attend Maker Faire this summer. I've spoken to some of the O'Reilly folks who were very nervous about last years Faire and were quite simply in their words "blown away" by Detroit in a positive way. Tim O'Reilly compared the Henry Ford museum to the equivalent of the Louvre. Houses in Detroit are already selling for $1, How much lower can they go? Chinese investors are snapping up hundreds of houses. Locals are even buying them and flipping them to outsiders. http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/17/rtr.detroit.opportunity/index.html?eref=rss_topstories http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/17/rtr.detroit.opportunity/ind... You have to decide for yourself if that sounds like a market that can still go lower.
      - SwellJoe 16y ago
        "Houses in Detroit are already selling for $1" Where can I find these one buck houses? Hell, I'd pay at least twice that. Seriously, though, the lowest prices I see on craigslist right now, in the city, for an actual house, actually for sale, is $9900. Now, I'm not one to complain about a $9900 house on a reasonable chunk of land, but this one happened to have a gang tag on the garage door when I looked it up on google maps. Sure, a can of paint is only ten bucks, but I can imagine a $9910 house going down in value. And, I don't want to park my motorhome in a place where it'll get vandalized...it costs a hell of a lot more than ten bucks to repaint a motorhome. But, let's assume I come to Detroit this summer (I've been considering it) to look at houses. Where should I be shopping? What neighborhoods are centrally located, and coming up rather than going down? I kinda imagine the ideal neighborhood would be one filled with old folks. Old folks usually take pretty good care of their houses, they don't spray paint gang signs on garage doors, and they're mostly likeable mind-their-own-business sorts of people. A lot of the best neighborhoods in cities I've lived in have been older neighborhoods with older residents, that became hipster neighborhoods as the old folks passed on. That may just be selection bias...just the neighborhoods I liked and have seen grow (like East Austin, or the Montrose in Houston).
        16y ago
- tomjen3 16y ago
  The big difference is that the wally not only depends on big tech companies. It also produces them, which Detroit isn't really able to do.
- cpeterso 16y ago
  Silicon Valley's economy is more diversified than Detroit's auto industry was. Silicon Valley also has nicer weather than Detroit.
jackolas 16y ago
The companies killed that city though. Putting factories right outside the city lines...

by jeffepp 16y ago

baguasquirrel 16y ago

Does anyone else here this and then think about Silicon Valley? Maybe it's just paranoia...

VladRussian 16y ago
bust is the natural stage in the boom town life cycle. What can be worse scenario for the Valley? People leaving it for high-tech jobs in some new Silicon Valley in China or India? I.e. mostly salaried employees will leave and founders/investors or just rich people will have the Valley for themselves and will plot apricots on the emptied lands, ...
rmason 16y ago
I've long maintained that Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the first half of the twentieth century. It was where enterpreneurs that wanted to make things settled. My dad tells me stories of when he was a little boy in the twenties when the city was the best place on the planet to start a company and it was just bristling with entrepreneurs. Sadly the city lost its way but it's starting to get it back. The destruction of Detroit is the easy story for the media however and the city's rise isn't being widely reported.
- SwellJoe 16y ago
  "the city's rise isn't being widely reported." Where is the evidence of its rise? I'm honestly curious. I plan to buy a plot of land, maybe a house, somewhere in the next year or two, and Detroit has been in consideration because of its incredibly low prices (I don't plan to live there full-time; I live in a motorhome and travel, but it'd be nice to have a plot that I own and know I can always go park on for as long as I like if I feel like settling somewhere for a month or two). Detroit has a cool history, in terms of music. But, it also seems to be a bad investment, right now...no matter how cheap something is, it can always go lower, and Detroit seems to still be trending downward.
  - rmason 16y ago
    If you want to get a taste watch this video series: http://bit.ly/aO1wFm http://bit.ly/aO1wFm There are a lot of entreprenurial groups and funds that just weren't there twelve months ago. If you want a more boots on the ground feel attend Maker Faire this summer. I've spoken to some of the O'Reilly folks who were very nervous about last years Faire and were quite simply in their words "blown away" by Detroit in a positive way. Tim O'Reilly compared the Henry Ford museum to the equivalent of the Louvre. Houses in Detroit are already selling for $1, How much lower can they go? Chinese investors are snapping up hundreds of houses. Locals are even buying them and flipping them to outsiders. http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/17/rtr.detroit.opportunity/index.html?eref=rss_topstories http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/17/rtr.detroit.opportunity/ind... You have to decide for yourself if that sounds like a market that can still go lower.
    - SwellJoe 16y ago
      "Houses in Detroit are already selling for $1" Where can I find these one buck houses? Hell, I'd pay at least twice that. Seriously, though, the lowest prices I see on craigslist right now, in the city, for an actual house, actually for sale, is $9900. Now, I'm not one to complain about a $9900 house on a reasonable chunk of land, but this one happened to have a gang tag on the garage door when I looked it up on google maps. Sure, a can of paint is only ten bucks, but I can imagine a $9910 house going down in value. And, I don't want to park my motorhome in a place where it'll get vandalized...it costs a hell of a lot more than ten bucks to repaint a motorhome. But, let's assume I come to Detroit this summer (I've been considering it) to look at houses. Where should I be shopping? What neighborhoods are centrally located, and coming up rather than going down? I kinda imagine the ideal neighborhood would be one filled with old folks. Old folks usually take pretty good care of their houses, they don't spray paint gang signs on garage doors, and they're mostly likeable mind-their-own-business sorts of people. A lot of the best neighborhoods in cities I've lived in have been older neighborhoods with older residents, that became hipster neighborhoods as the old folks passed on. That may just be selection bias...just the neighborhoods I liked and have seen grow (like East Austin, or the Montrose in Houston).
      - 16y ago
tomjen3 16y ago
The big difference is that the wally not only depends on big tech companies. It also produces them, which Detroit isn't really able to do.
cpeterso 16y ago
Silicon Valley's economy is more diversified than Detroit's auto industry was. Silicon Valley also has nicer weather than Detroit.

jackolas 16y ago

The companies killed that city though. Putting factories right outside the city lines...