It's been really interesting to look at Detroit as an outsider since I've been coming every few months and working out of the Detroit area for about 10 days eac

It's been really interesting to look at Detroit as an outsider since I've been coming every few months and working out of the Detroit area for about 10 days each time and making mental comparisons to San Francisco and the valley. The biggest challenge I see is that the area with the greatest concentration of available low-priced office space (downtown) is also where I wouldn't want to live. Once you spend some time in Detroit, you understand why it's called MotorCity, it's highly pedestrian unfriendly and I wouldn't trust the public transportation system unless I'm willing to risk my safety. The other challenge is that there are towns/areas around Detroit that seem to be better fit for building a new tech/startup hub when compared to Downtown Detroit when it comes to quality of life, pedestrian-oriented, and safety: - Corktown - closest thing to the Mission, this area has an edgy industrial loft type of gentrification going on with a lot of young hip folks. This area is right on the edge of downtown but you go a few blocks away to look for housing and you encounter 50% burned down or houses in disrepair which means you can't really walk around the area feeling safe once it gets dark. I wouldn't walk there in the daytime given how few people are in that area and the number of abandoned properties. - Royal Oak - town about 11 miles North of Detroit. It's like the Marina district, lots of trendy hip shops, safe to walk around, good quality housing and vegan food options as well as good cultural scene. This area has the shops and lifestyle that Downtown is lacking. - Birmingham - further north in the suburbs, Google and McCann are located in this wealthy suburb. Features good food, high end shopping, a small upscale town feel (like Pacific Heights). Safe to walk around, good quality parks nearby, working and functioning government. I like the motto and energy of Detroit that comes across in the form of "Detroit Hustles Harder" but I think you gotta address the core issue of having a city that people can feel safe in. I grew up in a poor neighborhood of LA and have never felt as unsafe as I feel driving around the large swaths of Detroit that have been left to rot.