About ten years ago, no one would have said the city of Detroit would be sitting at the perfect crossroads of multiple urban trends. Around then, the city was in the midst of declaring bankruptcy. That moment created a new sense of urgency among those wealthy enough to do something about the future of the city, and many of them stepped up. Dan Gilbert, the billionaire co-founder of home lender Rocket Mortgage, moved the company headquarters to downtown Detroit and bought more than 130 buildings downtown.
This billion-dollar investment opened the doors for other families and companies with old and new money to also invest in the city as well. Additionally, as the WSJ writes, “rock-bottom office rents long ago forced developers to come up with other things to build. They added casinos and sports venues and restored aging theaters. That made downtown less office-dependent, an advantage in the age of remote work.” Finally, the urgency to rebuild also incentivized many tax breaks which also attracted more investment.
Altogether, experts are starting to point to the city as an example of how a dying city can turn its fortunes around and win the future. As Gilbert himself noted in the article, “If somebody would have told you there was going to be a Gucci store in Detroit 10 years ago, I mean, I would have laughed at them.” Now they have one … and probably more to come.
