“If Detroit is on the brink of a revival, it’s technology that is proving to be the leading driver of job creation and economic growth,” writes Detroit-based marketing exec Alex Southern for GrowDetroit. Southern’s “if” acknowledges the pessimism some or his readers expressed last year in a survey about their hometown’s prospects for recovery.
Southern asked Techonomy founder David Kirkpatrick why his organization chose the Motor City as the location for its September 12 conference for innovators focused on “reigniting U.S. competitiveness, creating jobs, and revitalizing cities in a technologized age.” Detroit, Kirkpatrick told Southern, “symbolizes the failures of the American economy so starkly.” But Kirkpatrick and Southern are joined by Detroit billionaire tech investor Dan Gilbert and Steve Case in their optimism for the future of the region that Southern says “has become the first Western post-industrial city.”
