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Detroit's New (Post-)Industry
By Marc Tracy
Via Bloomberg comes the news that General Electric is establishing a big new research center in the Detroit suburbs. The Advanced Manufacturing and Software Technology Center will investigate potential innovations in the areas of health-care, software, and even wind energy.
...So why do we care? GE, after all, is precisely no one's idea of a small business. But the notion that the Midwest can be remade from its industrial history into a post-industrial, ideas-based economy--remember Youngstown, Ohio?--is one that has captured our imagination, as it is small businesses and frisky entrepreneurs who will play an integral part in that process. Indeed, GE is quite explicit that it is seeking to take advantage of brilliant-but-laid-off scientists and engineers formerly of the auto industry. In fact, we've written before about filling up Detroit's empty tank. Now, who knows what types of small businesses will sprout up in Oakland County, Michigan to buttress and complement this research center? Who knows what endeavors will be spun off from the center, and from the innovations it produces?
Detroit used to be a world center of innovation. But things calcified, as they tend to do, and then grew increasingly obsolete, as they also tend to do, and now it is hurting. So we are cheered by GE's move--it represents a great first step back for a once-mighty metropolis. And we are hopeful that as Detroit's rejuvenation continues, small businesses will star at center stage.
Comments (0)June 29, 2009 10:14 AM
