  Jt1 Member Username: Jt1 Post Number: 10193 Registered: 10-2003 |
From marketwatch.com Now bear in mind it is metro area so this is saying that our entire area is not that nice for business. I am surprised that we are only spot beloew San Antonio - For some reason I thought that was a big draw for business. Rank Metro area Score 1 Minneapolis-St. Paul 329 2 Denver 291 3 Richmond, Va. 287 4 Boston 283 5 Charlotte, N.C. 272 6 Nashville, Tenn. 263 7 Washington 261 8 New York 249 9 Birmingham, Ala. 248 10 San Francisco 247 11 (tie) Houston 245 Salt Lake City 245 13 Dallas 240 14 Columbus, Ohio 237 15 Atlanta 235 16 (tie) Kansas City, Mo. 233 Raleigh, N.C. 233 18 Milwaukee 226 19 St. Louis 225 20 Jacksonville, Fla. 216 21 Seattle 214 22 Cleveland 209 23 Chicago 208 24 Pittsburgh 207 25 Memphis, Tenn. 205 26 San Diego 199 27 Oklahoma City 198 28 Indianapolis 197 29 Providence, R.I. 195 30 Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla. 192 31 Austin, Texas 191 32 Cincinnati 188 33 Portland, Ore. 185 34 Baltimore 183 35 Phoenix 182 36 Philadelphia 181 37 Orlando, Fla. 180 38 Miami 173 39 Louisville, Ky. 172 40 Hartford, Conn. 166 41 Las Vegas 161 42 Virginia Beach-Norfolk, Va. 157 43 San Antonio 153 44 Detroit 139 45 Los Angeles 137 46 Sacramento, Calif. 128 47 Buffalo, N.Y. 125 48 Tucson, Ariz. 120 49 Rochester, N.Y. 114 50 New Orleans 76 44. Detroit, 139 points: This one may seem predictable, but Motor City has a formidable presence on the Fortune 1000 and Forbes 400 lists. You may have heard of a couple of the biggest players, General Motors; there is also a vast array of suppliers to the nation's big carmakers. Further, Detroit is a classic Rust Belt city that still has a number of manufacturers in its greater metro area. Trouble is, growth has been stagnant. The region is next to last in job growth and unemployment measures, even though its population growth over this decade has been little more than one-third of 1%. There appears to be little help from up-and-coming businesses on the horizon. Detroit was in the bottom half in the S&P, Russell and small-business categories. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4002 Registered: 10-2004 |
Maybe the following business-related items might shed some light... Michigan: four straight years of net job losses highest national unemployment @ 7.4%-- up 0.2% this month still mired in recession government facing shutdown very high (highest?) foreclosure rate auto & Tier industries: still in continual recession since around 1998 several Tiers in bankruptcy or gone MI Tiers fleeing the state for Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin for relocating their plants | ||
Llyn Member Username: Llyn Post Number: 1864 Registered: 06-2004 |
JT1, you may not have meant your closing comments this way... but I suspect that the list is not predicated on who is here and who isn't. It's probably a combination of taxes, land costs, construction costs, utility costs, labor force availability, labor costs, infrastructure, etc., etc. I would have thought the area would rate a little higher, though. There's the obvious detractions - taxes and utilities are definitely out of line with other states and municipalities for one thing. I'm guessing there's some flaws and misconceptions in studies like this, however. For example, let's take labor costs for construction which I am very familiar with. A quick qualifier - I'm not particularly pro-union or anti-union. I think there's a place for unions, but I get frustrated with the amount of entitlement I have to experience. That said, you can't just look at hourly rates. If I bid a job in New York it costs me three times as much money for the electrical or mechanical installation. In St Louis it's twice as much. The labor rates are not that different, say 20% or so. The difference is in how hard people work and the kind of work ethic they have. People in Detroit have a work ethic. People in the northeast spend half their day on break. Seriously. Or, if you are a company that needs mechanical or structural materials engineers, where else are you going to go that has such a concentration of talent available? And we have a variety of other skills in the region including more technology than we are given credit for... This area has problems with high costs for taxes and utilities (although I think we're becoming more competiitive on utilities (?) and beat out some areas of the country - not to mention that we weren't having blackouts like California). However, the Detroit metro area also has a skilled hard working labor force overall (not to mention cheaper land and construction costs). I think Detroit is underrated in many ways. For all their cachet, I don't see New York or Boston (or St Louis!) as being a better place to do business than Detroit. | ||
Jt1 Member Username: Jt1 Post Number: 10196 Registered: 10-2003 |
My bad - The closing paragraph is a quote form the article. | ||
Mrsjdaniels Member Username: Mrsjdaniels Post Number: 246 Registered: 08-2005 |
Charlotte here I come...serioulsy - June 08 | ||
Llyn Member Username: Llyn Post Number: 1865 Registered: 06-2004 |
P.S. LY, I'm not sure how much those factors play into the mix. When you think of starting a business that could locate anywhere independant of the state of the local economy (non-retail for example), you're looking a business expenses primarily. How much will it cost me? When business leaves this area, it's because of higher costs for doing business, not the general business climate. Except for Comerica, of course. Who cares if the unemployment rate is high? Maybe that just means cheaper abundant labor... P.P.S. Actually the Tier 1 suppliers are starting to come out of bankruptcy. Federal Mogul and Tower Automotive are out now, for example, and Delphi is almost out. There's still problems in the supplier industry, but I think most of the shakeout has already happened. Not sure who you are referring to that has moved. The only big move lately is VW. Suppliers tend to move here, not ther other way around... unless you're talking about supplier plants, and I can't even think of many of those that have moved. Did you have some specific examples in mind? | ||
Novine Member Username: Novine Post Number: 156 Registered: 07-2007 |
Just goes to show how little low tax rates matter to the overall score. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4003 Registered: 10-2004 |
Nobody really requires an MBA in order to assess that the following local companies or branches (among others...) are not performing well. Collins and Aikman--bankrupt and already mentioned that it will not remain in business when it concludes its reorganization. Tower Automotive--went bankrupt; subsequently sold to Cerberus. Rouge Industries in Dearborn (formerly part of Ford)--bellied up; subsequently sold in bankruptcy court to the only bidder, Severstal NA (a Russian company) and recently sold again to yet another foreign firm. Chrysler--Daimler sold a majority interest at a huge financial loss with respect to its purchase price. Delphi--formerly the components division of GM and once the 51st largest US company in itself in 1999--still in bankruptcy after almost two whole years already... Visteon--formerly Ford's R&D facility and later stuck with the components division of Ford --teeters with bankruptcy itself; had to be bailed out by Ford in order to stave off bankruptcy; halted its formerly planned move of its headquarters to downtown Detroit. GKN Sinter Metals (another foreign-owned Tier) will shutter all three of its Michigan facilities (yet will replace them with new plants in either WI or IN) that produce auto components, such as connecting rods, etc. Ford: Due to its extremely poor bond ratings from all three major bond-rating firms, Ford has mortgaged its assets (including its blue oval) in order to acquire cash so as to run their businesses. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 6556 Registered: 02-2004 |
Detroit could be the best for business if people put away their xenophobic race cards, create safer neighborhoods, lure in international jobs, provide better schools and having a good political leaders. Without these things, there can be no better business in Detroit. | ||
Lefty2 Member Username: Lefty2 Post Number: 183 Registered: 07-2007 |
The wealthiest people in the world didn't think of how not to make money or recessions, only how to grow their business. Work around the negatives. | ||
Charlottepaul Member Username: Charlottepaul Post Number: 1722 Registered: 10-2006 |
"Charlotte here I come...serioulsy - June 08" Well Mrsjdaniels, Charlotte really isn't all that great; you will definitely miss much of what Detroit is about and has to offer. Sure Charlotte is great for business and families, but is otherwise lacking in basically every other category that you can imagine. Anyways, feel free to hit me up: paulfretz@ls3p.com | ||
Spiritofdetroit Member Username: Spiritofdetroit Post Number: 588 Registered: 11-2006 |
livernois, visteon NEVER planned on moving its HQ to downtown detroit. Get your damn facts straight before you spew your crap all over the forum. | ||
Scruffy Member Username: Scruffy Post Number: 16 Registered: 04-2007 |
Visteon's troubles did scuttle its plans to move about 600 IT workers downtown. Fortunately, the highly favorable lease it signed in OKS allowed it to sublease to another suburban company - Marketing Associates. | ||
Spiritofdetroit Member Username: Spiritofdetroit Post Number: 589 Registered: 11-2006 |
It was not 600 employees either. Also, a large chunk of them were going to be IBM employees doing IT work for Visteon, not actual Visteon employees. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4036 Registered: 10-2004 |
Not trying to deflect attention away from Visteon's financial woes, aren't we now? And Visteon's doing great, right? How many profitable years has it had during the past seven years? Is zero the correct answer? The following article dealt with Visteon up through 2005. It lost another $163 million in earnings for 2006, and their stockholders' equity took an even bigger hit at losing another $188 million that year... Visteon Posts 4th-Qtr $1.34 Bln Profit Citing Facility Sales to Ford quote: | ||
Spiritofdetroit Member Username: Spiritofdetroit Post Number: 590 Registered: 11-2006 |
Umm, no. Visteon is in financial shambles, and it will likely get worse.The point is that you just made shit up. And you know it. | ||
Lmr Member Username: Lmr Post Number: 102 Registered: 03-2007 |
I live in #1 on this list. According to the local paper here, a big part of that was because of the diversity of business here - the medical device business is huge (Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, and others), food processing is huge (General Mills and others), there is also financial services (banks and insurance), retail (Best Buy), manufacturing (3M and many smaller places), a large number of small businesses (often started by Asian and other immigrants), plus several large hospitals and colleges/universities. I think a lot of that is more by accident than planning. Still, I think a variety of industries instead of concentration in one is the key to success. |
