PODCAST: Detroit missed out on Amazon HQ2. What does that tell us?

I last wrote here about why it’s perfectly OK that Amazon didn’t pick the Detroit-Windsor bid for its list of 20 finalists for its second headquarters, or HQ2. We continue that discussion and dive deep into the postmortem in our latest Daily Detroit Happy Hour episode.

We talk to five local experts from a variety of backgrounds for their perspectives on what the failure says about our region and where we go from here.

  • Justin Robinson, vice president of business attraction with the Detroit Regional Chamber, who was part of the team that helped put together the Detroit-Windsor HQ2 bid package
  • John Mogk, a law professor at Wayne State University and expert on urban policy and economic development
  • Kurt Metzger, a longtime population demographer who is currently mayor of Pleasant Ridge
  • Tom Lawrence, founder and CEO of Lawrence Technology Systems and host of a popular tech vlog and YouTube channel
  • And Nuri Gocay, a co-host of the IT in the D podcast and technology veteran who has worked for companies including Google and Expedia in cities around the world.

“I think we’re still battling this image of kind of Detroit post-bankruptcy as a place that really can attract domestic and global talent,” Robinson said. “And I think that’s something that over time, we need to do a better job of telling that story. But truly we’re in the infancy of that, right? We’re in the very early stages of this turnaround, and I think Amazon understood that.”

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