Amazon HQ2: Quicken's Gilbert Rants Over Detroit's Failure

DETROIT, MI – Quicken Loans founder and chairman Dan Gilbert does not blame the city and region's public transportation systems for its failure to make Amazon's list of finalists to get a gigantic new headquarters operation. Nor does he point to the region's workforce.

It's a negative perception of the city, he said.

"We are still dealing with the unique radioactive-like reputational fallout of 50-60 years of economic decline, disinvestment, municipal bankruptcy, and all of the other associated negative consequences of that extraordinarily long period of time," Gilbert wrote in a letter to fellow business and community leaders.

Gilbert, who was tapped to lead Detroit's effort to get a proposed $5 billion headquarters facility that is expected to generate some 50,000 jobs, made public his post-mortem review of what happened and why the city was not among the 20 cities who last week were named finalists for the project.

Amazon cited Detroit's lack of a cohesive, regional transit system as the primary reason for not picking the Motor City as one of the 20 finalists for the headquarters. The city also was knocked for not having a workforce to support the operation.

Gilbert dismissed both notions.

"Those of us who run sizable tech-based organizations (and aren’t nearly all companies tech-based these days?) nearly unanimously believe that Detroit/Southeast Michigan currently has an ample and rapidly growing talent pool," Gilbert wrote.

In regards to transportation, he said the city needs to modernize its public transportation system for a millennial workforce. "If we are determined to attract exciting opportunities to metropolitan Detroit, then it’s time to get in a room and figure it out," he wrote.

Yet, transportation and workforce are not the underlying problems for Detroit and its failure to land Amazon's HQ2. Simply put, he said: "Old, negative reputations do not die easily."

The city has a fabulous downtown with outstanding sports, entertainment and retail opportunities, he continued. It's got young, vibrant and positive residents. Yet, it's also got history.

"This lingering, negative perception has unfortunately survived our impressive progress over the last several years. It is clear that we don’t do ourselves any favors by feeding the pessimistic narrative about Detroit and our region, when this view is not anywhere near the balanced, full story."

Gilbert, though, has a solution: Bring people to the city and let them experience the city first-hand. "Once we get them here, we’ve got them," he wrote.

Image by Bill Pugliano / Getty Images Stringer