Compuware’s CEO Peter Karmanos is a man I admire a lot because he moved his software/IT company from the suburbs to downtown Detroit when it made sense, before anyone else had the balls to do the same for the same reason. He spoke last week and had some good things to say. From the Detroit News:
Karmanos takes knife to sacred cows — unions, schools, regional cooperation. He called for Michigan to be a right-to-work state, said Detroit and its suburbs should form a regional school district and public safety service, and even called out Detroit lawyers who drive foreign cars.
Karmanos said the decision to move his technology company’s headquarters from Farmington Hills to downtown Detroit proved to be a wise one, and he said others have and will join him in efforts to revitalize the city.
“There is nothing scary about downtown,” he said. “What’s scary is walking into a dark parking lot at 3 a.m. in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Criminals know where the supposed rich people are.”
That’s a great point he makes, that in Detroit you might actually be safer than in the middle of suburbia where nobody’s around. I applaud him for moving his tech company to Detroit unlike all those other companies that are leaving for no good reason. They’ll all be back in 20 years when they run out of water down south and out west.