Whether I join you on this adventure or not, my heart is with you in your desire to build a close connection between what you've created in San Francisco and what you hope to build in Detroit.
I'm from an old Detroit family. There's a middle school named for my great grandfather about a mile from the RenCen. He was Superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools from 1900 to 1930, a pioneer of adult education in America, and one of the founders of Wayne State University.
His daughter, my grandmother, moved as a newlywed from Detroit to San Francisco in 1928 with my grandfather, who was a young banker sent west to open the San Francisco branch of a Detroit bank. On the day of October 24, 1929, he came home early from work, telling my grandmother that Wall Street had just crashed. Shortly after, he was ordered to close the San Francisco office. After moving to the Los Angeles branch, my grandfather returned to Detroit in early 1933 to oversee the restructuring of the city's banking system after it collapsed, causing what was euphemistically referred to as 'The Bank Holiday.'
Detroit recovered, became the Arsenal of Democracy, and my grandparents lived happily as Detroiters until 1955, when my grandfather became Treasurer of Oberlin College. But I always sensed they looked back at their too-brief time in San Francisco with some regret.
Detroit and San Francisco are two great cities. What you're about to do will hopefully make them each even greater.