Small business has fostered Detroit’s resurgence, national business leaders and the city’s entrepreneurs said in a Kresge Foundation-commissioned survey.
The Detroit Reinvestment Index, a report launched in 2016 to measure Detroit’s comeback from its 2013 bankruptcy through the perceptions of national business leaders, has expanded this year to include metro Detroit entrepreneurs’ perceptions about the city’s business environment.
“We wanted to add the extra element … that sort of bottom-up perspective and panorama of
what’s actually happening,” said Christine Jacobs, Kresge’s deputy director of external affairs
and communications. “Giving that smaller, entrepreneurial startup perspective of those
business owners who work in Detroit neighborhoods. That neighborhood community
revitalization we thought was really valuable.”
The report portrays metro Detroit’s small companies as an essential part of the city’s economy
by including them in the survey — a platform for them to weigh in on how the city can provide
them better opportunities.Small metro Detroit businesses have been a main facilitator of
Detroit’s revitalization, 93 percent of business leaders and Detroit entrepreneurs said in the
survey. The auto industry’s turnaround has also been a major contributor, they said.
