Oh, Sweet Irony

By now you know Comerica's moving a couple hundred of its top execs from Detroit to Dallas. Supposed to happen in the fall, as the company looks for downtown digs. Till then, Comerica's chairman and CEO Ralph W. Babb Jr. is going to be hard at work at his other...

By Robert Wilonsky

March 22, 2007

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By now you know Comerica's moving a couple hundred of its top execs from Detroit to Dallas. Supposed to happen in the fall, as the company looks for downtown digs. Till then, Comerica's chairman and CEO Ralph W. Babb Jr. is going to be hard at work at his other job: chairman of Detroit Renaissance, which the Detroit Free Press today calls "the elite group of business chieftains devoted to redeveloping Detroit's economy." Awkward.

Writes Bill McGraw in the Detroit paper:

Some day an up-and-coming entrepreneur looking at relocating to Detroit might ask to meet with the chairman of Detroit Renaissance. Staffers will have to tell him, "Sorry, he moved to Dallas."

Imagine this in the hands of detractors: "How bad is Detroit? Its chief booster lives in Texas."

C'mon, that has so got to be our new city slogan: "Dallas, Better Than Detroit." Just ask Detroit's own Jim Schutze. --Robert Wilonsky

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