Chamber makes Intercity Visit to Detroit

(TULSA, Okla.) – The Tulsa Regional Chamber completed its 2024 Intercity Visit, the 15th in an annual series of visits to peer cities to learn best practices and hear success stories. This year’s destination was Detroit, Michigan.

More than 125 attendees from across northeast Oklahoma – including city and county elected officials, business leaders, regional partners, education administrators and young professionals – participated in the three-day event, which ran Oct. 7-9.

Previous Intercity Visits to cities such as Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and Denver have featured in-depth looks at topics ranging from river development and tourism to health living initiatives and the arts. This year’s trip to Detroit covered a variety of topics, including downtown development, tourism, inclusive economic development, regionalism, and river development.

“The City of Detroit famously declared bankruptcy back in 2013, but since then, the turnaround in the city has been nothing short of phenomenal,” said Bill Knight, chair-elect of the Tulsa Regional Chamber and president of Bill Knight Automotive Group. “Detroit has reduced homelessness, eliminated blight, dramatically reduced unemployment and crime rates, and now leads the country in adaptive reuse of buildings.”

This year’s trip featured dialogues with a variety of community leaders, including those responsible for economic development and tourism promotion. Attendees visited a number of marquee venues, including the historic Avenue of Fashion and Michigan Central Station, a former train station that has been reimagined as a technology and cultural hub.

In addition to hearing from business leaders and subject matter experts, Intercity Visits also afford attendees invaluable opportunities to build relationships with others from around northeast Oklahoma, and to have conversations that otherwise might not happen.

“Intercity Visits offer tremendous opportunities to gain insights and ideas from communities facing challenges not unlike our own,” said Mike Neal, president and CEO of the Tulsa Regional Chamber. “Invariably, these trips generate discussions that lead to real change in Tulsa. For example, the Vision Tulsa and Improve Our Tulsa funding packages had put into practice some of the possibilities identified during past trips.”

Past Intercity Visits have gone to Austin (2023); Denver (2022); northwest Arkansas (2021); Omaha and other cities virtually (2020); Minneapolis-Saint Paul (2019); Columbus, Ohio (2018); Fort Worth (2017); Cincinnati (2016); Nashville (2015); Portland (2014); Pittsburgh (2013); Charlotte (2012); Indianapolis (2011); and Louisville (2010).

To read more about the key takeaways from past trips, click here.