Sachse Construction is the latest suburban company to announce a move to downtown Detroit.

I think it’s wonderful when businesses move to Detroit. In the urban utopia that exists inside my head, most businesses would locate in the city center, surrounded by a housing belt, which in turn is surrounded by a gigantic greenbelt. If you want to throw in a Bible belt, go ahead.

But every time a suburban company moves downtown my first reaction is: How do those employees feel? Chances are most of those companies’ employees live in the suburbs and now must commute downtown. The price of gas and lack of mass transit makes the trip a bit undesirable. Yes, a SMART bus is technically a form of mass transit, but it’s the lowest, stickiest form.

Sachse does contract work for Quicken Loans, which has paved the way for companies setting up shop downtown. CompuServe is another one. A really huge company like the Ford Motor Co. has kept its headquarters out in Dearborn. But the Ford family did move one of their smaller businesses back downtown -- the lowly Detroit Lions.