I’m interested in stories or information about the **current **situation for the Detroit area residents. It seems to be revitalizing & there’s lots of incentives for both people and companies to move there. But it’s hard to wade through the stuff online that’s paid for by real estate companies, or that’s old & outdated.
The city’s reputation is as a crime-ridden hellhole, a desolate wasteland of abandoned buildings with broken windows … but I’ve seen pictures lately of nice looking suburban neighborhoods, big trees everywhere, references to local festivals and parks. The truth is somewhere in the middle, I’m sure.
Does anyone live or work anywhere in that part of Michigan, or know so-and-so’s brother in law who always talks about it? Passed through for a trip?
How brutal is the winter? What areas or neighborhoods are gentrifying prettily, or that are still bombed-out wastelands? Do you absolutely have to have a car to get around?
Anecdotes will be considered data, for the purposes of this thread.
I’ve lived just north of the city my whole life. There definitely are still many blighted regions inside the city of Detroit itself, but the suburbs are more or less fine. The inner suburbs (Roseville, St. Clair Shores, Fraser, Warren, etc.) are still fairly inexpensive to live in. the expensive places are cities like West Bloomfield, Bloomfield Hills (where the “new money” lives, the “old money” is in the Grosse Pointes) and the northern suburbs like Shelby Township thanks to scared white people buying over-priced McMansions so they can be a few miles further away from Detroit. Detroit itself has nice neighborhoods here and there where the residents have formed impromptu “block associations” and look out for each other. There’s a stretch of Chalmers which is nice, Palmer Woods may as well be Grosse Pointe, but then you still have to go through places like Brightmoor to get there.
the “revitalization” has mostly been downtown, Midtown, New Center, and Art Center (where Wayne State, the DIA, DMC are) but a lot of that is younger white people paying a lot for small apartments.
No place is crime-free, but the suburbs by and large do not have anything like the blight that has ruined so many Detroit neighborhoods since the 1960s.
the Downriver suburbs (Lincoln Park, Taylor, Ecorse, and so on) tend to be a little “rough” in spots, they’re very much more industrial and blue collar. Plus there’s a big Marathon refinery just inside the Detroit/Melvindale border that nobody wants to live near.
varies wildly. there are years we get dumped on, and years we get very little. all depends on the jet stream/wind patterns. the past few years the “polar vortex” has visited us; moderate snow but temps of -10F or lower here and there for a couple of weeks. but about 3-4 years before that, we had a couple years where it was still consistently in the 40s in December.
I’m deferring to jz here, but I will throw in my 2 pennies. It has been some years since I worked in the Detroit area, so grains of salt and all that…my impressions…
I saw a lot of things a Californian does not normally get to see:
Yes, there were blighted neighborhoods and desolate blocks of wasteland. I think a lot of these areas are being targeted for revitalization and re-investment is starting to arrive. Lots of bricks piled-up. Some burned-out homes were probably awesome back in the day.
In winter, in the northern suburbs north of 8 Mile, which are very nice generally, kids flooded the backyard with a hose and overnight they would have a private ice hockey surface.
Broken hydrants would flood the street and every parked car was frozen in ice up to it’s axles. Drivers of those cars not going anywhere soon.
So cold it was hard to speak outside, but went across the river to Windsor and there were women walking around in skirts. People in this area are pretty tough.
Greektown was a pretty nice area for dinner and hanging-out. Not sure if that area is still like that. Got introduced to Indian food big time in Dearborn - a co-worker being Indian.
Job required driving around all areas of the city and suburbs. Never felt any dangers or threats to me personally, but in some neighborhoods the convenience store clerks were guarded by thick plexiglass.
I am glad to read about recent trends really helping Detroit. I got to know a number of people from the city and suburbs and it must be good for them, too.
Ann Arbor resident here. Climate is relative. Depending on where you come from, it may seem harsh or mild. I previously lived in Wisconsin, and before that, North Dakota - so to me the winter here seems mild, courtesy of Lake Michigan, which ameliorates the prevailing westerly winds. It can snap cold - the lowest nighttime low I’ve seen was 20F below zero - but generally you see daytime highs in late January in the mid- or upper 20s.
The biggest downer is the clouds. Winter days are almost always cloudy around here - also courtesy of Lake Michigan - and that can get depressing when it goes on for a long time. If you need lots of sun, look to the front range in Colorado (Denver, Boulder, etc.).
That winter is hard on roads. A place that gets really cold and stays cold freezes everything once, and then everything stays frozen, which isn’t so bad for roads. But because we tend to hover close to the freezing mark around here, the roads freeze and thaw and freeze and thaw repeatedly, so the pavement tends to crumble quickly. That said, the roads seem to be better than they were when I came here a couple of decades ago, at least out here in the 'burbs.
As noted upthread, the suburbs aren’t the “bombed-out wastelands.”
As for needing a car, I’m going to say yes, at least in the 'burbs. Where I live, the bus comes by my house every half-hour on weekdays, and every hour on weekends.
Everyone else pretty much covered it. A couple of counterpoints I’ll make, though:
That’s how people describe Lyon and South Lyon: scare ex-Livonia people afraid of the blacks. But in the case of northern Macomb County, I think that that’s just because that’s where the jobs are. From Chesterfield to Pontiac, that whole stretch north of M-59 is filled with automation companies, line builders, and other suppliers. My first house was in Warren, south of I-696, and I moved to Clinton Township just to have a better house and lower taxes. It wasn’t until after that move that people started saying “696 is the new Eight Mile.” After repatriating, I actually moved to Wayne County, some place I never, ever, ever thought I’d move, because of course “Wayne County means Detroit.”
I love the cloudy days because that means warm days! Sunny days (when there’s snow coverage) means there are no sunglasses dark enough to avoid blindness, and sun means cold.
Up until about 2000 or so, most of us from the region (when talking to non-Michiganders, and particularly with foreigners) would say “I’m from Detroit” just for convenience. Everyone knows about Detroit, and having to explain where St. Clair Shores is prolongs things. Since then, though, everyone knows about Detroit, so it’s easier to say, “I’m from Southeast Michigan,” and if anyone questions that, “it’s near Detroit.”
That is a very good bus schedule for the Detroit area. You are generally lucky to get every hour and service at all on weekends. If you plan to use buses as a major resource you would want to aim for winter walking distance to a major road. ie Woodward, Telegraph, Gratiot, Michigan for example. The east-west roads (‘x’-mile road for the Northern areas) can be a bit crapy bus wise, particularly north of 16 mile.
SE Michigan (hell, all of Michigan [including Hell]) gets a real winter and that can sometimes mean it’s still wintry a month into spring. I lived there for 35 years and had more than one snowy Easter. (This is balanced out by Fat Tuesday paczki to some extent.)
Unless you live somewhere that has a grocery store and other necessities within walking distance of your home, like Hamtramck, you need a car or a lot of free time. But you could do a lot worse than Hamtramck! The Poletown plant being brought back online might mean you have competition for housing at some point in the next couple of years.
I grew up in south eastern Michigan, and my sister has lived in Ferndale for decades. Ferndale is just over the border from Detroit proper and is a very vibrant, affordable community. Lots of nice restaurants and young people bars.
As others have pointed out, downtown has seen a massive revitalization. It is quite new and nice. Sure, there are nearby bombed out areas, but maybe you have no reason to go there, yah?
Ferndale is getting less affordable by the minute, unfortunately, It’s the latest upscaling Hot spot, and rents and mortgages are increasing(Although, other than maybe Downtown Birmingham, nothing in the area is really that expensive by usual metropolis standards.
It’s all relative. Compared to Birmingham or Royal Oak it’s still more affordable. And as you say, compared to usual metro standards housing is a steal.
Yeah, if you insist on the uber-trendy new apartments in Royal Joke and such, you’ll pay a lot just for the privilege of living on Main. But you can still find ~800 sq. ft. places in the ballpark of $1k/mo. gets even cheaper if you don’t have to live on the Woodward corridor.
Birmingham’s awesome. I’m not sure why Royal Oak is awesome. The former is great for living, and the latter is nice for visiting, but there’s not reason to pay a premium to live in Royal Oak. It doesn’t have good schools, and isn’t particularly walkable. Lots and houses are small, garages are detached, and there’s not really much on offer, other than the reputation of being “Royal Oak.”
I always thought Royal Oak’s proximity to the freeway made it more desirable than Birmingham, plus its housing isn’t as expensive (till you get to Berkley).
