D Griff wrote: ↑Fri Mar 05, 2021 9:26 am
Detroit wrote: ↑Fri Mar 05, 2021 9:17 am
I don't. The state is a very diverse state. If you only knew the Detroit area (which that's all most know), it could easily be the #1 most hated. There's very little redeeming qualities there.
If more people knew the West, North, and UP, it would be high up on the opposite list IMO.
Out of curiosity, why so much hate for Detroit? You were always singing its praises a few years ago.
It is certainly not perfect, but I have really enjoyed each trip I've taken there. Good food and drink, cool architecture, pretty water front, friendly people.
There will be case studies about Detroit with it's rise/fall/rise/fall trend.
I grew up in a far flung suburb, hated that there was nothing to do, and left for the west coast as soon as I could. In 2013 when I moved back for the job at GM, Detroit was going through a bit of an underground renaissance. There was cool shit all over, some people were cool, others were dicks, but overall there was a "we're in this together" type vibe. It was crazy cheap to live there, and along with the unifying underdog mentality, it was fun...for a while.
Then reality set in.
We left our mansion in the city proper because we simply didn't feel welcome in our neighborhood. Racial tension is real...and it's easily felt. I don't want to live somewhere I'm not welcome, so we left. Around the time we left, opportunists from other areas like Chicago and NYC started taking advantage of the cheap cost of living and doing business in the city, and did everything they could to make Detroit NYC or Chicago Jr. The problem is, in doing so it ruined the feel of the city. The cost of going out sky rocketed, real estate skyrocketed (in certain areas) and the city started to lose it's identity. The worst part is all of those cost increases did nothing for the existing residents that didn't want those
people there in the first place. So you find yourself paying $200 for a decent meal for two downtown and on the way back to your car harassed by bums and gangsters to get out of "their city". For me...I couldn't disagree with them. It's really a shame how Detroit rose and is now starting to fall because it was pumped up by greedy opportunists who had no interest in helping the city or its existing residents that needed the most help.
So we moved to just outside the city, where taxes are
and the cost of living in general started to skyrocket. We were approaching west coast levels of COL to live in an area that just didn't do much for us. Everything started to get too
for what it was and should be, and it just lost its luster. Restaurants got more expensive while decreasing food/service quality. People blamed this that and the other thing, but at the root of it the "development" just felt like greed. A number of our favorite places closed because rent was too high, and those spots AFAIK are still sitting vacant. I got the overwhelming feeling that greed was ruining the region for no reason, and I just couldn't align with that anymore.
In terms of Meatchicken as a whole, it's one of the most beautiful states in the country...except for SE where Detroit it. It's flat, boring, urban sprawl that just doesn't offer much. It took us 45 minutes sitting in traffic to just get to a nature area...and once there it was so crowded that it wasn't fun. The rest of the state has SO MUCH to offer, it's a shame that Detroit is what most people seem to think of . Even if you want that "city" vibe, I think Grand Rapids is better than Detroit in every single way and you get to take advantage of the natural beauty of the state.