DETROIT!

I may be moving to Detroit in June. I know all of the shit-talk that goes around about Detroit and its crime problem these days, but since I may be forced to move there, do you guys have any recommendations on where to live within the city limits? I do NOT want to live in the suburbs. I'm not that picky about location otherwise -- I'd mostly just want to be close-ish to the Magic Stick and to great ethnic food. I'd also prefer to live in a house rather than an apartment/condominium. I've never even been to the city so any advice would be a great help.

How's the city overall? I've only been to one midwest city (St. Louis) and kind of liked it but felt a super-weird stereotypical midwest vibe the whole time I was there. Will Detroit be the same?

You're going to want to live in the Cass Corridor. This is the neighborhood where the Magic Stick is located. It's also the neighborhood where Wayne State, College for Creative Studies, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Detroit Public Library are located. If you'd prefer to live in a house, I'd recommend living in Woodbridge just a bit to the southwest.

Detroit is great. Obviously I'm biased because I grew up there, but still, it's great. Don't fret. It does have a stereotypical Midwest vibe, but I wouldn't consider that to be a fault.

It's no question, you will need a car. Because of this, I wouldn't limit yourself to living in the Corridor. I would recommend living in Hamtramck, it's just as hipster-ish as Cass Corridor, but slightly older. It also has a great community, and the best ethnic food in the city, which happens to be Polish.

If you have any other questions, let me know.

I respect your desire not to live in the suburbs, but you may want to be aware of a few things. If you want to go to a non-shitty grocery store, you'll need to go to the suburbs; if you want to see a movie, you'll need to go to the suburbs. A lot of what you do, no matter who you are, will be in the suburbs. Royal Oak, Ferndale, and Berkley are not bad places to live. I wouldn't rule any of them out because they're suburbs. They also have less of a Robocop feel.

I respect your desire not to live in the suburbs, but you may want to be aware of a few things. If you want to go to a non-shitty grocery store, you'll need to go to the suburbs; if you want to see a movie, you'll need to go to the suburbs. A lot of what you do, no matter who you are, will be in the suburbs. Royal Oak, Ferndale, and Berkley are not bad places to live. I wouldn't rule any of them out because they're suburbs. They also have less of a Robocop feel.

^ this. Even the people I know who live in the city end up having to do a lot of driving just to do things like pick up groceries.

http://detnews.com/article/20090313/LIFESTYLE/903130306/Detroit-s-hard-edge----and-dirt-cheap-real-estate----attract-artists-from-around-the-world

Anyone know anyone who actually is doing this sort of thing? Sounds appealing - could probably find some kind of relatively short hours lawyering job, wife could paint, could have time/space to make music, etc. I imagine I'd be giving up almost everything good about living in Brooklyn - walking everywhere, public transport, lots of cheap, high-quality ethnic eats, culture, etc.

I know some folks doing that sort of thing.

Any reports?

Detroit is like the old west in a lot of ways right now.

xp There are positives and negatives all around. Some are musician/artist types, and they have mixed success. Others are small businesspeople, and they are almost universally successful. There is such a dearth of many kinds of services in central Detroit that anyone who has the wherewithall and the desire to operate there is going to have a lot of business coming their way.

NB: The business people I know are mostly in the bar/brewing/food end of things, but I know some people running/working at small tech firms who are doing really well too.

One thing you might not have to give up in Detroit is ethnic food. In fact, its really more or less the most prominent edible option. Everything else? Yes, that would go. I suppose you could walk around, but odds are you wouldn't see anything you'd want to walk to. There is a reason why these homes go for next to nothing.

One thing you might not have to give up in Detroit is ethnic food.

Yeah, that's one thing Detroit does have going for it.

My brother in law is at Wayne State right now and I went down with him to check out his apartment and the campus area, there really is just nothing there. Well, the public library is in a pretty cool building and the DIA is awesome, but beyond that... literally nothing to do. He says he finds stuff through school, but otherwise it'd be pretty worthless living there.

Are there parts of detroit that are especially nice to live in where you can buy houses for like $50K or even $100K as opposed to living in squalor for 1k?

There's some kind of section within the city limits but off to the north (I think) close to 8 Mile Road, that has historically been full of people who work for the city (police, firemen) and therefore are required to live within city limits, but wanted to live in a (safer) middle-class enclave.

Not sure to what degree that's still true. I have a friend who grew up there, but note that he's raising his own family in a much nicer suburb instead.

Yes. They are called "The suburbs". I mean, if you're looking to live somewhere in a decent house for $75K, there's a lot more choices (and better choices, IMO) than Detroit, both inside MI and outside the state.

I would say there probably are such places where good houses could be found in actual Detroit (or Hamtramck), but I don't know where they are.

Well, the public library is in a pretty cool building and the DIA is awesome.

As well, the DSO is excellent and Orchestra Hall is a very nice space, if you have the slightest interest in classical music. They are surprisingly open to 20th century music. MOCAD (contemporary art museum) puts on marathon weekend-long 'new music' concerts. I haven't actually checked out the museum's collection itself.

The jazz festival in the summer is unreal. You can see many of the biggest names for free.

Generally, I do find that Detroit has quite a bit to offer in terms of culture. I am also glad to be able to drive home to Windsor at the end of the night.

xpost

One of my Detroit-area friends used to read/post on ILX, I'll see if I can get him to come back and update.

I've been burned once before by "artists are moving here" stories (Jersey City)

It's silly anyway, I'm obviously going to stay on the east coast. If I want cheap living, Philadelphia makes much more sense.

@dan -- forwwarded to bil, 'cause he knows a bit more about living in Detroit these days than I would. That said...

If I were looking to move back to the city, I'd consider buying in Corktown or Woodbridge, which appear to be chock full of the $50-150k masterpieces that were either foreclosed on or are being sold because folks got jobs in different areas. I was always a little infatuated with certain areas of Mexicantown as well, though never enough to find out what sections would be worth living in.

Most of the crazy low price houses are usually that cheap for a reason -- sketchy neighborhoods -- though there's always the potential for craziness like buying a bunch of houses and starting an anarcho punk art community. (See: Trumbullplex, the.)

Metro Detroit is actually in a pretty awesome place right now real estate wise -- my wife and I were able to buy a nice place in Ypsilanti for ~$100k, and I've had a couple of friends buy great old houses in Ferndale in the $70-80k range. Burbs are more or less mimicking the city right now, mixing short sales with people who are leaving the area being fine with breaking even or even losing a couple grand.

@Reatards / etaeoe -- I always found that the Honey Bee / La Colmena was better (and cheaper) than a lot of places in the burbs, though that was pre epic remodel. Can't knock Eastern Market for great deals, either. Harbortown on Jefferson was decent, though a little pricey.

My buddies in Hamtramck have mentioned their markets have gotten better and are cheaper -- know Al-Haramin is a common favorite -- though those folks are prone to being Hamtram-o-centric. I was pretty impressed with the expanded Bozek the last time I stopped in. When I was living there, it didn't seem to have much going for it. (That was also when the Polish Market was in exile, Farmer Jack was a rat trap, and most of the smaller places had ridiculous prices and/or poor selections.)

The Burton Theater has been getting certain new release art films before Main Art in Royal Oak or the State/Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. They've been playing a lot of crazy old stuff, too.

I wouldn't get super excited about being close to the Magic Stick -- a lot of bands end up playing the Crofoot in Pontiac. Decent venue, but it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere for 3/4 of metro Detroit.

what up brad k

I am slightly surprised u didn't mention NOISE CAMP

Didn't really dig the last one I attended, and have heard so-so reviews of the ones I've missed. Think I was at a wedding during last summer's, and out of town the summer before that.

Hey, just chiming in at the request of brad k! and dan m -- I'm their friend that actually lives in the big, scary place known as Detroit proper.

Both of them have done a decent job of describing what's up here. It's a different kind of place, but by no means, is it a horribly terrible place with nothing to do where you will get killed automatically or forced to live in constant fear.

I grew up in the burbs, bounced around the state a bit after college, did a multi-year stint in Ann Arbor, and moved to Detroit about 5 years ago. Right now, I live in an apartment downtown with my girlfriend and our son, we just bought a house in the Woodbridge neighborhood just west of Wayne State where we will be moving as a family. It's my equivalent of packing out for the burbs, I'll be over a mile, almost two, from downtown proper! He he.

Anyway, there are a number of nice neighborhoods in close proximity to shopping, or dining, or bars, or music...etc...depending on what your priority is and what you feel you need to be closest to. There are a lot of nice homes in nice places in the 50-150K range right now as well.

It is definitely an automobile based town unless you plan on kicking it right smack downtown or maybe in the midtown/cass corridor/wsu area -- the busing here is a little less than ideal, but if you fancy yourself a cyclist, the surface streets see very little traffic and commuting between the cooler parts of town on two wheels is a breeze.

The folks who live here are pretty cool. Everyone is kind of committed to what they are doing, so they take care of each other. It is a weirdly small town mayberry-esque vibe at times for such a big city. Plus, it is one of the few places where you can make a difference just by being here.

Anyway, if you have any questions fire away and I'll try to keep an eye on this for a couple days.

Anyone watching Julian Temple's "Requiem for Detroit", on BBC4 at the moment? Mind boggling stuff, both the archive footage and the stricken images of current day Detroit. As an interviewee says, like a slow motion Hurricane Katrina, or at least the areas the documentary chooses to show.

doesn't seem like this will be on iplayer but i hope it pops up somewhere, would be real interested to watch

Astonishing and brilliant. I've always been resistant to Temple in the past, but this was great- he really allowed the various contributors to speak for themselves, and they were uniformly interesting. This was combined with beautiful shots of urban Detroit, whole neighbourhoods in decay. The end moments were relatively hopeful too- the urban agriculture movement and a regeneration programme staffed by former prisoners.

It reminded me of Patrick Keillor's London for its vision of post-industrial urban wastelands, and FWIW that film is one of my favourites.

This was really good.

yes this was superb. it is on iplayer : http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rkm3y/Requiem_for_Detroit/

UKNova has it for those outside the UK.

The end moments were relatively hopeful too- the urban agriculture movement and a regeneration programme staffed by former prisoners.

LOL

:-/

I blame bil

btw what this is all about http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/18/detroit-prepares-bankruptcy-filing-friday/2552819/

i was under the impression this had happened before

are you ready for a brand new (ledger) sheet?

http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/5826/detroit_artist_installs_crisco_can_at_joe_louis_fist_to_ease_city_s_bankruptcy_pain

n what he said was a gesture of sympathy to a bankrupt city, a Detroit artist jumped out of his pickup truck early Tuesday at Woodward and Jefferson and deposited an oversized replica of a Crisco can at the base of the Joe Louis fist.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/22949343/second-officer-arrested-in-fake-cop-robberies

lololol those quotes

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/white-entrepreneurial-guy-detroit-jason-lorimer-meme_n_3071712.html

http://31.media.tumblr.com/7515a84edc0c818ac094806b6a680c68/tumblr_mlaypmLipd1so5ia0o6_1280.jpg

wtf

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/us/politics/filing-misstep-may-fell-house-veteran-conyers.html

For nearly 50 years, John Conyers Jr. has represented Detroit in the House of Representatives. He is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and the second-longest-serving member of Congress still holding office.

But now he may be felled by a political mistake fit for an amateur: His petitions for re-election lack enough valid signatures.

also someone forget to edit out the editors marks:

Further reviews indicated a more serious problem: Four of the petition circulators were not registered to vote or indicated the wrong jurisdiction,///<<NOT SURE WHAT THIS MEANS/// forcing election officials to throw out the 644 signatures those petition circulators collected. That left Mr. Conyers with only 592 valid signatures.

conyers has some token opposition that now may become the next representative.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/04/opinion/going-without-water-in-detroit.html?referrer=

WTF is up with the "big cats" who don't pay their water bill in Detroit? Seems to me, if you're doing business in Detroit, you ought to have some sliver of economic sensitivity - you know, keep up with the bills.

heading this way for week or so to visit the gf's family (in sterling heights). hoping to make it into the city for at least a day or two, anyone have any recommendations? particularly interested in beer, records, food (no new-american pls), art, museums, exciting other things that i might be forgetting

we had good times at slow's and some adjacent fancy cocktail joint last time we were in town, also had polish food in hamtramck and insanely delicious knafeh at lebon sweets in dearborn. would love to go back to these places but i'm sure there are a million other spots to check out that myself and the gf's family have never heard of (like most people in the suburbs, they are not keen on detroit proper)

is windy and carl's record store still open in dearborn?

http://www.detroitisdifferent.com/?p=494 -- focuses on Eastern Market, one of the best things in Detroit

http://www.grandtrunkpub.com -- very good bar downtown

is windy and carl's record store still open in dearborn?

Yes -- and Dearborn Music is less than five miles west, down Michigan Ave.

Also: Hello Records (Detroit), Peoples Records (Detroit), Melodies & Memories (Eastpointe).

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/621-Clairmount-St_Detroit_MI_48202_M34371-35503

Big Detroit house for sale under $20k, former haunted house, has "you will die" written on inside wall.

I'm visiting Detroit with a friend in early november for 3 short days, do we a need car to get around the city or is the public transit reliable?

you need a car

lol

the high-speed monorail is right this way sir

other things that may not be reliable in Detroit: police, fire dept, water

that's what i thought, thanks

Just did a quick 2 1/2 day trip to Detroit with my son and forgot to check ile threads. We had a good time--Motown tour; Ford factory and Lebanese food in Deerborn; the DIA; looking at the now being fixed up but previously abandoned train station; the old Tigers Stadium site; a Tigers game and a tour of Comerica Park; Mexican food in SW Detroit; a Coneydog...

This post just reminded me once again that, despite living across from Detroit for some 25 years (and moving further away from it at the end of this month), I still have never done the Motown tour.

Did you do Mexican Village? One of the things I'll miss about having easy access to Detroit.

We did another Mexican place in SW Detroit (but I am spacing on the name at the moment).

The deal with the Motown tour is that it has limited hours and is small, you can't reserve online and they don't allow any photography inside. We showed up at 1, and got 2:30 tour tickets. So after we got out tickets we drove elsewhere in town and checked out the old Tigers Stadium field site(flagpole and a gate remains with the field) and then came back. Folks who showed up late in the day couldn't get in as all the tours for the day were booked. An informative tour that lets you see Studio A, and also where the Gordy family lived for awhile. I recommend it despite above drawbacks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hopeFgwApCM
NOTICE ME SENPAIIIII NOTICE ME

Any recommendations for someone with a couple of days alone in central Detroit next month? Interests include walking around looking at things and drinking beer. Thanks.

Motown House/ Museum is worth seeing but that may not count as central Detroit.

There’s this

https://detroit.curbed.com/maps/detroit-buildings-architecture-tour

I keep seeing Detroit pop up on these high profile Places to Visit lists, but there are always all these red flags, like when in the next breath the city is likened to Berlin or Tokyo or something hyperbolic, or when all the listed attractions are boutique hotels and their cocktail lounges, or when many of the reasons to visit are things coming in the future (like a new high rise that will be the tallest in the state, bfd). I've been to Detroit, but it was years ago. I know the city is ascendant - nowhere to go but up! - but are these pieces premature or misbegotten? My wife keeps saying she really wants to take a trip to Detroit (she has this similar thing about Ann Arbor), but color me dubious.

y'all should definitely go to Ann Arbor, if only for a day.

I've been there. To memory, it's a nice college town, like many, with a better than usual deli. Much as Grand Rapids is a nice place to raise a family. Or like Columbus, OH is both. But is Ann Arbor, or Detroit, worth it as a destination, not just a stop?

That depends on what you like do to/see?

lol @ Grand Rapids being anything though. I mean I guess--the downtown has been massively redeveloped but when I lived there it was all suburbs really. Like super low population density for a "city."

Detroit's no Hyrule if you catch my drift

Never heard of Hyrule.

I think my wife is thinking of Detroit as an up and coming exciting place to visit as a family, with museums and sights to see and stuff. I think it's just ... an up and coming city. Like Milwaukee, but three times as far.

Grand Rapids (where I had been before) she dragged us to, and it was ... fine. A lot of Meijer money funding nice stuff, just as Kohler funds a lot of stuff around Sheboygan (which is a pretty nice small city!).

Yeah.

I have in-laws in Ann Arbor, so we spend a lot of time there. There's definitely enough to make it worth a stop - lots of good food, decent breweries and very walkable. We've taken lots of day trips to Detroit (since we have free housing in Ann Arbor), but we've had lots of fun taking our 7-year old. One day was a museum day, we hit up the DIA, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the Michigan Science Center (my son particularly loved the latter). Also spent another day at Eastern Market, got some amazing food at Russell Street Deli, and took a tour of the vinyl plant at Jack White's Third Man (no matter what you think of the guy himself, the tour was fun).

There's great gardens and arboretums too if you like that--possibly not in January though.

Also some absolutely terrific record shopping if you are into that - both in Ann Arbor and Detroit.

Ugh, I think we're done with "science centers" forever (or at least I am), but that other stuff sounds great, thanks. No firm plans here, just an idea she has in her head that I have yet to talk her out of, so now it's more a matter of talking myself into it.

I was the "mahb" who asked in March last year ^^^. I went in April and didn't do much walking around looking at things because of the incessant sleet, freezing cold rain and icicles falling off buildings/passing buses etc. Also I was there on a Sunday when much (inc. the Motown Museum) was closed. I did manage to drink some beer, though.

If you go in the summer there's a 90% chance that on any given weekend you'll stumble into a community barbecue, block party, art fair or something going on.

I'm sure. Tbh, sometimes it's nice to check in on certain cities. Again, for example, Milwaukee is changing pretty fast, as are Nashville and Austin; I'm glad I've been back to all recently. Vs, I dunno, SanFran, Portland or NYC, which haven't seemed to have fundamentally changed much between visits over the past 20 years (change-wise; all three are great places to visit!). I have a couple of friends that swear by the Twin Cities. My fave Twin Cities within easy driving range, though, are Louisville and Lexington, which have a lot going on.

My wife went to Michigan so I spent a lot of time in Ann Arbor 20+ years ago, and I worked in downtown Detroit in 1997 and 1998. I moved back to Michigan a year and a half ago (to the OTHER big college town about 1.5 hours from Detroit, which is absolutely not as interesting as Ann Arbor) and have been to Detroit a couple of times since for shows.

It's honestly shocking to me how drastically parts of Detroit have changed in 20 years; it's really disorienting to wrap my head around it. There was like a mile of empty burned-out nothing along Woodward ave north of the State and Fox theaters, and that whole area now is just packed with bars and restaurants and Little Caesar's Arena and Tiger Stadium and Ford Field and a street car and people out at night doing things. It feels like an actual continuous city now (in some places) instead of these weird little islands with like a thing or two miles away from another little island.

There are, of course, lots and lots of places that have not had any of this gentrification and overall might be worse off than they were 20 years ago, but the main downtown / New Center / Wayne State / Cass Corridor areas are radically different. I think it's worth checking out for sure, but it might feel like kind of a letdown compared to what you're used to in Chicago?

Ann Arbor is awesome, though my perception of this is as a 21 year old visiting my girlfriend during spring break and buying records and skateboarding around at night and all that. I still think it's got a great downtown area, lots of good food and drink, and a lot of those record stores are still around.

Yeah, honestly a lot of my love for Ann Arbor stems from it having like my platonic ideal of a college town vibe, which my (different) Big Ten school decidedly didn't have.

We had a great time in Detroit, btw. The city has come a long way since I was last there, and while it is still pretty surreal to see boarded up blight and hipster bakeries on a not even block-by-block but lot-by-lot basis, the city seems to be on the serious upswing, and people there have real pride for it. Plenty to do and see and eat and drink, and so on. We stayed in a perfect place upstairs from Slows BBQ and across from Mercury Burger.

Ann Arbor was nice, too, though nothing particularly special. Good vibe, great school.