Moving to Detroit from Sweden; any advice?

[Bham1982]

I would strongly recommend you move to Oakland County. There are many thousands of European expats [[mostly in engineering, mostly for the auto industry) in Oakland County. Your business colleages and friends will live in Oakland County.

There are no public schools anywhere in Detroit comparable to the better school districts in Oakland County.

If you crave urbanity, there are no neighborhoods in Detroit with more urban amenities or more walkability than Birmingham.

And, in terms of shopping and services [[especially shopping and services targeted to auto industry expats; things like bakeries, butchers and grocers for the German engineers) you will be traveling to Oakland County anyways.

Then there's all kinds of other issues, from higher taxes in Detroit, to out-of-control crime, to nonexistent services.

If you're single and want to live a hipster lifestyle for a few years, Detroit is an option. If you have kids and want a family-oriented neighborhood, it isn't a realistic option for 99.9% of people.

I guarantee that folks you speak with in your company will say the same things as me. Ask anyone in Metro Detroit outside of the DYes forum, and you will hear similar themes.

[Occurrence]

I would strongly recommend you move to Oakland County.

I strongly recommend you DON'T move to Oakland County. Just the fact they elected that idiot sheriff is reason enough not to live there.

[jt1]

I agree completely, OC IS THAT AWESOME. I'm damn fortunate to live there, despite LBP and our Sheriff.
But having said that, where is your smartass remark for those who are singing Detroit's praises just as loudly?

There is a difference. The people singing Detroit's praises are essentially saying what is good about Detroit. People like the poster I responded to are essentially saying OC is awesome and Detroit sucks. Subtle but important difference. Plus the poster I was responding to pretty much jumps in every thread about where to live emphatically stating that there is very little, if any viable place to live in Detroit. The non-sense gets really old.

Hopefully, one day I'll work really hard, save my pennies and be able to afford to move out of Detroit into the paradise that is OC. Granted that's wishful thinking since it is clear that anyone in Detroit is either too poor and ignorant to move out or is a naive hipster.