Are suburbanites aware of how unattractive living in Metro-Detroit is to outsiders?

[SteveJ]

Last Friday I interviewed a young sales exec who grew up in suburban Detroit but moved to Chicago after college. He has a decent job there, but is considering moving back to the Detroit-area after we offered him a better paid position. His biggest hang up [[you guessed it) is: "Where would I live?" This guy has now experienced the wonders of a vibrant city with transit, which he rides everyday to work in the Loop. Between the endless streets lined with restaurants and bars filled with energetic young people, he may refuse Metro Detroit despite better pay, better benefits, better opportunity for advancement, and better working conditions. This may sound a bit misogynistic, but he confided in me [[being a man of similar age and status) that he can't get over how few young-professional women there are in the area. Chicago is literally teeming with ambitious 20 to 30-year-old females with careers. Sorely, Detroit is lacking both young men and women of this variety. We have plenty of old folks and some remaining families, and Detroit proper now has a visible number of "hipsters" and the like, but this is a huge setback for us. The reason, I would suggest, is the lack of diverse businesses and a vibrant urban core, which attracts both businesses and young people. How can we turn things around when we cannot get young, aspiring people to move here?

Translation. You interviewed a telemarketer who is disappointed we don't have a ton of bars downtown so he can get drunk and take the bus back to his 600 sq ft apartment with some random whore. All my engineer friends stayed in Michigan. They all have jobs. They all have their own cars and live in the suburbs and don't care about living in Chicago. I have friends that have degrees that live in the country because they like it. Stop trying to act like everyone wants to live in a big city and Metro Detroit is some sort of shithole. We have the 9th most millionaires in the country.

What Detroit is sorely lacking is self control, condoms, and families that have 2 parents. We aren't going to solve our problems by bringing in a fucking choo choo train filled with horny telemarketers that just got their first job and are able to buy Miller Lite.

[ghettopalmetto]

Stop trying to act like everyone wants to live in a big city and Metro Detroit is some sort of shithole. We have the 9th most millionaires in the country.

No, not everyone wants to live in a big city. But some do. And when you have a metropolis of 4-1/2 million people, it's hard to sell it as a small town.

Let's say Joe Graduate gets his degree and can move anywhere he wants. Should he choose a place that will help him grow socially and professionally, and offers the quality of life he wants? Or should he choose Detroit, where he can rationalize that SteveJ's friends also live the "Leave it to Beaver" lifestyle, and that Detroit has the 9th most millionaires in the nation?

Here's a hint: Joe Graduate is early in his career, most likely saddled with student loan debt, and looking to build social and professional networks among his peers. He's not going to sit alone in front of the television in some subdivision in Sterling Heights.

[Gistok]

Translation. You interviewed a telemarketer who is disappointed we don't have a ton of bars downtown so he can get drunk and take the bus back to his 600 sq ft apartment with some random whore. All my engineer friends stayed in Michigan. They all have jobs. They all have their own cars and live in the suburbs and don't care about living in Chicago. I have friends that have degrees that live in the country because they like it. Stop trying to act like everyone wants to live in a big city and Metro Detroit is some sort of shithole. We have the 9th most millionaires in the country.

What Detroit is sorely lacking is self control, condoms, and families that have 2 parents. We aren't going to solve our problems by bringing in a fucking choo choo train filled with horny telemarketers that just got their first job and are able to buy Miller Lite.

Thanks for the good post Steve... I enjoyed that. And I've taken subways, buses and trains in more places than I can count... but I wouldn't want to take it every day... and bars and restaurants may be nice on the weekend... but who wants to go to one every day?

[noise]

Thanks for the good post Steve... I enjoyed that. And I've taken subways, buses and trains in more places than I can count... but I wouldn't want to take it every day... and bars and restaurants may be nice on the weekend... but who wants to go to one every day?

Is it really a good post? Is there any question that many young professionals and upwardly mobile citizens have left and are continuing to leave Detroit?

[Bham1982]

Is it really a good post? Is there any question that many young professionals and upwardly mobile citizens have left and are continuing to leave Detroit?

No one is arguing that Detroit hasn't lost many young professionals.

The dispute is over the why. Did they leave because there aren't enough bars filled with sorostitutes, or because the auto industry imploded?

I think the latter is much more relevant.

And, not surprisingly, the population loss has nearly ended, and unemployment has plummeted, just as the auto industry started to recover. It has nothing to do with light rail or attracting frat boys.

[noise]

No one is arguing that Detroit hasn't lost many young professionals.

The dispute is over the why. Did they leave because there aren't enough bars filled with sorostitutes, or because the auto industry imploded?

I think the latter is much more relevant.

And, not surprisingly, the population loss has nearly ended, and unemployment has plummeted, just as the auto industry started to recover. It has nothing to do with light rail or attracting frat boys.

Perhaps you need to read the original post again, where the major point was "where would I live?"

Detroit has less to offer this crowd. There's no reason to pretend this is untrue.

[Bham1982]

Detroit has less to offer this crowd. There's no reason to pretend this is untrue.

You're right that Detroit has less to offer to urbanites. Really no place in the U.S. outside of NYC has a world-class urban core.

But that doesn't guide the locational decisions of most people. Most folks want a job. The presence of artisanal mayonaise boutiques isn't critical to their relocation decisions.

[noise]

You're right that Detroit has less to offer to urbanites. Really no place in the U.S. outside of NYC has a world-class urban core.

But that doesn't guide the locational decisions of most people. Most folks want a job. The presence of artisanal mayonaise boutiques isn't critical to their relocation decisions.

Even Milwaukee has a better urban core than Detroit. I wouldn't be so quick to ignore Detroit's problems by comparing it to NYC.

I think you may be out of touch with young professionals and their interests. I may only have numbers and real life examples, but I'm comfortable with that.

[Don K]

No one is arguing that Detroit hasn't lost many young professionals.

The dispute is over the why. Did they leave because there aren't enough bars filled with sorostitutes, or because the auto industry imploded?

I think the latter is much more relevant.

And, not surprisingly, the population loss has nearly ended, and unemployment has plummeted, just as the auto industry started to recover. It has nothing to do with light rail or attracting frat boys.

True, things have stabilized recently, as it's become clear that the auto companies aren't going to disappear. The Detroit area's problem is that it doesn't have, has never had, and seems incapable of developing, a fallback position, or Plan B, for what supplements or follows the auto industry.

Being wholly dependent on cars and trucks is a recipe for slow decline over time, as cars continue to become a smaller part of the national economy, and global design and engineering means fewer product development jobs here in the Detroit area. The days of an allegedly world-car Escort, with about two parts in common with its European cousin, are over. The future is the Fiesta, Focus, and Fusion/Mondeo, with just enough difference to satisfy U.S. safety and emissions standards.

So the question is what comes next if the Detroit area is not to become the next Johnstown or Scranton. One answer would be to out-compete Indiana, Mississippi, and Alabama for low-value-added, low-wage, no-benefit factory work by enacting a right-to-work law and granting billions in long-term tax abatements. Another answer is to try to attract entrepreneurs who will create the industries of the future.

And no, I don't think entrepreneurs really worry about taxes and regulations too much when they're picking a place to work on their dreams. If they did, then how is it that California and Washington became the tech centers they are today? If the low-tax, low-service, low-regulation prescription was right, then MS, AL, SC, and IN would be high-income powerhouses, instead of the economic backwaters they continue to be. In general, entrepreneurs seem to pick places they'd like to live in [[San Fran, Seattle, Austin, etc.), and let the taxes sort themselves out later.

Finally, while I can hate on fratboys and sorority women as much as anyone, in my experience they're not especially attracted to urban living. Fratboys I knew back in the 80's were perfectly happy living at Muirwood and hanging out at Ginopolis, and didn't particularly pine for the opportunity to live downtown.

With rare exceptions, the Detroit area is devoid of the kind of stable, established urban neighborhoods that are commonplace in, e.g., Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Seattle, to mention just cities with which I'm at least somewhat familiar. Around here, the choices pretty much are suburbia, near or far, or urban pioneering, and even those who choose to live in the city end up being chained to their cars, unless they want to rely on the increasingly dysfunctional DOT. I know people who live in Philly and in Boston, and while they have cars for certain missions, they like having the option of using a bus, trolley, or subway for other trips.

[poobert]

Is it really a good post? Is there any question that many young professionals and upwardly mobile citizens have left and are continuing to leave Detroit?

We don't need them frat boy assholes with their Miller Lite and their whores! Tell them to take them and their fancy learnin' degrees back to Chicago! And stay of my lawn...it's all I have...

Seriously, way to completely denegrate someone you have never met before. I am in my late 20's and can't wait to get out of here -and you may not believe me, but it isn't for Miller Lite and whores. I guess agism works both ways. When you spin wanting to live in a vibrant, walkable environment with other young professionals to telemarketers, bars and whores, you're really sending a clear message as to how this region feels about young people, transit, and walkability. We greet these things with not just skepticism but hostility.

Unfortunately in this region angry, shrieking, fear-mongering, complacent people like Hemrod, who may actually be L. Brooks Patterson, are the ones running the show...so I'm running the fuck out of here as soon as I get the chance.

I don't know where people are coming up with excuses that the auto industry was some kind of magnet for young professionals. Has their even been such a good old boys club? And regardless, they're never going to replace all the jobs lost in the past decade so can we just get over them already??

[p1acebo]

We don't need them frat boy assholes with their Miller Lite and their whores! Tell them to take them and their fancy learnin' degrees back to Chicago! And stay of my lawn...it's all I have...

Seriously, way to completely denegrate someone you have never met before. I am in my late 20's and can't wait to get out of here -and you may not believe me, but it isn't for Miller Lite and whores. Unfortunately in this region angry, shrieking, fear-mongering, complacent people like Hemrod, who may actually be L. Brooks Patterson, are the ones running the show...so I'm running the fuck out of here as soon as I get the chance.

Cool story bro.


There is way too much animosity on this thread. It's the internet... chill out.

[Hermod]

Unfortunately in this region angry, shrieking, fear-mongering, complacent people like Hemrod, who may actually be L. Brooks Patterson, are the ones running the show...so I'm running the fuck out of here as soon as I get the chance.

I am certainly complacent. I am 73 years old, retired, and secure.

Angry and shrieking, hardly. I am more amused at the collection of SimCity players on this site trying to tell others what to do with their money in terms of what buildings to rehab and what stores to open and where.

Am I Brooks Patterson? Not much of a chance. I left Detroit in November 1961 ad have only been back for visits since. Twenty-eight years of following the flag for Uncle Sam and living in a lot of places around the world not necessarily of my choosing.

I would venture to say that I have not done much in the way of running Detroit since I was 22 when I left.

Should you want to leave town, be my guest.

[Detroitnerd]

I am certainly complacent. I am 73 years old, retired, and secure.

Angry and shrieking, hardly. I am more amused at the collection of SimCity players on this site trying to tell others what to do with their money in terms of what buildings to rehab and what stores to open and where.

How is that different from being an limited-access expressway designer and telling which businesses and residents to move so you can build a road out of town where taxpaying citizens used to live?

[Hermod]

How is that different from being an limited-access expressway designer and telling which businesses and residents to move so you can build a road out of town where taxpaying citizens used to live?

Well, considering that I was a newly minted Civil Engineer, hired by the city a week after graduation, and given the most boring, mind-numbing tasks drawing earthwork diagrams for the construction of the Ford-Chrysler interchange, I don't think that i had a whole lot of say in where the expressway went as it meandered through Detroit.

I did read a lot of the planning documentation and the rationale behind various location decisions while gaining data I needed to do my drawings and I have tried to share these insights with the group when the why and when of the freeways was discussed.

When I went into the Army for my two year obligated tour [[ROTC), I began to think of getting out and going back to driving downtown every day from Gratiot and 7-Mile to the Water Board Building [[or taking the bus) and spending eight hours a day on that damn drawing board. I decided to just keep on going in the Army where I was out of doors with something new to do every day and responsible for a platoon of soldiers.

[ghettopalmetto]

I am more amused at the collection of SimCity players on this site trying to tell others what to do with their money in terms of what buildings to rehab and what stores to open and where.

I think you've been reading a different thread, then, because there haven't been any such things on this one.

This is a discussion about how my generation seeks to fix the very expensive problems your "Fathers Knows Best" generation handed to us.

[BrushStart]

Translation. You interviewed a telemarketer who is disappointed we don't have a ton of bars downtown so he can get drunk and take the bus back to his 600 sq ft apartment with some random whore. All my engineer friends stayed in Michigan. They all have jobs. They all have their own cars and live in the suburbs and don't care about living in Chicago. I have friends that have degrees that live in the country because they like it. Stop trying to act like everyone wants to live in a big city and Metro Detroit is some sort of shithole. We have the 9th most millionaires in the country.

What Detroit is sorely lacking is self control, condoms, and families that have 2 parents. We aren't going to solve our problems by bringing in a fucking choo choo train filled with horny telemarketers that just got their first job and are able to buy Miller Lite.

^That's garbage. . .

This guy is not a "telemarketer." His starting salary is $80k. Are you saying you do not want this kind of person spending money and paying taxes in this state? Your problem is, you would rather live in denial and offer up hyperbole to try and rationalize your ridiculous defense of this failed region. Metro Detroit is a failed region- everyone knows it. I've had clients from all over the world come here on business and tell me how messed up this city is.

Offering up BS about telemarketers getting drunk on buses with whores is a boneheaded thing to say and you know it. You pretend as if most people of all ages and socioeconomic status do not enjoy good restaurants and places to have a drink. Eating and drinking are not exclusively a "frat boy" activity. Wanting to live in a place that isn't visually decaying is a normal desire. Living in a place where other people seem happy is a normal desire. Living in a place where one can enjoy a typical urban-American lifestyle is a normal desire. Living in a region where one can take his family into the city on weekends and have an enjoyable experience is a normal desire. Expecting basic types of infrastructure available in all developed places is a normal desire. Your attitude and lack of recognition of obvious reality however is not normal.

[Hermod]

^That's garbage. . .

I've had clients from all over the world come here on business and tell me how messed up this city is.

Back in the day when the city was 1.8 million and booming, Detroit was not a favorite stop on the "road warrior circuit". Business travelers used to complain that it was a city of "neighborhood bars" where they did not feel welcome. There was also the problem that it was off the beaten path as far as trains went.

[swingline]

^That's garbage. . .

This guy is not a "telemarketer." His starting salary is $80k. Are you saying you do not want this kind of person spending money and paying taxes in this state? Your problem is, you would rather live in denial and offer up hyperbole to try and rationalize your ridiculous defense of this failed region. Metro Detroit is a failed region- everyone knows it. I've had clients from all over the world come here on business and tell me how messed up this city is.

Offering up BS about telemarketers getting drunk on buses with whores is a boneheaded thing to say and you know it. You pretend as if most people of all ages and socioeconomic status do not enjoy good restaurants and places to have a drink. Eating and drinking are not exclusively a "frat boy" activity. Wanting to live in a place that isn't visually decaying is a normal desire. Living in a place where other people seem happy is a normal desire. Living in a place where one can enjoy a typical urban-American lifestyle is a normal desire. Living in a region where one can take his family into the city on weekends and have an enjoyable experience is a normal desire. Expecting basic types of infrastructure available in all developed places is a normal desire. Your attitude and lack of recognition of obvious reality however is not normal.

This a good post. The hypersensitive types who feel the need to defend the lifestyle choices of residents in conventionally designed suburbs by attacking folks who urge more investment in denser urban areas are certainly part of the problem. [[Cocky, judgmental urban dwellers can be a problem too.)

To suggest that advocacy for investment in a more urban walkable Detroit is only the brainchild of the fantasy minds of horny Sim City playing 20 somethings exhibits cluelessness about what attracts wealth and capital - and intellectual capital. It's a huge problem for this region when folks with this kind of attitude can influence development policy.

Anecdotally, out of a sample size of perhaps 35 young Michigan college graduates I've met in the past 15 years who relocated out of state to NYC, DC, Chicago, Boston, SF or Minneapolis, no more than 4-5 moved to the suburbs of those regions. Unfortunately, a lot of their parents are the clueless ones who see no irony in the paradox of their offspring's flight from the region while they write letters to the editor whining about an extra $50/yr in property taxes that might support regional transit or cultural institutions.

The trend is beyond dispute. Improving Detroit isn't a zero sum game for the suburbs. But it will take an investment. It won't be easy.

[Bham1982]

Anecdotally, out of a sample size of perhaps 35 young Michigan college graduates I've met in the past 15 years who relocated out of state to NYC, DC, Chicago, Boston, SF or Minneapolis, no more than 4-5 moved to the suburbs of those regions. Unfortunately, a lot of their parents are the clueless ones who see no irony in the paradox of their offspring's flight from the region while they write letters to the editor whining about an extra $50/yr in property taxes that might support regional transit or cultural institutions.

I'm not sure how you get from Point A to Point B.

Your first point is that 21 year olds typically don't buy homes in sprawling suburbs, but rather rent in more urban communities, which should be blindingly obvious and has probably always been true.

Your second point is that their parents don't want to subsidize the DIA, which is apparently ironic, because their offspring don't have three kids and a mortgage yet.

Those same parents were mostly living in more urban communities when they were 21. The Summer of Love wasn't in Canton Township. And their kids will eventually have their own kids and buy a place. That place probaby won't be on Fenkell & Greenfield.

[iheartthed]

I'm not sure how you get from Point A to Point B.

Your first point is that 21 year olds typically don't buy homes in sprawling suburbs, but rather rent in more urban communities, which should be blindingly obvious and has probably always been true.

Your second point is that their parents don't want to subsidize the DIA, which is apparently ironic, because their offspring don't have three kids and a mortgage yet.

Those same parents were mostly living in more urban communities when they were 21. The Summer of Love wasn't in Canton Township. And their kids will eventually have their own kids and buy a place. That place probaby won't be on Fenkell & Greenfield.

Probably won't be in Canton Township either.

ETA: If we are to assume that the city is the source of residents for the suburbs [[which seems to be where your logic was headed).

[gameguy56]

Probably won't be in Canton Township either.

ETA: If we are to assume that the city is the source of residents for the suburbs [[which seems to be where your logic was headed).

I have a feeling the the Pointes, Birmingham, and Lower Woodward corridor are the future for young families. Some may even try to dip their toes in the city. But I have a feeling that the outer suburbs are going to have depressed real estate values for a very long time.

[iheartthed]

I have a feeling the the Pointes, Birmingham, and Lower Woodward corridor are the future for young families. Some may even try to dip their toes in the city. But I have a feeling that the outer suburbs are going to have depressed real estate values for a very long time.

I was thinking more along the lines of Schaumburg, IL, Evanston, IL, Silver Springs, MD, or Tarrytown, NY.

[swingline]

I'm not sure how you get from Point A to Point B.

Your first point is that 21 year olds typically don't buy homes in sprawling suburbs, but rather rent in more urban communities, which should be blindingly obvious and has probably always been true.

Your second point is that their parents don't want to subsidize the DIA, which is apparently ironic, because their offspring don't have three kids and a mortgage yet.

Those same parents were mostly living in more urban communities when they were 21. The Summer of Love wasn't in Canton Township. And their kids will eventually have their own kids and buy a place. That place probaby won't be on Fenkell & Greenfield.

Bham, Point A is far from blindingly obvious to too many SE Michigan baby boomers [[and older) for whom living in anything other than a conventionally designed suburban neighborhood is inconceivable.

You whiffed on Point B.

[TexasT]

Bham, Point A is far from blindingly obvious to too many SE Michigan baby boomers [[and older) for whom living in anything other than a conventionally designed suburban neighborhood is inconceivable.

You whiffed on Point B.

This is my experience. Upon telling older people from SE Michigan that we're moving to Detroit, the first question is, "Which city?" When I tell them actual Detroit, the next comment is "But have you looked at Farmington Hills/Plymouth/Grosse Pointe/Ferndale etc". The in-laws who all live in the burbs are confused as to why we want to live in the city. I'm 29, he's 30, we have no kids, and we live in Wicker Park currently. Should be obvious but it really is a generational thing.

[Bham1982]

Bham, Point A is far from blindingly obvious to too many SE Michigan baby boomers [[and older) for whom living in anything other than a conventionally designed suburban neighborhood is inconceivable.

Well I don't know these people. Most folks of my parents' generation [[and my generation, for that matter) rented small apartments after college. Small rental apartments are overwhelmingly located in older communities.

I never heard of folks buying homes immediately after college, which would make postcollegiate residence in the exurbs exceedingly rare. You don't rent a one bedroom in Oakland Township. You do in Royal Oak or Detroit.

And I still don't get Point B. If the parents had higher taxes to support culture, then their kids wouldn't move to urban areas, and would join them in the exurbs?