Originally Posted by
poobert
That would be fine if that were the case. While some of our suburbs are indeed charming, the majority are, at best, bland. You also don't get the benefits of "small community" life with the vast majority of commercial districts built around 35 - 50mph multi-lane hiways.
I do think many of the Oakland cities, for example, have very nice residential, but the mess of freeways, hiways, traffic, mile roads, and general ugliness of the majority of commerical around here destroys any attempt at a bucolic town feeling. Couple that with the fact that you have to drive virtually everywhere, and much of your country life is going to be spent on 696, communiting 45 minutes from Livonia to Troy.
I mean, if you took someone, from, say, England, and told them "Metro Detroit is really a bunch of charming smaller communities" and then dropped them in Lincoln Park, Fraser, Macomb Township, Troy, or any number of our redundant municipalities, they'd think you're fucking out of your mind.
Regardless, why on earth would the Chinese community come back to Detroit? And if they don't, it isn't an authentic Chinatown at all.