What keeps you in Detroit?

So crime is down in Detroit only due to the decline in population? So Detroit has huge challenges to improve itself? So the police have no budget and can't respond to 911 emergency calls?

It's no secret people that have been leaving. For those who plan on staying, what keeps you in Detroit? Home ownership? Your job? Local family and friends? The city's musical history? Nostalgia?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not judging or questioning anyone and wouldn't want to. I'd just like to hear your reasons. Maybe it just feels like home.

Well, the first response is going to be by someone who left in 1987.The people are great and I wish I could be near my family and friends. But I got sick of living in poverty and left and life has been better ever since. And that's it in a nutshell.

It's easy to bike around. Great parties. Excellent music scene. Rent's cheap. Great architecture. You get lots of requests from couchsurfing.com for an open couch. You're not likely to get kicked out of a bar or get a speeding ticket. DIA's free on Fridays. Swimming on Belle Isle. My neighbors mind their business. The ornate make-shift shack. The pheasants by my garbage can. The creek in the abandoned lot. The views from the tops of vacant skyscrapers. The new bars and restaurants. The festivals. The free alcohol at promotional events. The plethora of only-in-Detroit restaurants and places. Belle Isle. Palmer Park. Rouge Park. Getting my hair cut downtown. The ability to take a bus anywhere in Metro Detroit except Canton, Livonia, Northville, and Novi; places of little character that I've yet to have had a reason to go to yet. [[Although I have biked through Canton on my way to Ypsi). A bus to Canada for less than five bucks. A discount bus to Chicago.
The loose morals. The fact that a naked person, much less a nude statue raises little commotion. The ability to get first go at the food before they ship it from eastern market to the grocery stores. Interesting scenery for a run. The madness that is Del Ray. Strippers' shenanigans on movie sets. Riding my bike the wrong way on the freeway after the fireworks when it's closed down to traffic. Learning about who the statues represent downtown. Hazen and Stevens T. are my boys. Dining on the People Mover before barhopping. Old-time movie theaters like the Old Redford. The brain expanding extravaganza that is the Burton. The plays. The swanky libraries. Fire-chasing. Fishing. Kayaking. Recognizing the names of Taggers. Going to art openings. Laughing about our politicians. Respecting the people who manage to make the system work. Jogging over pedestrian bridges. The sheer number of gay bars and porn shops. The historical reminders implicit within the environment. The gentleness of the people. The swagger of the people. The humor of the people.

Those are the things I love about Detroit. And none of that's including my friends and family, who I, of course, love.

I stay because I believe. I love it in all it's imperfect glory. Everything I need is either in walking distance or a short cab ride away. I love my historic building, and when I'm ready, I plan on purchasing a home here. I actually talk to my neighbors...can you believe it? I have a huge park with fountains right across my street. My dog can roam around and play with other dogs..well if he wasn't blind!

Mostly, I stay because I want to be able to say that I was here when the city turned around.

I love it here for all the reasons Lap and Planner listed.

Good stuff! You know I look at Google StreetView shots of streets indicated on a thread about Detroit neighborhoods and am pleasantly surprised by the quantity and quality of buildings and general order in many parts of the city. So Detroit has had a tougher time than other cities, some of it because of a lack of foresight and some of it due to sheer bad luck. It is still a city that has a collection of communities and something other than grunge and grit. There are a lot of Detroiters caught in a cliché because of their zip code. They deserve better than what they get. The turnaround has already begun, just look at the new investments in 2011 and I suppose that business interests will follow the money trail to new office workers downtown, etc... Detroit will conjugate its past with the future and come out on top.

Do you mean Detroit proper? [[I live in a west side suburb now although I grew up on the northwest side of the city). But the primary reasons are that my family and my church are located in the city. I remain in the region because of school. As SOON as school as done, I'm looking to relocate for job opportunities and to escape/flee the snow. Feel bad about adding to the brain drain! [[Wink!) If I get an offer that I just cannot refuse, I'll stay.

Great reply Laphoque. For some reason while reading your post I was reminded of the line from a Sound of Music Song, "These are a few of my favorite things". There are no spectacular reasons, just a combination of a lot of wonderful little things which in totality are spectacular. Detroit is like a complex and wonderful work of art, but it requires understanding and patience to get it. Many glance at it a blow it off immediately.

The wonderful arts community, and the way it is revitalizing EVERYTHING. My studio is twice as big as my house, and I can afford the rent on BOTH of them...I am so glad I didnt move away to NY when I got my master's, as I had originally planned....

I found my love here......

The majority of my family is here, but the younger ones *are* moving away, back to the South, for jobs. But they come back regularily, and still call this their 'home'.

Family, friends and familiarity, good, bad, and indifferent. Though as a renter I can pick up and go with little pre-amble, post-amble or ambling in between --:p-- ! I don't want to grow old in Detroit as it currently is... so leaving is on the table.

I also like living close to mid-town, new center. I can sorta get anywhere from my locale and freeway proximity... I'd not really want to be too far east of west.

Of course the architecture is a big draw for me. I love the buildings and homes of Detroit, which are rare to find elsewhere...

I left Detroit in 1972....My parents were both born in Detroit and never left...I left Detroit because I realized that the world was so much bigger than Detroit and I wanted to see as much of it as I could....my parents called me a vagabond....I returned to Detroit in 1998 to take care of my parents who were both ill....I felt it was my responsibility to take care of them because I knew they would do the same for me...they have both since passed on and I recently retired...I am preparing to leave Detroit very soon because there's still a lot left for me to see.

I stay not for the past or the present, but for the future. I think Detroit is well positioned to respond to the coming challenges and themes of the 21st century--oil and water shortages, the death of suburbia, the faux grandeur of the sunbelt, and the American search for and eventual rediscovery of the authentic.

Indeed. Well stated!

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Originally Posted by Lowell

...Detroit is like a complex and wonderful work of art, but it requires understanding and patience to get it. Many glance at it a blow it off immediately.

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An underwater mortgage of at least $40k.

I really have no illusions about this place. I think its going to get worse before it gets better, which I doubt it ever will. I worry about the fate of my neighborhood and the other good neighborhoods of the city.

However you asked about the good, not the bad. Job, house, friends and family, yes, all those, first and foremost.
Cost of living is low. I live in a great house in a fantastic neighborhood on a working class salary. I'm like the king of the city with what I make. In Chicago I'd be scraping together for a studio apartment. In New York I'd be on the streets.
The establishments we do have have character without being yuppified. I have an uncle who lives in Chesterfield Township. He is no fan of Detroit by any means, but mused when we were at La Cina that there are no small business restaurants where he lives - only chain restaurants. I would absolutely hate that, and that is true for much of America.
When I told him on a separate occasion of some nice things my neighbors have done for me, he said his neighbors never would, and don't even wave to him. We have that, and I love it.

I don't have some illusions about "community spirit" or whatever either, but the fact is that people are nice here, and you don't have that camaraderie in the suburbs, which were built with the intention of isolation, where here we are not just geographically but due to dire circumstances forced to pull together.

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Originally Posted by Lowell

Great reply Laphoque. For some reason while reading your post I was reminded of the line from a Sound of Music Song, "These are a few of my favorite things". There are no spectacular reasons, just a combination of a lot of wonderful little things which in totality are spectacular. Detroit is like a complex and wonderful work of art, but it requires understanding and patience to get it. Many glance at it and blow it off immediately.

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Super responses.....can I quote you elsewhere? Credit or anonymous, your choice :)

I defend Detroit often in other forums to people who judge from 3-4 day visits, and often stayed in the 'burbs. Often I get buried under near unanimous opposition that contends Detroit is a shit hole.

Yes there are some shit holes around town, but there are also gems.....many of them.

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Originally Posted by laphoque

It's easy to bike around. ......snip.

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I'm impressed.

The fact that Detroit is so interesting. There are so many facets to it that haven't even been explored, it gives me an endless sense of wonder. I'm not sure if I could ever "get into" another place like I have with Detroit. This city provides me infinite stuff to think about. Some kind of strange romance..

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Originally Posted by Zozo

I stay not for the past or the present, but for the future. I think Detroit is well positioned to respond to the coming challenges and themes of the 21st century--oil and water shortages, the death of suburbia, the faux grandeur of the sunbelt, and the American search for and eventual rediscovery of the authentic.

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This is exactly what I would have posted. Stay tuned, folks. Our city has another act left in her yet. :)

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Originally Posted by Zozo

I stay not for the past or the present, but for the future. I think Detroit is well positioned to respond to the coming challenges and themes of the 21st century--oil and water shortages, the death of suburbia, the faux grandeur of the sunbelt, and the American search for and eventual rediscovery of the authentic.

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Totally agree. The tipping point will come soon when you'll start to see things improve. Some neighborhoods will decline out of existence, but many parts of the city will make a big comeback. The sooner the better.

What Lap said, + no drivers license required and the buildings to roam through [[and stay in if need be).

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Originally Posted by LEOQUEEN

The wonderful arts community, and the way it is revitalizing EVERYTHING. My studio is twice as big as my house, and I can afford the rent on BOTH of them...I am so glad I didnt move away to NY when I got my master's, as I had originally planned....

I found my love here......

The majority of my family is here, but the younger ones *are* moving away, back to the South, for jobs. But they come back regularily, and still call this their 'home'.

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And also, this means you are probably up to doing a lot more work with fewer constraints than the art world geniuses who need to do a dozen other things to survive in New York. And that is where Detroit has a winning hand over a lot of places. You have access to some of your country's best art museums and art venues and an inexpensive estate on which to spread. At one point there will be a coalescence of all the elements where outsiders will turn heads and be really attracted to Detroit in a big way. The small business element and some sexy mass transit lines along with radical forms of urban redesign will be the defining touch in the magnet-to-be.

How about some of the most down to earth, hard working, blue collared, fun loving, and genuinely wonderful people on the face of this planet live here? I've been blessed to have met some of those folks here in the area and there's still more here that I've yet to embrace. It really is a different atmosphere here [[not saying it's Utopia by any means) but there really are some kind wonderful people here who want to make a difference. Being a part of that makes for a wonderful sense of community that I don't know if I could get anywhere else.