Please say Detroit when visiting

[Gistok]

I have no problem saying "I'm from Detroit". No one out here has probably heard of Ferndale [[or they think I live north of Bellingham), in the same way that someone from Lake Forest Park probably says "I'm from Seattle" when visiting distant territory.

Funny you mention Bellingham.... the former mayor of Blaine grew up in Detroit....

[iheartthed]

This is exactly the thing that makes me laugh about this area. So the background shouldn't matter, but for context, in my 34 years I've lived in Detroit, in the outer suburbs, in Detroit again, in a "Detroit suburb [[Hamtramck, not sure how to classify) in the inner suburbs, and am now in the outer suburbs again. From half of you, I'd get shit for saying I live "in Detroit" and even more shit for saying I live "in Metro Detroit." From the other half, I'd get shit for saying I live "in Detroit" and even more shit for saying I live "in Metro Detroit."

See the problem?

Hamtramck is enclave of Detroit.

[miketoronto1]

I remember going to visit my friend last year in Chicago and the border guard asked where my friend lived, and I said Chicago. And she was like "no no what suburb does he live in". And I said "he lives in Chicago". And she was like shocked that he lived in the city. She said the really nice place to live in Chicago is Naperville.

Anyway this naming suburb thing is so North American.
In Australia, the entire metropolitan area takes on the name of the central city, regardless of the city council you live in.
So what happens is they all work together and build the region as one city, eventhough they have separate city councils.

So you could be out in a separate suburb 45 minutes west of Sydney, and they will just call it Western Sydney.
The suburb names are more just like your neighbourhood names.

[noise]

Growing up in Romeo, I never felt connected to Detroit. They were like different worlds. I had no bias against Detroit [[I actually liked it), but I felt pretty disingenuous claiming to be FROM Detroit.

As far as "who cares what suburb you're from" goes...well, who really cares what city you live near? If asked, give a real answer.

[rjk]

This is exactly the thing that makes me laugh about this area. So the background shouldn't matter, but for context, in my 34 years I've lived in Detroit, in the outer suburbs, in Detroit again, in a "Detroit suburb [[Hamtramck, not sure how to classify) in the inner suburbs, and am now in the outer suburbs again. From half of you, I'd get shit for saying I live "in Detroit" and even more shit for saying I live "in Metro Detroit." From the other half, I'd get shit for saying I live "in Detroit" and even more shit for saying I live "in Metro Detroit."

See the problem?

Exactly, you can't win. The next time someone asks me where I'm from I'm going to tell them my mother.

[NorfLondonMatt]

As a Londoner [[the UK one) I was pretty surprised how places are named cities when they are suburbs. THis is something I have never come accross before. In London [[pop circa 9 million) the city [[small c ) just sprawled out and swallowed its suburbs creating the metropolis it is today. The City of London itself is only really a square mile. Now anywhere inside the M25 is considered London [[I would dispute that) . I have heard people from 20 miles outside say they are from London - which used to irk me somewhat but I learned to live with it. I suppose the thing that unites London is our transport network. That way the city is split into Zones on the tube with snooty Zone 1 and 2 peeps looking down on the people in the outer zones until they have kids and try and move out to them. In the UK you are a city if you have a Cathedral. Simple eh?
Local Boroughs in London have local control with the Mayor of London controlling the big stuff like the Met Police and transport. Maybe the light rail if it ever happens in Detroit will unite the city more.

[noise]

Additionally, I believe Washington Twp is about 40 miles from city center. At what point do we draw the line?

[GUSHI]

I think any one living in the Metro area can claim Detroit, and yes that includes Wahington Twp.

[Mikeg]

Anyway this naming suburb thing is so North American.

As a Londoner [[the UK one) I was pretty surprised how places are named cities when they are suburbs.

Ummm, why then, for example, does every newspaper in England refer to something that happens in a town barely ten miles outside of Manchester, England as happening instead in a place called "Bolton, Lancs"?

[NorfLondonMatt]

Ummm cos Bolton is a seperate town in Lancashire rather than part of Manchester. It has it's own council, accent, football team etc etc. It is part of the Metropolitan County of Greater Manchester but not the city.I suppose in that way it shares something with the D suburbs . People from Bolton would no more describe themselves as Mancs than a Detroiter would describe themselves as being from Chicago. In the UK we are so over populated that 10 miles is a long way I think we invented geographical rivalry. Bolton is still not a city either - though Queenie may let em be next year.

[Detroitnerd]

I have no problem saying I'm from Detroit. I live in Detroit. But every so often when I am in another city and I tell people I am from Detroit, I can see them ... freeze. It's like, they're so used to conversations like this:

VISITOR: I'm from Philadelphia.
NATIVE: Oh, yes. I've been there. It's very nice downtown.

Or this:

VISITOR: I'm from Austin, Texas.
NATIVE: Oh, I've never been there. But I love watching Austin City Limits.

I figure that when I say I'm from Detroit, they are initially intimidated, have never been there, and then know almost nothing about it, or at least nothing with a pleasant connotation that they can shoot back. Not wanting to seem rude, they say, nothing.

ME: I'm from Detroit
THEM: Oh ... [[staring) ... uh ... welcome to town.

Lately, when I say I'm from Detroit and see that look on their face, I immediately start peppering them with imaginary machine-gun fire. It seems to break the ice.

[Ridiculous]

Being in Arizona, when people ask where I originally hail from, I tell 'em Detroit. [[7 Mile/ Southfield Fwy)
When I'm back in the D to visit, I tell people who ask that I'm visiting from Phoenix [[really Tempe, but as close as, say, Redford Twp is to Detroit).

First post, BTW! Hi folks.

[English]

As a Londoner [[the UK one) I was pretty surprised how places are named cities when they are suburbs. THis is something I have never come accross before. In London [[pop circa 9 million) the city [[small c ) just sprawled out and swallowed its suburbs creating the metropolis it is today. The City of London itself is only really a square mile. Now anywhere inside the M25 is considered London [[I would dispute that) . I have heard people from 20 miles outside say they are from London - which used to irk me somewhat but I learned to live with it. I suppose the thing that unites London is our transport network. That way the city is split into Zones on the tube with snooty Zone 1 and 2 peeps looking down on the people in the outer zones until they have kids and try and move out to them. In the UK you are a city if you have a Cathedral. Simple eh?
Local Boroughs in London have local control with the Mayor of London controlling the big stuff like the Met Police and transport. Maybe the light rail if it ever happens in Detroit will unite the city more.

London is my favorite city on the planet. Hello from Detroit -- hope to visit next year!

[joesmithrocks]

I love this thread. Clearly, there's no agreement. And as pointed out already, isn't that one of the biggest challenges of our region?

There's so much segregation here - racially, politically, economically, religiously, artistically. I don't know why it's like this, but it is. And you hear it in even the simplest act of telling people where you're from. I wish it weren't so.

I don't think that every suburbanite who doesn't say Detroit is motivated by hate for the city. And I don't think that every suburbanite who says Detroit, is taking advantage, or trying to sound cool.

But lots of people are quick with both of those accusations - even right here on this board.

I was born downriver. I was raised in Pinckney [[but really, Lakeland). I graduated high school in Ann Arbor. I lived in Whitmore Lake. And Dearborn. Now, I live in Detroit. When people ask where I'm from, I say Detroit. But I don't feel like I'm a "real Detroiter," because I didn't grow up in Detroit City. Which is silly. Detroit is where my grandmparents immigrated to from Europe. And my family has been in the region ever since... working, living and playing... all around, inside and out of Detroit proper. Yet, I'm an outsider... even inside. I see it on the face of my neighbors when they look at me.

The separatism and segregation permeates all.

[Detroitnerd]

Good post, Joesmith. It's a matter of nuance, ain't it?

[ndavies]

Ummm cos Bolton is a seperate town in Lancashire rather than part of Manchester. It has it's own council, accent, football team etc etc. It is part of the Metropolitan County of Greater Manchester but not the city.I suppose in that way it shares something with the D suburbs . People from Bolton would no more describe themselves as Mancs than a Detroiter would describe themselves as being from Chicago. In the UK we are so over populated that 10 miles is a long way I think we invented geographical rivalry. Bolton is still not a city either - though Queenie may let em be next year.

Well, all of Detroit's suburbs are separate cities, with their own separate city governments. If you live in the Detroit Metropolitan region, You either live in the city of Detroit or you live in a suburban city of metro Detroit.

There were a number of lawsuits filed in the early part of the 20th century that stopped the City of Detroit from absorbing any more of the surrounding communities into the city.

[tvaspen]

If I answer Berkley, they say, California? So I just say Detroit.

[Detroitnerd]

There were a number of lawsuits filed in the early part of the 20th century that stopped the City of Detroit from absorbing any more of the surrounding communities into the city.

Actually, I thought it was when home rule was enshrined in the state constitution. And the fact that the industrialists hated taxes. And built outside the city to avoid them. And hated it when the city annexed the land. Henry Ford chief among them. The battle, begun in the mid-1910s, was over by 1930. Detroit was effectively bottled up on Woodward by Ferndale, on Gratiot by East Detroit, on Michigan by Dearborn, etc. etc. etc.

[DanFromDetroit]

I always say "I'm from Detroit" and leave it at that. But when meeting someone else from the region it's always followed up with - "which city?" and it's almost invariably followed with a suburb. Some people out west here have heard of Grosse Pointe but mainly it's just from the movie. So I leave it at Detroit - which gets me much better street cred than GP.

/Unless I'm somewhere with old money - then it's GP all the way

[Detroitnerd]

/Unless I'm somewhere with old money - then it's GP all the way

Nawchewrally ...

[Searay215]

I always say Detroit........where the weak are killed and eaten....that way they leave me alone.....

[Jimaz]

Today the PhD guy on The Weather Channel called Ypsilanti a suburb of Detroit.

Wha?

[Downriviera]

Just say you're from Detroit Hills, Detroit Place, or Detroit Springs.

[miketoronto1]

It is interesting the different ways people associate with where they live.

I guess a metro government would have tied people together more.
I know growing up here in a suburb of Toronto, we always said we were from Toronto when away, and felt part of the city, even though we lived in a separate municipality [[sort of, because we were under a Metro government as well).
But because of the metro government, we also had buses going by our house that said TORONTO TRANSIT, on them. Or our recycling boxes said Metro Toronto Recycles. Our some of our parks said Metro Toronto parks.

So I guess with all that Toronto word in everything, people felt more a part of one common region.

Would be interesting to see if the same would have been true for Detroit.

[Lowell]

I think of Detroit in its original meaning, Le Detroit the straits or 'water between the waters' of Native American and French origin. If I travel in any direction from that waterway where there is continuous residential habitation, whether in Canada or the USA, old city, enclaves, suburbs or exurbs, I am in Detroit - our great international sprawlopolis of five million plus included its embrace.

Look at us from space, where there none of the artificial boundaries exist and you can see contiguous family of communities that comprise Detroit. This is 'my' Detroit and this also is what loosely defines what stays or goes regarding topics for this forum's discussion.