I have a handful [[and growing) group of contacts who are graduating from University of Michigan and strongly considering moving downtown. They've been mostly curious, almost exclusively from either the suburbs or from out of state, and wanting to know what my experience is.

I've been here 3 years and have zero exposure to violent crime or petty theft. My experience here has been completely unlike the stories that I hear from other posters on this board. And short of helping to rally the shutdown of that nuisance of LAX, it's been fairly uneventful.

I'm worried that I may be giving my friends an unrealistic view of living downtown and am wondering if I'm somehow insulated from all the BS that people bring up. [[Scrappers, poor police response time, etc.)

So let's hear it...for all the newbies to Detroit that have moved here in the last 2-3 years, how has it been? Mostly good? Mostly bad? Somewhere in between? How valid was some of the paranoia you had to endure from your parents and friends who thought you were crazy to come anywhere near here?