Why I left

[larrym]

Has there been a thread about when and why people left Detroit? I think that would be interesting. I left in 1966 when I got drafted.

[jcole]

I left in '73 when my parents told me we were going

[exmotowner]

I left in 84 after WAY too much crime. My house had been robbed several times [[Completely emptied), car vandalized multiple times and having a gun to my head and being mugged multiple times. I cleaned up murders and had to deal with drug busts and rapes when I was managing the building in Palmer Park. It was time for me to leave. I tried to do my best to stay [[and do what I could to help improve the city) but it just seemed things just kept getting worse instead of better. I felt I literraly had to leave or something worse would happen so I left. Believe me I didnt want to. Detroit is my home and its the only place I get the feeling of IM HOME!. I dont see it getting better [[safe) enough in my lifetime to move back.

[Ray1936]

Left Rosedale Park in '84 when I retired from the DPD and settled in Las Vegas. Wife and I both hate winter. I also had a love affair with the desert and the mountains and spent many an hour exploring them.

[slick]

Left in 1997, got a job with the state working in Lansing, live in Eaton Rapids.
Left Hamtramck heights, worked for the city of Detroit.
Most of the relatives live in Warren or Sterling Heights.

I am not coming back to the Metro area, I have my retirement home.
Under 2 years before retirement.

[carolcb]

Ex-husband lost job, I had subbed the maximum days in the A2 schools. Took me years to get used to not living in Michigan. But, I look back on it - it turned me into a different person. Attitudes were such down here that it opened my eyes to how others were treated. If I had stayed I would have just been some spoiled witch at the mall. Still miss it, obviously.

[Lowell]

Funny, isn't it, how graffiti is just fine... if it was done centuries ago. Re: Ray1936 admiring the Vegas rock taggers.

[Corn.Bot]

Funny, isn't it, how graffiti is just fine... if it was done centuries ago. Re: Ray1936 admiring the Vegas rock taggers.

You are exactly right!

The first time I left Detroit City was on November 3, 1968, when my parents relocated our family to East Detroit. The second time I left the city was when I moved from my apartment on Laurel St, corner of Mayfield, no clue if the building is even still there, in 1975. I wanted less of a drive to my office, which at that time was in Southfield.

Moved from the metro area altogether late in 1989... have looked back frequently.

[mtm49269]

After leaving my parents' house in Hamt. Heights [[D with a 48212 Hamt. zip) lived in my own apartment in Palmer Park until spousal-unit and I decided shack up and rent a townhouse in what was then Honeytree off 275 in Canton around 1986. From there, a spell in a tiny house in B'ham. Then out to CA for about 5 years [[including the Loma Prieta quake) followed by Atlanta for a few months. When we got back, stayed with my mother-in law in Jackson for several months while getting jobs and, eventaully, a house in Livona. Now in Northville but with the job and housing markets being as they are, who knows where we'll be next year.

Dad still lives in the same house and we just visited him for Christmas Eve [[Wigilia). His small enclave of a neighborhood is still safe - mostly same neighbors from when I was growing up there and they all look out for each other.

[atl_runner]

I left in 99, planning on two years away. That was youthful ignorance as time marches on faster than I thought at that point. Two kids and 10 years later, I am still gone. I miss it. I miss Michigan. The people are what make the State. I'm not so locked down as to say I'll never go back, though economically, the last decade has not exactly been welcoming, to say the least. I truly feel though, that Michigan has turned the corner in a lot of areas. In the next 5 years, you might see a lot of expatriots returning with families in tow.

[Stosh]

Funny, isn't it, how graffiti is just fine... if it was done centuries ago. Re: Ray1936 admiring the Vegas rock taggers.

I agree... but only if said grafitti has a religious significance, as in Ray's instance. Anything else is just so much noise.

[EMG]

I left Detroit for Grosse Pointe Woods in 1990 due to increasing crime, declining property values, and no longer feeling safe in the city due to Coleman Young having made a joke out of the police force.

I left Grosse Pointe Woods for Arizona in 2001 due to being laid off and the desire for better weather. I was always planning to leave Michigan for that reason upon retirement but the layoff just provided the opportunity and motivation to do it sooner.

[Meddle]

Left in '98 for personal reasons.

Weird that one of the things I missed was all the shopping in the Livonia & Warren/Wayne areas, much of which now seems to be gone also based on the recent threads here. Don't miss downtown.

[Patrick]

Left for a job in DC in the summer of 2009. It's hard to compete with 200 others looking for one job. In DC, you might compete with 4 people.

[jtf1972]

Sold my place on the west side in 98 to get out of debt. Moved in with mom in suburbia while looking for an apartment [[or a job in New York.) Was terminated from my job & took the opportunity to move to NY and go back to school. Figured on living here for about 3 years... Looking for a job now to return.

[English]

As most DYes regulars know, I left in June 2005 after being laid off from DPS for the third time. I was an English teacher at Cass Tech, hence my forum handle. I figured that we'd hit an iceberg in the district as early as 2003, and we were taking on water fast. I'd finished my MA at Wayne State around the same time as the first layoff notice [[April 2004), and knew that the University of Michigan had a top doctoral program in my field. After layoff notice #3 arrived an hour before my family celebration on Christmas Eve 2004, I knew I wanted to leave on my own terms, and not wait to be forced out in '06 or '10 or whenever. I applied for teaching jobs overseas, and to the Ph.D program at UofM.

Leaving was the hardest decision ever, and fraught with emotion. I was so angry and heartbroken that the district was pretending as if I had 3 years in instead of 6, and really didn't feel supported by fellow Detroiters who had their own issues to work on. Cafe and itsJeff were two forumers who went through it with me... one is overseas, and one is in heaven. So no matter what, I won't return to the Detroit I loved as a young woman fresh out of college in my early 20s, from 1999-2005. I still can't get over it.

I live in Ann Arbor, and will defend my dissertation 5 weeks from now. Today I scheduled my defense with Rackham and applied for graduation. I am now on the academic job market, and am a finalist for a position at a college in the tricounty area... as well as several positions out of state. We will see where the chips fall. I should know whether I'll have a job here by March.

[Searay215]

My parents moved us to the suburbs in 1957 because at the age of 10 years old I was stoned in my own back yard by a group of black youths for no apparent reason. I had never had any experiences with people of color up to that point. My parents thought the suburbs would be safer and of course they were.

[Gannon]

I daresay it wasn't just water that ship was taking on.


Every one of the good teachers I know left the Detroit system due the inept management. None with promise and potential were allowed to stay.



I left Detroit due to selfish myopia. Not my own.

I am doing everything I can to get back. Soon.


Cheers!

[Gannon]

Damn, Searay. I get stoned by some colorful people in the city as often as I can.


I find the suburbs way too unsafe for that sorta behavior.

[pudsy]

parents left in 70's from their wonderful two family in southwest Detroit.
Loved their neighbors but they noticed a difference when they went to bell isle one day and it was way too "urban" for them-----My parents said time to go!!!!!

[Ray1936]

Funny, isn't it, how graffiti is just fine... if it was done centuries ago. Re: Ray1936 admiring the Vegas rock taggers.

You're right. I'd better stop being so critical of today's graffiti; it may be tomorrow's wonder! [[That photo comes from Grapevine Canyon, about 80 miles south of Las Vegas, if you're wondering.)

[turkeycall]

Left Detroit in '71 for overseas duty with the Navy. Returned in '73 but moved to an apartment in Mt. Clemens. Bought a home in Detroit shortly after getting married in '76. Moved to Houston in '80, and then came back to the area [East Detroit] in '82 when the oil tool market cratered. Got laid off in '83 and moved to Huntington, Indiana. Worked at G.M. in Marion, IN but got laid off, then transferred to Coopersville. Retired from GM/Delphi in '06. Still here in Norton Shores [Muskegon].

Looking back . . . Do I regret making all those moves? No. Would I do it all again? A definite NO!

[daddeeo]

Moved in 1978 to Royal Oak. The job and wife's family was there. I haven't missed the crime and having to watch over my back whenever I went out.
Retired in Northville now and loving it.
I miss the Detroit of the 50's and early 60's but not what it's become.

[East Detroit]

So, this thread refers to the City of Detroit?

If you move from Gratiot & Carlisle to Gratiot & Juliana, does that count?

[smudge pot]

Grandpa left when he left this Earth. Owned a hardware store, got into an altercation with a shoplifting "youth", died of a stroke later that day. Widowed grandmother left when she started to get late-night obscene phone calls from "new neighbors". Me, I never left because I was never there. I'm 100 percent suburbia, and I loved every minute of it [[especially the Polish girls, the church carnivals, the weddings, the whole nine yards, Detroit diaspora rocked back in the day).