I'm buying a house in a family-friendly neighborhood of the City. Would I ever move to the suburbs? Noooo. Would sooner move to Mars.

Honestly though, it is Detroit or bust. If Detroit ever becomes unbearable [[not unlikely) for me I will leave the state. I don't like anywhere else in the metro region, at all really.

I know I'm not in the majority, but I know I am not alone. Certainly for economic reasons but for reasons of desirability we don't get creative young people moving to the Detroit suburbs from other parts of the country because they are great places to live. Of course they aren't moving to Detroit in any significant number, either, but while Detroit has a plethora of problems to scare away even the hardiest urbanite, the suburbs as they intrinsicately are are why these people don't want to move there.

People complain about the Michigan "brain-drain" [[probably more aptly called a youth drain) but when all you have to offer are decaying cities and bland milquetoast suburbs, on top of a lack of jobs, what do you expect?! Sorry folks, "great lakes, great times" aren't enough to keep young people interested.

Then the older generation laments from the comfort of their suburban cul-de-sac the lack of a "real city" as their kids pack their bags for Chicago; New York - the same people who proudly proclaim they never go to Detroit. Hmm, I wonder if that could be part of the reason it is so fucked up?

I know a box house with aluminum siding in Roseville or a McMansion in Rochester Hills was the dream of boomers everywhere, but the younger white generation has a different value system.

Maybe somebody should let L Books Patterson know about this study and let him know it is "too late" for Oakland County. How stunned he will be to hear that young people are not flocking to the greatest county in the universe.