My view about living in Ann Arbor, FYI

[brodie734]

Nobody ever said Ann Arbor should be compared to those cities. It is, however, factual that every thread about on Ann Arbor in the usual spots transplants will look (including CD, it's competitors, Reddit, etc) will be filled with some dilettante grad student from Los Angeles crying about how Ann Arbor has no good options for northwestern Laotian food and how it is therefore "not a real city".

The food scene here is, of course, far better than any mid-sized Midwestern city has any right to be.

[paracitystoo]

OP,
Where else have you thought about moving to or looked at? I'm in a quandary about staying in A2. I like it here ; the downtown , the amenities, but the housing prices are getting close to unaffordable for me, I'm kind of tired of the oftentimes gloomy weather, and I've always wanted to live by the mountains and/or the ocean so I'm looking for someplace else that's similar to Ann Arbor.
Thanks,
Mark

[jakebarnes]

Originally Posted by paracitystoo

OP,
Where else have you thought about moving to or looked at? I'm in a quandary about staying in A2. I like it here ; the downtown , the amenities, but the housing prices are getting close to unaffordable for me, I'm kind of tired of the oftentimes gloomy weather, and I've always wanted to live by the mountains and/or the ocean so I'm looking for someplace else that's similar to Ann Arbor.
Thanks,
Mark

Try the entire Northwest-- if you are looking for a smaller town- Bend OR, Olympia WA, Boise ID. Larger town: Portland, Seattle. It's about as unaffordable as A2 but has mountains and ocean nearby. Doesn't help with the gloomy weather though :-( Plus, the cities here have more amenities. Ann Arbor is quite nice for a Michigan city though, which is why it gets a premium.

[newengland17]

Originally Posted by paracitystoo

OP,
Where else have you thought about moving to or looked at? I'm in a quandary about staying in A2. I like it here ; the downtown , the amenities, but the housing prices are getting close to unaffordable for me, I'm kind of tired of the oftentimes gloomy weather, and I've always wanted to live by the mountains and/or the ocean so I'm looking for someplace else that's similar to Ann Arbor.
Thanks,
Mark

You could move to downtown Detroit.

[craig11152]

Originally Posted by jakebarnes

Plus, the cities here have more amenities....

Can you clarify what amenities you are talking about? 3 or 4 is fine.

[brodie734]

Originally Posted by newengland17

You could move to downtown Detroit.

Yes, Downtown Detroit with it's ocean, mountains, and less gloomy weather is EXACTLY what that poster was looking for...

[Republic of Michigan]

Originally Posted by jakebarnes

Try the entire Northwest-- if you are looking for a smaller town- Bend OR, Olympia WA, Boise ID. Larger town: Portland, Seattle. It's about as unaffordable as A2 but has mountains and ocean nearby. Doesn't help with the gloomy weather though :-( Plus, the cities here have more amenities. Ann Arbor is quite nice for a Michigan city though, which is why it gets a premium.

Ann Arbor is part of a 5 million person metropolis, so I am unsure how the other cities you mentioned have more amenities.

Also, Ann Arbor is quite nice in general. It fits in nicely with the hundreds of quaint towns which dot Michigan's 3100 miles of shoreline. It is not so different from the upscale areas of Metro Detroit or Michigan's second largest city - Grand Rapids which is a beautiful and dynamic. Traverse City, Marquette, Kalamazoo are also honorable mentions. So Ann Arbor is not this odd entity for a Michigan city and thus gets a premium. It is located in a state with many other dynamic areas for recreation and city life. Plenty of other areas in Michigan are just as expensive. Come see the real estate along Michigan's Gold Coast on Lake Michigan, or real estate around the hundreds of lakes in Oakland County.

[brodie734]

Guys, the poster wants to live in California. No amount of Michigan boosterism is going to make someone who wants sunshine, beaches, and mountains happy here.

[alikelysuspect]

You can talk about Traverse City and other far flung places in Michigan. They are all beautiful. Michigan is a beautiful state. (It is "Water World", after all.) But, 20 minutes to a major airport from Ann Arbor via Detroit Metropolitan Airport? it is an amazing location for a business trip or other. Relatively light traffic and.....you are gone. I know a performer who lives in this town for that very reason. She can't afford to live in NYC or LA, but can BE THERE just by virtue of the fact that she is within reach because of a major hub (Delta) being in this area. Direct flights to just about everywhere. Japan, China...

[EastBoundandDownChick]

I don't know, my two cents as a new person moving in at the end of the summer. Detroit native, living in NYC post-college. Ann Arbor is all what you make it. I did the downtown urban thing in Manhattan in my twenties and early thirties until I realized it wasn't feasible, not so much financially (although obviously crazy) but for other reasons. Does that mean I'm going to live in the downtown so I can have a 'comparable urban experience'? No. Because it would of course never be comparable nor would I even want that at this point in the game. But I was raised on a lake next to a farm growing up... so proximity to nature for me is great, as well as a reasonable commute from it to downtown Ann Arbor minus the sprawl that occurs elsewhere. I don't expect it to offer what a big city does and honestly I think anyone demanding that is kind of clueless and/or entitled. It's a place that either works for you or doesn't. But it doesn't consistently make the 'best' places in America lists year after year for no reason. It has a lot to offer the right type of individual, not all but for a lot of us the place is simply great. No place is without issues but I find the ones in Ann Arbor trivial by comparison to other places I've experienced. There is a true sense of community, something that does not exist in my hometown where my parents still reside. I've learned throughout the years how valuable that is. It is also somewhat insulated from the ups and downs of the Michigan economy and I also find that greatly important. I'm going to be much better positioned to weather another economic storm in Ann Arbor (living outside the expensive downtown) than I believe I would be in Detroit... any day of the week.