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Well, first of all I don't think of Detroit in the limited sense of the 139 sq. mi. of the City of Detroit proper, but rather the whole metropolitan area.
Second, there are a lot of good and interesting things about the City of Detroit, but there are also a lot of bad and shameful things. I'd be willing to bet that the Detroiters who have fled the City in recent years would agree. Why not be honest? Nowhere is perfect for everyone, not even the suburbs (too boring for many). Witness [JS]'s bashing of Royal Oak, or whoever-it-was claiming that Eastpointe is full of gangs.
Finally, many people who were born or lived in Detroit and have left the area still think of themselves as a "Detoiter" so they feel they have a right to express themselves. Put yourself in their place: if you grew up in Detroit decades ago in a clean & safe neighborhood and then returned today and found your neighborhood in ruins, what would your reaction be?
I agree. I am from Detroit. I grow up there my whole life and left back in 98 to join the Army. I come back to the city every year to visit my family and was proud to tell everyone in the Army that I was from the Motor City. People in the Army are from all diffrent parts of the world. They were excited to hear about Detroit and even wanted to visit at some point.
Now people look at me like I am crazy when I mention I am from Detroit. They ask me if my family will considering moving. All the reactions are negative now.
I have been at Ft Bragg NC since 98. I went home for a few weeks a month ago to decided if I wanted to move back because my family was there or move to Charlotte, NC. I decided on Charlotte even though it is hard to not live around family since I am a single parent. But from what I seen last month in Detroit, it is not something I seen back in 1997. Even the subburbs are not progressing. Some of my family live in Westland and Dearborn Heights. It is sad to see all the schools going downhill, abandon homes on every corner.
I still love the city I came from and I am very proud of it's history. I am sure Detroit will become the Best Places to Live in the future. People that love Detroit have to actually help rebuild the city and make it what it can be again. When my girls grow up I want them to be proud to tell their kids that grandma came from Motown
Go to any of the other CD forums of cities with bad reputations like Detroit, and youll find the same negativity (maybe not QUITE as much, but its definitely there). Plain and simple, people love to complain.
The Detroit bashing is old and tired, and while there are sections of Detroit that are very bad, I get a kick out of when people try and say that this area is so much worse than most other areas in the country. GUARENTEE those are people who never SEE different parts of the country lol.
When out of town and say Im from the Detroit area, I dont usually get a negative response. And in my day to day life in metro-Detroit, I sometimes look extra hard to try to find the negativity that is proclaimed on this forum, and I usually just dont see it.
Downtown Detroit is actually getting nicer over the past several years, and to all who get on the suburbanites for "only going downtown then back to the burbs", isnt that what downtowns are FOR? Who goes to ANY big city to drive up and down residential neighborhoods?
Over 5 million people live in metro Detroit, and 10 million in MI. Everyone in all walks of life is negative at some point about some things, thats human nature, but to the people who are negative about the area 100% of the time....dont visit (MI does excellent in tourism, we dont need your dollars) and if you live here, by all means move to where you are so sure the grass is greener!
"Like I've explained on here plenty of times how even in 2006 before I moved to Florida my neighborhood went from nice, majority owner, working people who sent their children to school and took care of their homes to now many whom rent, don't care about their children's education and homes when I moved back in 2008. I still never come on here with anything negative about Detroit or any city for that matter. Plus seeing as 95% of the posters on here don't live in Detroit and never have or left in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Majority don't visit and never have. But somehow manage to take time out their day to say something negative. I haven't even read everyone's reply yet but I'm willing to bet most are negative"
1. Sounds like you're having a negative experience in the city as we speak. Go ahead and say something negative about it; it's true.
2. I don't consider myself a Detroiter. I have never lived in the city (never lived south of 13 Mile for that matter) and probably never will, as long as they have that stupid city income tax and that ridiculous level of property taxation unless you live in an enterprise zone. I may be a metro Detroiter but on vacation I usually tell everyone I'm from "near Windsor." Heck, my parents never even lived in the city. One grew up in Warren Village and the other in Sterling Township (now Sterling Heights).
3. I do have a positive thing to say about the city here and there. The city does amaze sometimes. Plus, I come all the way from Harrison Township to get Chinese take-out near downtown. I did look fairly seriously at houses in Detroit 2002-2004. Glad I didn't buy.
Actually most of what the posters on here say are not based on experiences. there obviously based on what the media tells them. Even people from the metro area. In reality majority of the suburbanites never ride through the city unless its for something they shouldn't be doing. The only part of the city where suburbanites hang out really is downtown for sports events or concerts then back to the burbs. Yes there are some who do come in other areas and have friends who live in the city but thats not the case with the majority. Some of the same posters who will say they do everything they can to avoid the city on one thread will get on another thread and say someone car jacked them smh.
Oh and btw when you say "we speak well of Detroit" who do you mean? because honestly you're one poster I've seen on many threads who posts only negative comments.
4. There have been some negative posters complaining about the city based on their own real experiences and those of people they know. I made that post the other day about boycotting Detroit; the examples I gave were based on my experiences in the city such as overpriced goods and of stores treating Detroiters like second-class citizens. If I post negatively it's usually based on fact (like when I bellyache about the taxes) or experience (see above). There are plenty of other posters that say things to the effect of "Detroit should just fall into the river."
5. Like I said, I go to a restaurant near downtown for something I could get a mile away. I do occasionally visit the shopping center at 8 and Gratiot; the dollar store is very good and Aldi is one of my favorite stores. 8 and Cushing has a great local pizzeria and before the suburban Pizza Huts had Wingstreet I'd go down to Warren and Cadieux or 8 and Hayes for boneless wings. I nearly bought a car a few years ago from a Detroit GM dealer but his interest rate was usurious and I told him that, in front of his other customers . I occasionally get my license plates from Detroit Secretary of State offices; Bel Air Center is slower than molasses but Mexicantown is fairly quick. See? I do things in the city when I don't have to. The city needs me (and more importantly, my money) far more than I need the city. I actually don't go downtown all that often, except for an occasional chili dog at Lafayette or American. I'm partial to places that offer free parking and I almost never go to sporting events down there; the players make too much money and I don't want to support them.
6. "...we speak well of Detroit..." I meant us as a whole; some of us on here speak wonderful things of the city.
Seriously you're (and many others) going to blame Detroit for MI problem when last I checked MI has plenty of cities with crime and blight. Hello Flint, Benton Harbor, Ypsi (not township, the booneys), Pontiac, Lansing, Mt Clemens, Hazel Park, Warren etc are you serious? MI as whole need to get its stuff together. Stop blaming US for all of MI problems. Plenty people who live in those cities I mentioned have never stepped foot in Detroit.
7. You make a great point there. There are other areas with problems. I never said any of these places were great. You're right, Michigan does need to get its stuff together. Will it happen? With a state as dis-unified as Michigan, it's hard to tell.
snoopygirlmi: I haven't spent my entire life in Detroit. I moved here and it was a huge culture shock. I have never been in a city so preoccupied by race and "where you live" (as if it defines a person). I've only recently had the sense that this was "home".
8. Ain't that the truth. You'd swear this was Johannesburg. As for where you live, my guess is that it's because there's probably like 50+ different place names in the metro, each with a different history and cultural identity, and a different sense of social standing and status. Birmingham certainly isn't like Redford Township which isn't like Marine City which isn't like Clawson. Each have different meanings, so to speak, than others. Our identity is locked up in these place names, pure and simple, and it's similar in other areas, like Chicago, with its strong individual neighborhood identity (not nearly as strong in most of Detroit), or Los Angeles, where "place" is so important the real estate agents will take a property on the edge of a bad area and say it's "adjacent" to a more desirable area without using the name of the lesser area. Sense of home for me here is only because I know the road system very well. I feel more at home in Cleveland or Las Vegas, personally.
Outside the things that suburbanite Mike Illitch built, most of the best things about Detroit were built by people who have been dead for decades. I guess Detroiters can be proud that they haven't torn them all down (yet). Palmer Park? Detroit Golf Club? Book Cadillac? Guardian Building? Detroit Symphony Orchestra? Detroit Institute of Arts? What have today's Detroiters built besides graft, vice, corruption and division? Bars...casinos.....a sidewalk along the river....paved over an old railroad right of way...below street grade.........
I love Detroit, but I have to concur it's pretty bad what's happened to the city... even from when I was a kid (which was not that long ago). Everybody has the right to their opinion, but the people who come on here with garbage like "bulldoze the whole city into the Detroit river" can be pretty annoying and are pretty useless. The people who come on here and say "there's no hope for the city to recover" are people who seem to me to feel alienated from the city now and want to come back and change things but are afraid to... bottom line is, you may be rubbed the wrong way by somebody's opinion, but it's their opinion. ForStarters is ALWAYS positive about Detroit, but I won't get mad at him for that (though I'm sure somebody will)... so the other side can voice their opinion too, even if many of the opinions come from people who have no idea what they're talking about.
ForStarters is ALWAYS positive about Detroit, but I won't get mad at him for that (though I'm sure somebody will)... so the other side can voice their opinion too, even if many of the opinions come from people who have no idea what they're talking about.
His Detroit (WSU/downtown/Cass Corridor) shows promise and is a lot different than, say, Kelly and Hayes. If he were there I'm sure he would be leading the chorus calling for Detroit to sink into the river.
His Detroit (WSU/downtown/Cass Corridor) shows promise and is a lot different than, say, Kelly and Hayes. If he were there I'm sure he would be leading the chorus calling for Detroit to sink into the river.
And that's my point... if you know Detroit, you understand that it's not all good or all bad. Negative folks ignore the areas on the come up and positive folks ignore all the areas on the downfall.
I'll admit I'm a Detroit basher, but I know there's some good there every once in a while. A city of 139 square miles (taking this off an earlier post; I'm not sure of the exact total) can't be all bad nor can 800,000 (give or take 100K as we don't know the Census totals yet) citizens all be welfare queens and dope fiends.
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