Nice Detroit areas? (Ann Arbor, Rochester Hills, Birmingham: neighborhood, buy, luxury)

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by Retroit

To be fair, I will have to agree with you on this to some extent. The fact that Detroit is an older city (compared to many in the south and west), we do have suburbs with a more "lived-in", established feel than some of the newer cities with overwhelmingly extensive cookie-cutter McMansion sprawlvilles. But if you were to compare suburbs from two different cities that were built around the same time, I don't think you would find much difference.

Chicago has nothing like we do, at least form the suburbs that I have seen. They have lots of Royal Oaks, and evne a wyandotte or two, but no Northville, South Lyon, Plymouth, Chelsea. Nothing like Lyon township within range of the City. Not much real variety.

Los Angeles has pretty much sprawl and slums. There are a few unique areas for the uber wealthy.

From what I know of New York, which is not a lot, the suburbs are all either high rise towers or sprawl. I have not seen a lot of variety. However I have been to maby ten suburbs. There must be a hundred I would guess.

I have not seen anythign comparable in the Dallas Ft. Worth metro. All options seem the same there from what I have seen.

Pheonix is no contest at all. The surburbs offer very little variety and very little positives at all. Las Vegas as well.

Besides, when factoring in quality of schools, crime rates, higher education, history, traffic, crowdedness, recreational opportunities, etc. There are not many places that can match ours. Los Angeles for example falls out of the race on Quality of schools alone. San Diego too.

Boston is very competitve for variety and quality of Suburbs. Maybe Charleston SC as well. Minneapolis might be, I have not explored the burbs there enough to say.

From what I saw of Seattle burbs, they are strong competition. Cleveland probably is as well. Also Denver.

[ragnarkar]

Birmingham
Bloomfield Hills
Rochester Hills
most of Troy
most of Sterling Heights
most of Farmington Hills
north half of Warren
north half of Southfield

[PosterExtraordinaire]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

Los Angeles has pretty much sprawl and slums. There are a few unique areas for the uber wealthy.

lol in other words you haven't really explored the la area

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by PosterExtraordinaire

lol in other words you haven't really explored the la area

No, I just lived in the area for 19 years and spend about 15 weeks a year there for the past 6 years. But I did not explore every bit of the area, i probably covered only about 75%. Some places I had no interest and no reason to visit.

[PosterExtraordinaire]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

No, I just lived in the area for 19 years and spend about 15 weeks a year there for the past 6 years. But I did not explore every bit of the area, i probably covered only about 75%. Some places I had no interest and no reason to visit.

OC is not LA and only maybe the northern portions can be considered part of the LA area

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by PosterExtraordinaire

OC is not LA and only maybe the northern portions can be considered part of the LA area

Sorry that statement does not even weakly suport your position. Try something else.

[PosterExtraordinaire]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

Sorry that statement does not even weakly suport your position. Try something else.

lol when someone's so ignorant and happy in their own ignorance what am I supposed to do There is nothing correct, remotely correct, even a tiiiiiny bit correct about your statement that the la area is just slums (lol what slums in la or even better oc?) or sprawl. Someone who only saw la on tv coulda wrote that, not someone whose lived there for xxx years.

Now, you didn't just get la wrong but wrong for nyc area/chicago (and probably a bunch more) as well. The outer burbs of nyc are basically rural and not just highrise developments like you claim. I'll let someone more familiar with nyc to straighten you out there.

Now back to la, expand on your statement. Give me some meat so I can educate your ass all the way back to oc

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

Chicago has nothing like we do, at least form the suburbs that I have seen. They have lots of Royal Oaks, and evne a wyandotte or two, but no Northville, South Lyon, Plymouth, Chelsea. Nothing like Lyon township within range of the City. Not much real variety.

Los Angeles has pretty much sprawl and slums. There are a few unique areas for the uber wealthy.

Coldjensens, normally I both agree with and learn things from your posts, but I think you are WAY off in terms of what suburbs are like in other metro areas. I will agree that Cleveland has suburbs with character.

Due to it being part of the Connecticut Western Reserve, has many suburbs that were founded by Connectitut people and have a very strong New England feel. You also have a strong white ethnic heritage, especially Italian.

I also agree that Phoenix and Las Vegas suburbs are absolutely boring.

However I think you are WAAAYY off about Chicago and LA.

Chicagos suburbs IMO are for the most part a near carbon copy of Detroits suburbs. DuPage, Lake, and Northern Cook are identical to Oakland County, and Chicagos southwest suburbs are like Macomb and much of Wayne County suburbs.

I get the feeling that you have spent more time in Chicagos inner suburbs and not much time in the outer suburbs/exurbs. I would NOT say that Chicago has many Royal Oak-like suburbs. Maybe on the surface, but even the most walkable Chicago suburbs do not have much of a singles scene the way Royal Oak does. Because they all go to the north side of the city proper. Detroit relative lack of desirable, trendy neighborhoods is what made Royal Oak become more of trendy, walkable singles scene. Chicagos counterparts are nearly entirely more family oriented.

And Chicago has PLENTY of communities like Plymouth, Northville, Chelsea, etc. Have you been to the Fox River towns of St. Charles/Geneva? Or some DuPage areas like Wheaton or Glen Ellyn? Or Lemont? Or Long Grove, Libertyville in Lake County. There are countless others.

In fact I would say Chicago has MORE communities that are like Plymouth, Northville, South Lyon, etc. But people who come to Chicago see what is closer in, in Chicago, and don't see the "quaint exurban suburbs." But even Oak Park or Evanston which are more eclectic and urban than anywhere else in Chicagoland, are still less party-town feel than Royal Oak, even if their downtowns look like Royal Oak.

As far as Los Angeles??? I have no idea where you get that perception from. Los Angeles suburbs are basically their own full fledged small cities that have their own tourist attractions and unique identity. What about Pasadena with its happenin' and hoppin', Colorado Blvd, its historic city hall, its world class Caltech, access to the majestic San Gabriel mountains. South of there is the San Gabriel valley, one of the largest Asian communities in the country. Then you have Burbank and surrounding areas, middle class homes of where all the stuidios are, and the working people that make the movies possible behind the scenes.
Then you have the South Bay, Manhattan beach is ritzy, Hermosa is more party-town. Then there is the West Side, where you have places like West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica which are really function more like city neighborhoods. There is Long Beach which is its own separate city.

I moved to LA county from outside Chicago because its personal emerald city. There are countless things to do. One day I might very well move back to the midwest for a lower cost of living, but for now its awesome.

[PosterExtraordinaire]

LA has suburbs that pour into canyons, that are built into hills or the edge of mountains, suburbs pressed into the ocean, suburbs that sprawl in the desert, suburbs with nightlife and big city amenities (much more than royal oak lol) or mcmansions, working class communities or some of the richest places in the world. To characterize it all as as slums and mcmansions is one of the bigger moments on the michigan forum jensen claims to be from OC or lived there, or vacations there Even OC has some variety in suburbs it's a bit strange for him to characterize it that way. He must really hate cali or trying to really love michigan

other than chicago/nyc which you got him on... he mentions charleston! Now I mean I love charleston. Beautiful city near the atlantic but lol it hardly has any suburbs All of its suburbs could probably fit into dearborn, warren and livonia. Why offer charleston as an alternate city for nice suburbs

phoenix is basically a suburb itself.... I dunno how it entered the discussion. In my opinion the nicest suburbs are in the bay area.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by PosterExtraordinaire

LA has suburbs that pour into canyons, that are built into hills or the edge of mountains, suburbs pressed into the ocean, suburbs that sprawl in the desert, suburbs with nightlife and big city amenities (much more than royal oak lol) or mcmansions, working class communities or some of the richest places in the world. To characterize it all as as slums and mcmansions is one of the bigger moments on the michigan forum jensen claims to be from OC or lived there, or vacations there Even OC has some variety in suburbs it's a bit strange for him to characterize it that way. He must really hate cali or trying to really love michigan

other than chicago/nyc which you got him on... he mentions charleston! Now I mean I love charleston. Beautiful city near the atlantic but lol it hardly has any suburbs All of its suburbs could probably fit into dearborn, warren and livonia. Why offer charleston as an alternate city for nice suburbs

phoenix is basically a suburb itself.... I dunno how it entered the discussion. In my opinion the nicest suburbs are in the bay area.

Exactly. For whatever downsides California has, it masters the corner on very unique suburbs. I don't see how anyone can question that. Although I'm not even sure if you can call California suburbs: suburbs. They are very simply . . . places.

I'm a little suprised. I think coldjensens is one of the most informative posters I know. He has such a great accurate assessment on the Detroit area. But I was taken aback when he described the other metro areas.