Young family moving to MI

[gameguy56]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

Royal Oak would be the closest thing to Brooklyn, but it's such a wide--like, Pacific Ocean-wide--chasm that the comparison is ridiculous. That is one reason why Michigan is hemmorraghing young people; there is no real vibrant urban environment. You can find anything else you want, from small town to rural to suburb, but there's, at this time, no urban living comparable to other major cities.

A lof of the cities off the Woodward corridor, though--Royal Oak, Beverly Hills, Ferndale, Birmingham, Huntington Woods--offer a semblance of big city variety and vitality in terms of nightlife, restaurants, entertainment. And loads of very cute housing.

That's where most of the 30-ish people I know wound up, starting families, etc.

Yeah, there's that little strip of land from 10 mile to 15 mile and about 1 mile in either direction off of Woodward that has the semblance of walk ability in combination with good schools and nice looking homes. (You can include Ferndale here for people not interested in having kids in the near future, but at that point you could also probably include midtown and downtown)

That's what young people are looking for these days. The rest of metro Detroit? ehh, There's nothing special about Canton or Shelby township.

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by gameguy56

Yeah, there's that little strip of land from 10 mile to 15 mile and about 1 mile in either direction off of Woodward that has the semblance of walk ability in combination with good schools and nice looking homes. (You can include Ferndale here for people not interested in having kids in the near future, but at that point you could also probably include midtown and downtown)

That's what young people are looking for these days. The rest of metro Detroit? ehh, There's nothing special about Canton or Shelby township.

You need to start at 12 mile for good schools. We looked at Royal Oak. While it is a fun place, there are too many adult stores and young drunks and too much hubub for us to see it as a place to raising kids (schools not so great too). Ferndale is very much an adult place imo asis downtown detroit and midtown.

You are forgetting Ann Arbor. Very walkable, lots of younger people and execellent schools. Still kind of crazy for having kids downtown, especially kids int he 4-12 age range.

Nothville is a very walkable town as is Plymouth. They are just quaint and quiet rather than exciting. Both have execellent schools.

Rochester is both walkable and intersting. Just small.

Parts of Downtown Detroit are hopping. It has really changed dramatically in the past couple of years. However schools are more than terrible with a couple of exceptions. (Rennesaince, DHSA, Cass - and some private schools). There is no place for kids to play or hang out in Detroit though. That is what kept us from the City.

If you just want to go walking and wave at neighbors, rather than hop from shop to shop or bar to bar, then you have loads of even better options. There is little or nothing to walk to in many of those places, but they are fabulous places to walk and look at trees, flowers, deer, eagles, and the like, other places you can walk around and look at really beautiful historic homes, or a lake, or a river, but again you are not going to find shops and bars all over the place.

It is intersting what many east coasters consider "walkable" It apparently means a place with huge crowds, lots of traffic lots of bars and resturaunts and stores. To me, that is not walkable, that is shufflable. To me walkable is a place like Northville, or even Gorsse Ile where we can briskly walk the 2+ miles to the little town in less than a half hour unless you end up talking with someone you know along the way, you walk through woods, and fields and see deer and maybe a fox or a mink or an eagle or something, but often few or no cars. Shuffling through strangers in deafining noise levels, stopping at every intersection, breathing exhaust, and looking at stores is not my concept of walkable. But it is clearly a reqruirement for some. I certinaly enjoy shuffling through New York City or Boston or Chicago or Seattle or especially Charleston for a time. But it is not what i call "Walkable". To me walking means movement and enjoyement of just walking. I would not call New York or Boston or Chicago "walkable" At least not downtown.

I am not saying other concepts are wrong, just interesting how different the concepts are.

What I do find odd is when east coasters come here and say there is nothing to do. I am still waiting for someone to name ten specific things that you can do in New York city that you cannot do here. I have come up with a couple. Not many. there must be more.

[jonnynonos]

It's a question of scale, obviously. The OP asked for something like Brooklyn. One could make the same obstinate argument that Houghton, MI has everything you have in metro Detroit.

[gameguy56]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

It's a question of scale, obviously. The OP asked for something like Brooklyn. One could make the same obstinate argument that Houghton, MI has everything you have in metro Detroit.

Right, I think this is the key. For example, you can go to north rosedale park if you want to see community theatre, but how many other options do you have? What if you want to eat peruvian food? Or what if you want to go see a punk rock show? You could either drive all over the place in metro detroit to see these things, or perhaps could find them within a few city blocks in New York.

[LP10]

move to rosedale gardens In Livonia, it has some 1920-1930's colonials, i live 1 Mile North Of There.

[detshen]

My fiancee' and I moved to Huntington Woods when we moved here from CA in 09' and LOVE it. It's within a mile of Ferndale, Royal Oak, and Berkley which are all great walking neighborhoods for going out, restaurants, events, etc., we spend lots of time in all of them. It's also a reasonable drive to the many offerings of downtown Detroit which we take great advantage of, anyone who claims there is nothing to do in Metro Detroit isn't trying. It is mostly educated professionals who live here, a bizarre number of doctors and lawyers, I'm not sure why that is. There are a lot of young families, plenty of young couples move here because they intend to start families in a few years, and the schools are good. The elementary school is pretty much within walking distance to the whole city, and there are many family services and events, the, summers are filled with kid "camps," and things like that, as well as the huge pool with a water slide, and a special kid section.

It's incredibly safe, the houses are lovely and well cared for, with beautiful tree lined streets. One thing I have noticed is that in many MI cities you don't see people out and about much in their neighborhoods, I remember feeling weird going out for an exercise walk as a teen, here that's normal, there are neighbors walking the sidewalks all day long, people walking their dogs, children in strollers, joggers, walkers, couples strolling (that's us in the evening, lol) and there are a lot of parks for such a small city.

It's also very tight knit, there are many events where neighbors can get to know each other, both adult oriented and kid friendly events, no one is left out, there is a strong sense of community pride that we love being part of. It's more expensive per square foot than many other metro Detroit cities, and yards tend to be smaller, but it's worth it for us, there are lovely houses from the 20-30s, but they tend to be the more expensive (600k and up)manor type houses in the incredibly beautiful section of the city near Woodward (the whole city is only about a mile square, with a few thousand people). In the young couple price range, the houses are mostly 40s bungalows, tudors and colonials, pretty much all are brick based which is desirable in MI, and many have been expanded to offer more living space so there is an interesting mix of large, and smaller houses, and a mix of price ranges to fit most people.

We have a 40's bungalow that was fully updated, it's magazine gorgeous, it has the 40's charm, wood floors and poured plaster walls, plus modern updates, we adore it! We both grew up in the western suburbs, Livonia, Garden City, and we are so much happier to be here, it's quite different, people are more into culture and city amenities IMO, which is how we have always been, and part of the reason we left MI for a coast, and really only came back because our parents are getting older, and we didn't want to have any regrets about not seeing family enough.

We just stumbled upon Huntington Woods when we were looking at houses in the Woodward Corridor, and found the one we loved here, I had no idea how great it was going to be, now I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in MI. I highly recommend checking out this area.

[belleislerunner]

University District, Sherwood Forest and Palmer Woods all have the housing stock you mentioned you wanted within Detroit - and are safer areas with a close proximity to 9 Mile/Ferndale for going out/walkability. Look up those neighborhoods on Trulia or Zillow.

[detshen]

Originally Posted by belleislerunner

University District, Sherwood Forest and Palmer Woods all have the housing stock you mentioned you wanted within Detroit - and are safer areas with a close proximity to 9 Mile/Ferndale for going out/walkability. Look up those neighborhoods on Trulia or Zillow.

Those areas are gorgeous if you want to live in the city, but IMO they are better for the people w/o children, the problem is schools, you would have to do private, which could be tough for a young resident. I grew up in the city and even back then the schools were terrible, and dangerous.

[cns0518]

Hello All--

My boyfriend and I are looking to move out of his smaller apartment into a 2 bedroom 2 bath house near Royal Oak, Ferndale, etc. We are looking to rent. Ideally we would love to stay under 1,500 a month, and we have a dog. We definitely need to find a bigger place to live with our life moving forward. I have been doing a lot of searching online, but I definitely feel like I need someone to help me find a place. I would LOVE to be within walking distance to Woodward Ave.

Any help is appreciated! This feed has already helped so much!