First apartment: Novi/Northville or Troy/Birmingham/Royal Oak? (Detroit: apartments, homes)

[Turbo_Man]

Hi everyone! I'm in my mid 20s, will be graduating from college this Spring, and will be working in Dearborn starting in the summer. I'm looking to move out into my first apartment in one of these areas and would love to hear your experiences and advice about where to live.

I currently live around Grand Blanc and am used to driving to Rochester/Bloomfield Hills for work/school so a bit of a commute doesn't bother me. I would however like to live closer to work than my current commute is. Here's the thing about location: I'd consider somewhere closer to Dearborn, but my girlfriend lives in the Lake Fenton area and I'll be getting together and doing stuff with her multiple times a week, so I'm trying to strike a good balance for distance to both places. Novi seems to be about the perfect balance of drive-time, I'm just not familiar with the area.

While going to school, I've grown pretty fond of the Rochester/Troy area, but I feel like Rochester is just a little too far of a distance driving to work everyday. I'm not too worried about nightlife in the typical sense of the word, but one thing that I would like is having a good amount of events, good restaurants, or cool or fun places to go and explore with my girlfriend in a relatively close proximity when she's over at my place. That's one thing I like about the Troy-ish area is that within 10-15 minutes there are a lot of things to do and cool places to go. I'm not familiar with the Novi/Northville area at all so I'd love to hear how it would compare in this way.

Basically, what I'm thinking for my requirements and preferences are something like this:

- Safe, nice area
- Ideally <30 minutes to work in Dearborn, but 35 could be doable (looking at the "without traffic" times on Google Maps since that's easier to compare than comparing rush hours, though less congested commutes are better of course)
- Ideally <45 minutes to my girlfriend in the Lake Fenton area. 50ish minutes might be doable if everything else was great, but the shorter the better.
- Relatively close proximity to fun things to do with my girlfriend (see above)
- Rent: I'd love to keep it under $1000 for a 2 bedroom apartment, but $1200 might be doable if need be.


Also, if anyone has any experiences comparing the typical morning/evening commutes from Novi->Dearborn and Troy/Royal Oak->Dearborn, that would be great to hear.

I think that's about it! I really appreciate any thoughts or experiences you guys have regarding this decision. It will help me out a lot!

[DTWflyer]

Traffic to/from Dearborn from points north and west all funnels down the Southfield Freeway. In the morning it isn't too bad but does slow down on the Southfield from about McNichols to I-96. Traffic is at its worst from about 7-9am, with peak between about 7:30-8:30am.

In the afternoons its slow headed north from Dearborn up to I-96, then gets better, but Southfield Rd gets pretty backed up north of M-10. Peak rush hour is 4-6:30pm, with peak from about 5-6pm.

Many people in Dearborn live in Plmymouth Novi, Northville, Farmington, using I-96 to M-39 Southfield. Plenty others live in Royal Oak, Berkley and the Woodward corridor. Troy, the farther east and north you go gets more difficult. When I was dating my now wife she lived in Rochester and I hated when I occasionally did the Rochester to Dearborn commute, it was awful, easily an hour during rush hour.

The communte from Royal Oak, Birmingham, Berkley to Dearborn isn't bad at all. That said, many of the engineers out there come in early and leave early. Not uncommon for many people to come in between 6-6:30am and leave around 3-3:30pm and avoid all the traffic.

[Arthur Digby Sellers]

I live in Novi and commute to Dearborn. During rush hour, it takes me approximately 40-45 minutes to get to work in the morning (leaving around 7am) and around 50 minutes to get home (leaving the office around 4:45). As DTW mentioned, many Ford employees leave early to beat the rush. In addition to that, the Rouge factory workers's shift ends around 3:30 which clogs up the Southfield early. I usually take Greenfield north to Warren to avoid the backup on the Southfield.

Plymouth or Northville would put you much closer the 30-35 minute window, since both are south of Novi. Once you get out to the western burbs via 96, 275 north gets pretty clogged up. Plymouth would let you avoid all of that.

[Turbo_Man]

Thanks guys, I'm definitely getting a better feel for how the commutes are. Sounds like either are at least a little shorter than I'm doing now so that's good. So if I commuted from Troy, a bit north of Big Beaver, would the best route in typical rush hour be 75 --> 94, or would it be better to take surface roads down to the Southfield Freeway? I take 75 every day but Square Lake is the furthest south I usually go on it, so I'm not sure how bad the traffic gets closer to Detroit.

Also if possible, I'd like a little more feedback on what the Novi/Northville area is like compared to some areas I'm more familiar with, like Rochester or Troy (especially in regards to having fun things to do on dates with my girlfriend). Do you enjoy living there? What do you like about it? What don't you like about it? Thanks a lot!

[DTWflyer]

75 to 94 Troy to Dearborn is kind of a miserable commute. 75 backs-up pretty back in the mornings through Troy/Royal Oak up to the I-696 interchange and then again leading up to I-94. Its worse in the afternoons trying to go from I-94 on to I-75 and then I-75 is all backed-up up to I-696 in the afternoons. I would strongly avoid this unless you are working hours where you avoid peak rush-hour.

I would give it a few dry-runs to see what your tolerance level is for the commute before you commit.
Frankly, there isn't a whole lot that Troy offers that you couldn't find in Novi or the I-275 corridor.

I mean you need to prioritze whats important. Being closer to work for a commute that you do 5 days a week or nearby things that you occasionally do on the weekends. And what are those things?? restaurants, bars, parks, trails, metroparks, lakes, gyms, sporting events, downtown detroit?

[Turbo_Man]

It isn't so much about being near things I would more occasionally do so much as it is about getting a feel for the area and wanting to live somewhere that I like the atmosphere of. I don't want to live in a big city downtown, but I'd like a decent amount of things somewhat close by. We're planning on checking out Novi, Northville, Plymouth, etc. soon but I was hoping someone who lived in or near them could shed some more light on what the cities are like. I've read several other threads where people talk in detail describing different cities, amenities available, level and quality of housing/apartments available, even the history of them, yet the areas I'm looking into are relatively rarely brought up in this way.

For "things to do" I'm thinking more restaurants, parks, trails, community events, any random fun places like cider mills or orchards, etc.

[MS313]

Originally Posted by Turbo_Man

It isn't so much about being near things I would more occasionally do so much as it is about getting a feel for the area and wanting to live somewhere that I like the atmosphere of. I don't want to live in a big city downtown, but I'd like a decent amount of things somewhat close by. We're planning on checking out Novi, Northville, Plymouth, etc. soon but I was hoping someone who lived in or near them could shed some more light on what the cities are like. I've read several other threads where people talk in detail describing different cities, amenities available, level and quality of housing/apartments available, even the history of them, yet the areas I'm looking into are relatively rarely brought up in this way.

For "things to do" I'm thinking more restaurants, parks, trails, community events, any random fun places like cider mills or orchards, etc.

The poster "Aurther" is the only poster on this forum that lives in Novi I believe. He could probably tell you all you want to know about the Novi (NW suburbs) area.

[belleislerunner]

Why don't you just live in Dearborn - there's every amenity known to man, gyms, malls, restaurants, ice hockey rinks etc and then you have a 10 minute commute to work. You can either do the West Dearborn area if you want a little more "downtown Royal Oak" feel off Michigan Ave or Ford Road/Southfield fwy if you want a more suburban feel. You're then a 15 minute commute to Royal Oak, or Downtown/Midtown for night hopping. You're not going to do that each night. Leave the GF commute for the weekends. Kudos on the new gig!

[Arthur Digby Sellers]

Novi and Northville nice, upscale cities that tend to be more family-oriented, though there are plenty of fun things for people without kids to do in both. The housing is your typical 1970s to current subdivisions with a small part of Northville (around downtown) having early 20th century homes. Northville has a great downtown with lots of great restaurants, shops and bars. A new brewery on Center Street just opened up that seems to be very popular. Novi does not have a downtown but has plenty of great restaurants as well. With the large Asian population in Novi, you'll find some of the best Asian restaurants in the metro area there. Of course there is 12 Oaks and every shopping need you can imagine. As far as nightlife goes, Novi probably has more of the "hot spots" between the Fountain Walk area and a lot of popular bars along Grand River. There is a new brewery - Ascension - on Grand River and a mega-beer bar down the street from it that is similar to Hop Cat called Michigan Brewing Company.

There are plenty of outdoor activities in the area. Just north of Novi is Walled Lake with beach access, and you can get to all of the Oakland County lakes just north of there. Kensington is a brief 10-15 minute drive to the west. Maybury is a massive park in Northville and Hines runs into Northville as well.

The two cities really bleed into each other. We do a lot of shopping and eating out in Northville which is only about a 5 minute drive from our house, and Northville folks do a lot in Novi as well. You'll get more bang for your buck in Novi, housing wise, though it isn't cheap. But Northville housing is extremely expensive.

[DTWflyer]

Novi, Northville, Plymouth, Canton, Farmington despite different municipal boundaries all kind of for a natural grouping together on the I-275 corridor and offer all of the housing, retail, dining, entertainment, and recreational opportunities one could would desire.

Troy, Birmingham, Rochester and even into Royal Oak also form a natural grouping as well.

You kind of tend to bounce between each of the respective cities/suburbs depending on what you need and really don't have a huge need to go between the two areas to find anything.

What I'm saying is you can kind everything you desire in either area.
The I-275 corridor is probably going to lend itself a better commute to/from Dearborn than Troy or Rochester.

Let's be honest here though, how many times during the work week are you really going to be able to see your girlfriend if she is in Fenton and you work in Dearborn. Even meeting halfway is a good 30-45 minute trip each way for one of you out of the way. When I was dating my wife I lived in Royal Oak and she lived in Rochester and even then we were lucky to meet-up one night a week. Ours was primarily a weekends only relationship until we moved in together and we only lived 12 miles apart. I got other stuff done during the week so we could spend our weekends together.