[Seagl7]

We are looking for a new house in the Detroit area due to the fact our family is outgrowing our current one. We have considered towns like Royal Oak, Berkley, and Troy.We recently have been giving serious thought to Grosse Pointe Woods. We really do not know a whole lot about the Pointes, but have been attracted to the stock of nice homes that are listing at what seems to be bargain prices. How is the Grosse Pointe area holding up in this depressed housing market? Would it still be a good place to raise children?

[animatedmartian]

Short answer: Yes.

I'm unfamiliar with the schools, but I ride my bike through the area and it's pretty alright considering how hard the surrounding metro has been hit.

[scolls]

Grosse Pointe schools are some of the best in the state. People will tell you Grosse Pointe South is better than North because North has black kids from Harper Woods going there. Grosse Pointe has some of the lowest crime in the state. Detroit has been bad around the Pointes since the 80's and it still hasn't effected crime. The Pointes have great housing, parks and a nice downtown area. There's no reason not to move there.

[urbanliving99]

I think the housing stock in Grosse Pointe is preferrable to anywhere in Metro Detroit. And the fact it's somewhat isolated actually would seem (from an outside perspective) to give it more of a sense of community as contrasted with a Troy/Berkley which all blends into the next town.

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by scolls

Grosse Pointe schools are some of the best in the state. People will tell you Grosse Pointe South is better than North because North has black kids from Harper Woods going there. Grosse Pointe has some of the lowest crime in the state. Detroit has been bad around the Pointes since the 80's and it still hasn't effected crime. The Pointes have great housing, parks and a nice downtown area. There's no reason not to move there.

Incorrect. People will tell you that Grosse Point south is better becuase it is better in most ways. It has nothing to do with having or not having black kids. It has to do with the performance of students and graduates, test scores, college matriculation rates, scholarhips earned, community involvment, unusually strong programs in many activities and sports, AP class success rates, higher level college admissions. . . . The normal things that are used to evaluate schools.

While Grosse Pointe South is one of the best in the state I think you have go go to the mid point at least on most lists to find North. That is just a simple fact, it is not prejudice or spin, it is just how the schools compare when evalutated by semi objective criteria.

There is a lot more to evaluating a school for your particular student than semi objective criteria however. Many student will thrive in a mediochre school and founder in a more competitive school.

Back to the OP The grosse pointes are terrific places to live. Like anywhere else, they have their positivies and negatives. Like most places, what you think of it will depend on the first twenty to fifty people that you encounter and your attitude and what are are expecting to find there. If you are looking for snobbery, you will find it. If you expect and look for prejudice, that is what you will find. If you expect and look for nice people living a really terrific community with lots of neat ameneties - that is what you will find. Yes it is still a great place to raise children. However the housing market is not holding up any better than anywhere else. If you buy there, plan to stay.

There are few places that are better. There are few places that are even equal unless you are into cookie cutter enclaves and new McMansions or malls and strip malls.

A lot depends on what you want. It is not a rural place. It is definitely subrubia. It is not a place for those who like mall or depeartment store shopping nearby. It is not a good place for those who fear Detroit or have extreme prejudice. It is a very very nice upscale family oriented subrub that is very close to the City and had has a nice collection of older (non-cookie cutter) homes. If Novi Canton or Troy are your ideal - G.P. might not be. If open and natural places like Grosse Ile or Lyon/Northville twp are your ideal, G.P. may not be quite right. If you like dense neighborhoods of nice older houses, nice parks, great community identity and amenties and a nearby city. It may well be perfect.

We studied lots of communities before choosing one and like to stay in touch with our favorites. The Grosse Pointes are certinaly up there.

If you want to consider other areas with nice housing (not cookie cutter) awesome schools, and some nice community identity and ameneties, look at Grosse Ile, Northville, Plymouth, Franklin, and maybe South Lyon. With the Grosse Pointes, those are IMO the best areas for families. I would also incllude the Ann arbor area communities (Chelsea, Dexter, Tecumseh, Saline) if you are going out that far.

Other places offer some of the things that these offer, but I cannot think of any other that offer the outstanding combination of schools, community, housing, safety, and ameneties.

Rochester is really neat too but far away.

Nice thing about grosse Pointses is you are reasonably close to lots of fun places like Detroit (very close), Royal Oak, Ferndale, and to lots of popular places in North Oakland County, but you are still in a nice, clean fmaily oriented town. It is hard to beat, but pretty much all of the areas mentioned are hard to beat. Not too many people realize what an unusually great metro area we have here.

Pick G.P. with confindence or consider the other areas too. You really cannot go wrong.

[joejoya2]

Grosse Pointe is very nice you'll like it,used to live there before I moved to bloomfield, however the taxes and very high and there's very little nation chain resturants like, pf chang or maggiano, and there's big box store which is sort of annoying.

[scolls]

The North schools rate lower in test scores because you have a lot of black families moving into Harper Woods whose kids were previously enrolled in Detroit Public Schools who bring the scores down. Even with that said, North still rates highly in test scores. I used to live in North's school district. I know about their community involvement.

[RallieJ]

if you have curious kids grosse pointe is too close to detroit, look at homes in troy

[TheProf]

Scolls, not every boogie man in society has a black face on it.

[scolls]

Originally Posted by TheProf

Scolls, not every boogie man in society has a black face on it.

That was exactly my point. Grosse Pointe North gets a bad rap when it's run by the same people who run Grosse Pointe South. The only difference between North and South is North has more black students from Harper Woods and makes people think it's a worse school. I lived in Harper Woods in the North district. If I thought black people were a boogie man I wouldn't have moved to Harper Woods.