What's Canton like?

[ma4t]

Canton is great, but they now have an IKEA store, so if you are going South on 275 or trying to take the same exit as all the shoppers, you're in for a long wait. It's not California traffic by any means, but it's a lot more crowded than any other exit I remember in Michigan.

I have a lot of friends under 30 who live in Canton. They all love it.

Safety A+
Schools A+
Prices A-
Restaurants A


MA4T

[M TYPE X]

Ford Road traffic is awful, even though the retail strip really isn't that dense. The Ann Arbor Road exit is my favorite.

[4WD Greg]

Canton is like 36 square miles of subdivisions, stripmalls, asphalt pavement, and traffic jams. I don't like the area, although a lot of people apparently do, considering the whole area was a cornfield 30 years ago.

[dkf747]

Originally Posted by 4WD Greg

Canton is like 36 square miles of subdivisions, stripmalls, asphalt pavement, and traffic jams. I don't like the area, although a lot of people apparently do, considering the whole area was a cornfield 30 years ago.

No it wasn't cornfields. I do miss 30 years ago there though. I spent a lot of time in Canton, but grew up in Westland.

[Lola Granola]

Originally Posted by and the

You sure about that?

I tried to rep you for that, but I need to spread the love. ;-)


We lived for 8 years in Canton, and I basically concur with the other comments. A few additional points... stay north. The southern edge (near MI Ave.) is not good. Even if you don't have kids, pay attention to the school district. It WILL affect your ability to resell... Willow Run (which is a HORRIBLE district) runs into Canton in the SW, Van Buren Schools in the south, and Wayne Westland in the E/SE. Make sure you are in the Plymouth/Canton district.

Agree also with the above on diversity. There are a LOT of mixed race couples, a lot of Pakastani, a good amount of Asian (Japanese particularly). There's also a fair amount of subsidized housing, so you do get lower socio-economic status in the area. That affects the schools, but typically you need to talk to local high school students or cops to find out what is happening in the schools. It may be lilly-white compared to other parts of the country, but it is quite diverse for SE MI.

Traffic in some areas is just awful... there has been steady growth, and little in the way of infrastructure improvement. When we were there, the sewer system was becoming an issue. Don't know if they've addressed that or not.

Like most local governments, the powers that be in Canton tend towards the incompetent. One election, just for fun, I collected all the campaign literature from the local politicians and highlighted all the idiotic comments about how the community needed more soccor fields. This at a time when traffic was horrendous due to failure to improve the infrastructure, the sewer system was failing from the growth, there had been some "incidents" in the schools that really should have been addressed, farmers were still trying to hold onto their land and fighting being forced out via assessors changing the use rating of the land and jacking up their assessments... We've been gone for a little over 7 years, so I don't know how much has changed since with these issues. Keep in mind, ALL areas have problems... I just always go a kick out of the local politicians campaigning on a "soccor field" platform!

Overall, it is a pleasant place to live. You must like suburbia, though, because it is pretty much a bedroom community.

I don't know where you're moving from, but one thing that shocked me when I moved out of MI was that strip malls generally are fully occupied in other places. I had been accustomed to malls only having half the stores filled. And we left before things got bad... I can't imagine what it's like now. Make sure you have a job lined up *before* you move.

[Lola Granola]

Originally Posted by and the

Plymouth-Canton and Plymouth-Salem are probably the best public schools in the area unless you want to go a little farther out to Ann Arbor.

I'm pretty sure Northville ranks higher; I thought Novi did also. South Lyon is comparable.