The Upper Peninsula Has Been Found! (Detroit, Grand Rapids: environment, property taxes, income)

[GonnaBeAYooper]

Originally Posted by uplost

Any one who buys property in the up is asking for a butt reaming.
You may as well invest in one of the old copper mine stocks.
The whole country is going in the toilet, the up is not exempt from the lower michigan troubles.

I know of many people in the up where I used to hunt by land o lakes that live in the woods and have sightings of UFOs, not main stream people and they like it.
but it is not going to be a place worth investing in.
If you want to live off the grid and burn wood for heat and cooking shoot deer and live off the land, a great place.
If you are looking for a progresive place? You would be better off on the Moon.
I know of so many people that moved to lower michigan during the good times for work.
Unless you sell pasties or smoked fish, there is not much to do.
I guess you could always steal wood of fed. land and sell it to the idiots stupid enough to move there.
The UP a nice place to visit but no one in the main stram would want to live there.

baystater, this is the post I was referring to when I said; Well, that's one less person to inhabit a beautiful place. More room for us.

[iva]

Bluefly...
I agree. Thanks for the post.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by uplost

I know of many people in the up where I used to hunt by land o lakes that live in the woods and have sightings of UFOs, not main stream people and they like it.
but it is not going to be a place worth investing in.
If you want to live off the grid and burn wood for heat and cooking shoot deer and live off the land, a great place.
If you are looking for a progresive place? You would be better off on the Moon.
I know of so many people that moved to lower michigan during the good times for work.
Unless you sell pasties or smoked fish, there is not much to do.
I guess you could always steal wood of fed. land and sell it to the idiots stupid enough to move there.
The UP a nice place to visit but no one in the main stram would want to live there.

Now that would make it more appealing to me than those who claim it's very sophisticated and progressive there.

I think that is the beauty of the UP -- that there are still people who can survive with wood stoves, not having a Walmart next door to them, or having to attend the opera every weekend.

Kind of cliche but "it is what it is" and what's wrong with that? Which means it's not for everybody but special in it's own way.

[bryan61]

I Canoe down the Fox river at least once most summers. Theres a lake named after my great great grand father in the Hiawatha national forest. Pictured rocks is a yearly visit and my wife became a naturalized citizen there a few years ago.

I dont think these companies are talking about fully blown development in the form of urban sprawl, you have to have urban in order to have sprawl and the UP has neither. Instead they seem to be cherry picking mostly waterfront properties from their inventories and selling them to the rich folk who want to spend summer and vacations up here. Im quite sure these folk dont want to be spending their winters in the UP unless they like putting several hundred miles a day on their snowmobiles.

To me quality of life in the US will be determined by to factors, environment and economy. The environment in the UP is perfect, pristine even. The economic situation for alot of people is deplorable to the point that it damn near completely off sets the environment. Ive spent most of my life here but now that the wife has graduated with her BS in accounting and accepted a job in a nearby midwestern city we will be leaving. I believe the Economic and environmental trade off will be an overall positive for our family. I'd love to stay in the UP but I just cant justify it with a young and growing family and our potential to make so much more money in another palce

[Great Lakes Pirate]

Any development -- even 800 summer residences like Plum Creek seeks to develop in Maine -- would really have negligible economic or enviornmental impacts (positive or negative) on the region.

The real impact will be cultural. Let me take a crack at explaining why:

Most Yoopers, particularly on the western end, are of Scandanavian descent. Historically and culturally (and even today) Sweden and Finland practice (and legally uphold) the practice of allenmansratt -- google it, and you'll come up with "everyman's right". In short, everyman has the "freedom to roam" across the land (without impacting it). Private land tracts are available in Scandanavia to "roam", to hike, camp, pick-berries, bicycle, etc.

This concept was brought to the UP by Scandanavian immigrants. Practiced for generations - with minimal interference from the paper and timber land-owners -- "freedom to roam" is considered a birth-right to UP residents and visitors.

The threat, or percieved threat, isn't that the waters will be polluted or wildlife habitats disturbed -- but rather, access may be denied to the UP's most scenic and undistrubed areas; prime fishing holes will be fenced off, trails will be gated, and hunting lands posted "no trespassing".

Meanwhile, the developers (and the subsequent residents of these developments) will be looking at 2.5 centuries British and American concepts of land ownership. E.g., our 5th Amendment states "[no person shall] . . .be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation".

If a local or state agency would try to assure allenmanscratt preservation of private lands (that is, for public use) without compensation that would be -- under US law -- a "taking".

[fumi]

why would any one want to live in the up?
I can not imagin anyone wanting to live there on a permanant basis.
you would have to mail order your milk for gods sake.

[Great Lakes Pirate]

Originally Posted by fumi

why would any one want to live in the up?
I can not imagin anyone wanting to live there on a permanant basis.
you would have to mail order your milk for gods sake.

this perception, more than anything else, curtails any substantive development of the UP

[Bydand]

Originally Posted by fumi

why would any one want to live in the up?
I can not imagin anyone wanting to live there on a permanant basis.
you would have to mail order your milk for gods sake.

Only in the wintertime when the milk freezes solid in the udders. Come Spring though and all that frozen milk thaws and there is an overabundance and it sells for 2 cents a gallon. Paul Bunyan first noticed this phenomenon while wintering over with Babe his Ox.



There are some people who will NEVER understand the UP, let alone open their minds and actually take a real look at it. I feel sorry for those people really, the UP is the only place I have ever lived that I miss every single day. Fine people, great place to raise a family, a real sense of community that is lacking even most places downstate. I am not there now, not because of economics, or any other negative factors of the UP, but because my wife has poor circulation in her hands and feet and the real cold temps are dangerous for her. The blood vessels clamp shut and it is very hard to get them to warm back up and allow circulation again to the extremities. If not for that simple reason, we would be there right now.

[bryan61]

My back porch extends the width of my house. Earlier today upon entering I heard a drip, drip, drip. From years past I knew what it was. With all of the snow we've been getting and now the mild temps and rain, an ice barrier builds up on the edge of my roof. This ice traps water that would normally run off and it backs up and leaks into my porch. So about twice a year I have to go up on the roof and shovel the snow and carefully carve a channel through the ice to allow run off.

The UP

eh

Of course the view of Little Bay de Noc is spectacular with all the ice shacks and snowmobiles cruising around

[us2indaup]

Originally Posted by bryan61

So about twice a year I have to go up on the roof and shovel the snow and carefully carve a channel through the ice to allow run off.

I've lived up here for so long I forget that the phrase "I have to shovel my roof" would sound odd to anyone not from here! But when I first moved up here, I didn't know what a roof rake was or what a snow scoop was! Hard to believe I could have been so ingorant!