[bleppard]

Hands down Grand Rapids is the best area in MI. Big enough to have a modest downtown nightlife, all the shopping you want, and small enough to be cheap to live and no traffic. Other large cities tend to be "college towns" (Ann Arbor or Lansing), or are depressed economically. Smaller towns tend to be too small to have anything going on socially. If you're white collar, GR can be a great place to find a job, it may be much more difficult if you work in a blue collar industry.

[Ivycreeping]

Originally Posted by electric_lady

Depending on your industry, jobs are hard to find right now, so be aware of that. Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids are doing well.

I beg to differ...I live in Kalamazoo, and I can't find a part time job, and it's not a whole lot different for everyone else. Yeah, it's better than last winter, but it's not good.

To the original poster, asking where to live in Michigan is a very loaded question. I mean, you need to give a lot more information about your lifestyle.

If you have money, the South East side is better...it's also better if you enjoy civilization, or if you need a job.

If you like being secluded, willing to work a menial job, love snow, need a cheap place to live, and/or are a holy roller, the South West side of Michigan would be better. Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, and Battle Creek are like little cities that just fell from the sky in the middle of no-where, so if you like to occasionally break-free and take-off to get a change of scenery, you're screwed in South West Michigan.

Just rule-out Lansing right now.

Ann Arbor is really trendy, young, full of public transportation and diversity.

Royal Oak is also trendy and young, has a lot of gay people (which is awesome ), diverse, close to Detroit, etc., but expensive. More edgy would be Madison Heights, or other towns around that area. Utica and Warren are pretty cool, too, but it's less culture and more traffic. I like it over there.

Detroit is a death-sentence...but, others may beg to differ. I'd NEVER live in Detroit, but it's fun to party there. Flint isn't much better, and the party scene definitely isn't.

Rochester Hills and Troy are uppity, high-class neighborhoods. Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, and Grosse Pointe (sp?) are even worse. But, if you don't have homicidal tendencies toward rich snobs and lots of money, you'd do well there.

Lake Orion, Oxford, Clarkston, Waterford, and Auburn Hills are very suburban and chill, but there are people around and places to go. From what I know of Grand Blanc, it's pretty much the same way.

Pontiac is pretty yucky.

Dearborn is cool, but if you pass the invisible line into the edge of Detroit, you're screwed.

Down River (it's an area, not a town) is pretty edgy, but up and coming.

Hope this helped.

[100%Michigan]

I would reccomand:
East Lansing, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor...

[arrowfan]

30 minutes east of Grand Rapids you have Lowell and Saranac. Trust me these are two very safe communtities with very friendly people, lots of communtiy activiteis. Lowell has a population of 5000 and still feels like a small community. The schools are great and most of my kid's teachers were my teacher's. Alto is 11 mins south of Lowell and a very small community. Lowell rarely (2 maybe 3 times in the last year) makes the news for crime. Hopes this helps!

[burgler09]

I'd say forest hills/ada is the way to go if you want a family environment. I went to kenowa hills high school and had a horrible experience with a terrible vice principal and mainly bad teachers. I'd recommend just outside of Grand Rapids in ada... the nice cities in the detroit area are going to be very expensive for anything nice, and if you get too close to detroit.. expect to get robbed or killed... detroit is horrible and thats not an exaggeration.

[Ivycreeping]

Originally Posted by burgler09

if you get too close to detroit.. expect to get robbed or killed... detroit is horrible and thats not an exaggeration.

Word. Anyone who refuses that notion is a fool -- Detroit is so dangerous, and it's no lie. Just look at all of the abandoned warehouses...if it were a desirable place to live, there wouldn't be all of that wasted space.

[Great Lakes Pirate]

GLP's opinionated top 10 list:

1. Ann Arbor
2. Royal Oak
3. Grand Haven
4. Traverse City
5. Charlevoix
6. East Lansing/Okemos
7. Birmingham/Bloomfield Hills
8. Houghton
9. Kalamazoo/Portage
10 Brighton/Milford

[deslok]

Ann Arbor Michigan, Clawson, Troy, Royal Oak, and Detroit. The action is east, not west.

[suydam]

GENERAL ADVICE:
The best place for you to move is the place you get a job. Don't just move here. Find a job first and you'll be fine.

MY EXPERIENCE:
I lived in Metro-Detroit for 18 years, Kalamazoo for 10 years and I've spent the last 3 years in Grand Rapids. Barring a transfer we won't be leaving Grand Rapids any time soon. This is a great city, with actual growth in both the core and the 'burbs. There's a staggering amount of downtown construction going on (over $1 billion in downtown construction in the past few years, with no signs of a slowdown on that front), and a burgeoning nightlife and restaurant scene that's actually pretty impressive for the relatively small size of the metro area.

In total, GR/Holland/Muskegon metro area has over 1,000,000 people now, so yeah, it's smaller than Detroit but it's not exactly podunk.

Having lived in Metro-D for a while, and then sampled the West Michigan lifestyle, you couldn't pay me to return to Detroit.

[deslok]

Definately not Holland.