Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Michigan
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 04-27-2010, 05:18 PM
 
65 posts, read 92,499 times
Reputation: 128

Advertisements

I'm looking to move from the Gulf Coast of Florida to southeast Michigan . What's the general opinion of Monroe, Michigan? Can anyone tell me anything about Monroe that you would not find on city-data.com stats? What do you think about the people, places, food, things to do etc. I had asked earlier about a few towns in Michigan with a true downtown, as opposed to places that are nothing but subdivisions connected together by strip malls.("Fallingwater", thanks for the info on Trenton.) How about it...MONROE, YES OR NO?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 04-27-2010, 05:50 PM
 
Location: The Lakes
2,368 posts, read 5,081,864 times
Reputation: 1141
I've not spent much time in Monroe, but always stop there off the highway to fill up and eat when I head home.

My experience with the city is that it's a tiny town with a decent economy for Michigan, and some of the friendliest people you'll find anywhere
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-28-2010, 09:08 AM
 
Location: Livonia,MI
272 posts, read 721,853 times
Reputation: 196
I've been to Monroe many times. Like most places, it has it's good and bad areas. And from what I've seen, it appears Monroe is doing a lot of rebuilding. There are a lot of nice areas with new homes, and nice areas with old homes. Myself, I wouldn't hesitate to move there.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-28-2010, 09:20 AM
 
Location: Macao
16,284 posts, read 42,962,695 times
Reputation: 10231
I don't know Monroe the city at all.

But that highway between Detroit to Toledo (with Monroe right in the middle) is one of the uglist stretches of highways that Michigan has to offer. Just factory stacks everywher...pollutants everywhere. I dread having to take that little section of highway.

Sorry, don't know about Monroe the city itself at all....just based from the highway alone, it quickly became one spot of Michigan that I just don't much care for.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-28-2010, 10:53 AM
 
Location: Livonia,MI
272 posts, read 721,853 times
Reputation: 196
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiger Beer View Post
I don't know Monroe the city at all.

But that highway between Detroit to Toledo (with Monroe right in the middle) is one of the uglist stretches of highways that Michigan has to offer. Just factory stacks everywher...pollutants everywhere. I dread having to take that little section of highway.

Sorry, don't know about Monroe the city itself at all....just based from the highway alone, it quickly became one spot of Michigan that I just don't much care for.

There's a lot more to Monroe than the stretch of freeway. And, it's not as bad as it was in the past. I've been driving through the area for 30 years. Just on the freeway, and in the city itself. Both have improved significantly over the years. Monroe is a nice town, with a lot of history.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-28-2010, 10:57 AM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
30,701 posts, read 79,347,054 times
Reputation: 39409
I looked into moving to Monroe very seriously for a while. We are into old houses, and Monroe has some of the most beautiful and affordable turn of the century homes that you will find anywhere. Many of the houses are right on the river. However the river is not very clean.

Here is what we found about Monroe positive and negative. I will alternate them until I run out of one or the other.

Great friendly people

Mediochre (at best) schools. There is a Catholic school that is better, but it is not great.

Wonderful affordable housing stock.

The surrounding terrain is very flat and open, more like a plains state than other parts of Michgan.

Great water access. Right on Lake Erie and the Raisin River.

The area is known for pollution problems, espcially the lower Raisin, but much of it is cleaned up.

Really interesting history. A major battle of the war of 1812 was fought there. Custer was born and raised there.

Monroe is distant from pretty much anything except Toledo Ohio.

Lots of neat places to visit and walk to downtown.

The town is a bit run down and many buildings are empty.

A lot of very nice churches and congregations.

Did I mention that it is very flat down there?

There is a nuclear power plant very close to the City. It powers much of the Detroit area and probably employs a lot of people. I am not sure if you count that as a plus, a minus or irrelevant. Personally I did not care much, although the possibility of a leak was a tiny nagging worry, but not significant.

For us, the major pluses were the available houses, the history and the great people and churches. The big negative was schools and the distance to anything else in Michigan. The water was a plus, but balanced by the flat and treeless terrain in most of the area.

We ultimately decided to live elsewhere, but we still often go down to Monroe and poke around and usually wonder what it would be like if we had lived there. Some of those houses are off the scale on the coolness factor. (Actually since I ended up working in downtown Detroit, we would not have bene able to stay there).
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-28-2010, 11:40 AM
 
4,861 posts, read 9,252,659 times
Reputation: 7761
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiger Beer View Post
I don't know Monroe the city at all.

But that highway between Detroit to Toledo (with Monroe right in the middle) is one of the uglist stretches of highways that Michigan has to offer. Just factory stacks everywher...pollutants everywhere. I dread having to take that little section of highway.

Sorry, don't know about Monroe the city itself at all....just based from the highway alone, it quickly became one spot of Michigan that I just don't much care for.
I can tell that you haven't been through there in a couple of decades at least. Most of the area between Toledo and Monroe is wide open farm fields and farmhouses--hardly factory stacks and pollutants. And even the area between Monroe and Detroit is mostly open space and downriver communities like Flat Rock and Woodhaven. There are a few factories along that route such as the huge Ford Woodhaven plant and the Mazda plant in Flat Rock, but they are both clean looking and don't emit anything toxic, or at least they don't appear to. The only part that fits what you are describing is when you get into the northern reaches of Toledo and the southern reaches of Detroit and then, yes, there are refineries, smokestacks, etc. Other than those two sections, though, it is pretty rural or small townish.

OP, please drive the area before you believe the pp's description of it. I think that you will be pleasantly surprised at just how inaccurate it is.

Last edited by canudigit; 04-28-2010 at 12:24 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-28-2010, 11:57 AM
 
4,861 posts, read 9,252,659 times
Reputation: 7761
We are in Monroe approximately once a week because we live in a small town in Monroe Co. and therefore go to Monroe if we need something at one of the big box stores or the nice (but rather small) mall and don't feel like driving to Ann Arbor. Here are my impressions:

Friendly, down to earth people

As I mentioned, a small but decent mall that was recently completely renovated. It has stores like Sears, Elder Beerman, Target, Aeropostale, American Eagle, Bath & Body Works, Radio Shack, a record store, a book store, etc. In short, it's basically every mall in every smallish city in America.

Lowe's, Walmart, Kohl's, Petsmart, TJ Maxx, Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday, Buffalo Wild Wings, Johnny Rocket's, and all of the fast food outlets that you can think of are there.

I know nothing about the school system, but I have heard that Monroe High School is kind of rough. St. Mary's Central Catholic is a huge Catholic high school that the pp referred to. Monroe has a lot of churches, everything from Baptist to Methodist to Mormon, but it is generally a very Catholic city and was founded by French Catholics. You will find reference to the French influence everywhere, with names like Frenchtown Township, St. Antoine's Cemetery, Frenchman's Bend (a nice subdivision), St. Mary's, etc. There is a place there for nuns to live in, not sure what it's called, I'm not Catholic.

Monroe is very proud if its rich history. There is a historical museum downtown and they hold various historical events in the town throughout the year, things like The War of 1812 reenactments, fur trader days, etc. They are hugely proud of the fact that General Custer made his home there for a time because he married a woman from Monroe. His name is on everything, including a huge equestrian statue at one of the main downtown intersections. It's a little known fact (especially in Monroe, apparently, lol) that Gen. Custer was actually born in New Rumley, Ohio and spent some of his childhood in Ohio and much of his adult life away from Monroe. It doesn't matter though, Monroe has claimed him as their own.

There is a community college on the edge of town, Monroe County Community College, or just MCCC for short. It has a large student body and offers quite a few programs of study.

The River Raisin runs through the heart of Monroe and many of the nicer homes are on its banks.

Monroe County has a huge 4-H program and the county fair is the biggest 4-H fair in the state of Michigan, or at least that is what I have read. It is a great fair, held the first week of August every year, with a very nice, clean fairgrounds and a big name country act performing in the grandstand there each year.

Monroe has a decent, small hospital, Mercy Memorial of Monroe. It is also within half an hour or so of the bigger hospitals in Toledo and Detroit, so medical care in this area is pretty good compared to most.

Monroe has been hit pretty hard by this recesson, with many factories closing their doors permanently and many people out of work. However, it is still a pretty nice, safe town in which to live. It has everything from run down neighborhoods on the east side, to subdivisions with huge, new homes. Most people fall somewhere between those two extremes.

Lastly, I think that many people get the impression that Monroe is really congested and urban because of its location between Toledo and Detroit, but actually, Monroe County is very rural for the most part, with thousands of acres of cornfields and soy bean fields, farm stands, farmhouses, and small towns. I love living in Monroe County, FWIW. It's just close enough to Detroit and Ann Arbor without actually being in the city and it is well connected by freeways so that it never takes long to get to any major city in the area.

Hope this helps and you are happy wherever you end up!

Last edited by canudigit; 04-28-2010 at 12:20 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-28-2010, 04:01 PM
 
Location: The Lakes
2,368 posts, read 5,081,864 times
Reputation: 1141
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
I looked into moving to Monroe very seriously for a while. We are into old houses, and Monroe has some of the most beautiful and affordable turn of the century homes that you will find anywhere. Many of the houses are right on the river. However the river is not very clean.

Here is what we found about Monroe positive and negative. I will alternate them until I run out of one or the other.

Great friendly people

Mediochre (at best) schools. There is a Catholic school that is better, but it is not great.

Wonderful affordable housing stock.

The surrounding terrain is very flat and open, more like a plains state than other parts of Michgan.

Great water access. Right on Lake Erie and the Raisin River.

The area is known for pollution problems, espcially the lower Raisin, but much of it is cleaned up.

Really interesting history. A major battle of the war of 1812 was fought there. Custer was born and raised there.

Monroe is distant from pretty much anything except Toledo Ohio.

Lots of neat places to visit and walk to downtown.

The town is a bit run down and many buildings are empty.

A lot of very nice churches and congregations.

Did I mention that it is very flat down there?

There is a nuclear power plant very close to the City. It powers much of the Detroit area and probably employs a lot of people. I am not sure if you count that as a plus, a minus or irrelevant. Personally I did not care much, although the possibility of a leak was a tiny nagging worry, but not significant.

For us, the major pluses were the available houses, the history and the great people and churches. The big negative was schools and the distance to anything else in Michigan. The water was a plus, but balanced by the flat and treeless terrain in most of the area.

We ultimately decided to live elsewhere, but we still often go down to Monroe and poke around and usually wonder what it would be like if we had lived there. Some of those houses are off the scale on the coolness factor. (Actually since I ended up working in downtown Detroit, we would not have bene able to stay there).
I'm pretty sure that the Monroe power plant is coal-fired.

I'll post some pics in a little bit of my drive through there. Whenever I travel the freeways I always take pictures.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-28-2010, 04:10 PM
 
Location: The Lakes
2,368 posts, read 5,081,864 times
Reputation: 1141


The old welcome sign, entering the state and county!

Edit: This seems to be the only one I can find :S I had 20 or 30 notable photos from Monroe Co.

I'll do some more looking, and try and take some on Friday/Saturday/Sunday too!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Michigan
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top