If You've Ever Been To Michigan, Help Me Out! (Houston: renting, buying a house)
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This might seem like a strange question coming from a guy that LIVES in Michigan, but I'd like to get your side on it.
If you've ever been to Michigan, what were some things that were noticeably different than Texas?
I live in South-East Michigan in a suburb of Detroit known as Clinton Township, just to let it be known.
Any help is much appreciated.
As a child I went to a friend's lakehouse in southwest Michigan a couple of times. Memory is a little blurry but the most obvious difference is HEAT! I remember being a little chilly up there when we'd take a dip in the lake, and that was in high summer. Another thing I remember, and this is kinda silly, but I remember eating the yummiest, freshest corn I had ever had in my life. I do love Texas, but I've never had corn like that since.
There's a lake in Michigan. (Texas has no natural lakes.)
It does have one, Caddo Lake in east Texas, but that poor lake's original plants and wildlife are being killed by some kind of a fern. It appeared in the lake three years ago and has expanded to cover nearly 1,000 acres. It's kind of sad and I guess they can't control it.
I grew up in Midland. Going up there next month and renting a cottage in Interlochen.
Most noticable:
Everyone recycles in MI - it's how we are raised; it's how we live. We re-use things, we repair things. People in TX think I'm crazy sometimes.
People in MI conserve. We don't waste - gas, electricty, money, food.
Winters are miserable. I hate the gray sky that lasts for weeks. Winters here are sunny for the most part.
The heat in TX is an easy trade-off for the miserable winter.
Summers in MI are much greener in color and nicely accented by red barns in the country.
You can swim in the lakes in MI. There's not much reason to be afraid...no water mocassins up there.
MI is nice. Would I live there again? No way!...too cold. But I love to visit in the summer.
I lived in Gibraltar, MI for about a year - this has been almost 6 years ago.
I loved having the 4 seasons. Fall was wonderful, the beautiful colors, the crisp Autumn air, going to an actual pumpkin patch...oh, I miss that.
I loved the winter. I remember waking up Christmas morning to fresh snow, and my son loved to go sledding. I was very impressed with how quickly they clear the roads there. I never had a problem getting around anytime in the winter.
Spring was still cold - cool. I left sometime in April, but my trip was post-ponned a couple of days due to heavy snowfall. I came back for a couple of months during the summer.
I made a trip up to Sault Ste. Marie and to Mackinac Island while living there, (in the summer, of course.)
I would absolutely, at anytime, move back to Michigan. It is a beautiful state!
I grew up in Monroe county MI and moved to Texas 2 years ago.
Things that are noticeably different to me are economic and opportunity related.
Michigan's unemployment is passing 15% and is likely higher than that in reality. I go back every year for vacation and I heard on WJR as I was driving out of Michigan 2 days ago that the UofM is predicting another 350K job losses this year alone for MI. Texas has a much lower unemployment rate and has a very diverse economy. It has companies that export products all over the world, Things have slowed here as well but I believe it's much better positioned to weather the economic downturn. The state seems to be oriented towards being business friendly, many, many large companies are based here in Dallas. It related, Telecom, Energy, major retailers, etc.
My old school system in MI is laying off and cutting back and eliminating programs. Our new high school here is opening for the 2009/2010 school year. Its a 217 million monster. The school system is adding 19 new teachers as well, they bought 500K in new band gear last year. They opened a new middle school last year. My wife was hired last year to sub teach with a 4 year degree and no prior experience in the classroom. She's a ball buster but some of the kids finally started calling her mom. My own kids mostly hide. My 16 year old son got his first job in fast food making 7.50/hour, quit 2 months later to take a part time summer job building web pages for a small start up company selling supplements and vitamins over the internet. He has no previous experience but had a reference from his HS web class teacher. My 14 year old daughter got into modeling locally in Dallas and parlayed that into a contract with a firm in Manhattan, NY. 12 new houses were sold in our neighborhood this spring. It's a new sub 80% closed out of phase 1 so these are all new houses being built from scratch. Many people are coming from out of state to buy these houses.
I'm still working in the IT industry but things are slower now. (that's why I had an extra 10 minutes to write this ;-)
We miss all the things people love about Michigan. Lakes, trees, 4 seasons, up-north, and greenery in general. We miss friends as well.
We don't miss snow, and gray skies for half of the year.
Everyone has a different tolerance to heat. In Dallas the humidity is much lower than the other large population centers in the state which makes it bearable for me. We've had two snow storms and one ice storm since I've been here. They stayed around for one day or two, and it was sunny the day after each storm. I haven't seen my snow shovel in over two years. I left it with my brother and visit it once or twice per year. I can still get to work when it's hot out. Never once had to shovel the heat out of the driveway;-)
So for us the move was all about economics and future opportunity for my kids. I realize mileage will vary for other folks but for us so far it has paid off. This has trumped all the things we really miss about Michigan. What do many of the Michigan HS and college grads do when they leave school these days? Where are they going to look for work to establish themselves? In answer to these questions 2 years ago I thought Texas would be my best bet for the foreseeable future. I knew things were going to get worse in MI before they got better, but had no idea the bottom would drop out of the auto and housing market. GM and Chrysler going bankrupt? With the exception of Chrysler who would have thunk it? Luckily we sold about 6-9 months before everything tanked.
One thing to keep in mind about moving. No matter where you are if you have a poor attitude someplace else will always be better. This was something I had to overcome the first 6-9 months of our move. It was very difficult moving, and leaving behind a circle of friends and we almost gave up, but stuck with it. Ironically one of the best friends I have here now is a Texan who moved to Michigan about 12 years ago, stayed for about 8 years and moved back about 2 years before we moved here. We worked together for about 5 years when he was in Michigan. He brought his Michigan wife with him. She left behind kids and grand kids, but travels back quite often. I ended up buying a house only about 20 minutes from where he lives. Small world indeed.
Last time I was through there (probably a decade ago or so), there was a bunch of Red Wings banners and crap in the Detroit airport. Yuck. You don't see that in TX!
I'm from Michigan and now living in Texas. What part of Texas are you moving to? I'm living in Austin where it is dry (compared to Southeast Michigan) and somewhat hilly (getting close to what Texan's call "the Hill Country". The trees are shorter, things are sooooo far apart and grass doesn't grow very well once you get a little bit west of Houston. Basically, it's not as lush as Michigan, but the vegetation that they do have is charming. Winter's are super mild, but watch out for those cold winds coming from Oklahoma. They take you by suprise on a balmy January day.
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