Is Ann Arbor really that good? (Detroit, Kalamazoo: apartments, rent, chapel)

[08grad]

Originally Posted by MI-Roger

The City has a definite liberal leaning due to the high number of students, but the surrounding areas (as well as the non-student, non-university, long time Ann Arbor families) lean just as strongly to the conservative side. Being very liberal ourselves, we have learned to be cautious when approaching topics with people we don't know well yet.

What surrounding areas?

Not one precinct within Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti city limits voted less than 75% Democrat.

Chelsea, Salilne, Dexter had less than 35% Republican support.

[jackmccullough]

I lived in Ann Arbor while I was in law school in the late 1970's and I thought it was great. I was eager to stay there, but things didn't go that way.

Then the law school flew me out to speak a few years ago. It had a lot of the same features, but it seemed more generic. It could have been Northampton, Mass., or Burlington, or one of any number of college towns that seemed pretty homogeneous.

If I'd had more time to spend there I might feel differently about it. If I were looking for a place to live in Southeastern Michigan and I could afford it I would still consider Ann Arbor.

By the way, as for politics I believe it has moved to the left. When I was there the Republican establishment was still pretty strong. There was a mayoral election in 1978 that was very close and went to the Michigan Supreme Court in a fight over whether some people who had been allowed to vote erroneously could be forced to reveal their votes.

I suspect you wouldn't see a Republican come close to being elected now.

[LPC4U]

Originally Posted by jackmccullough

the Republican establishment was still pretty strong.

"Republican establishment" nowadays seems very different than it was back in the 70's. It almost seems like a whole different species.

People complain about the weather, there I notice. What is it like? I live in the Boston area. Can it be worse than that? Thanks.

[highlanderfil]

Originally Posted by LPC4U

"Republican establishment" nowadays seems very different than it was back in the 70's. It almost seems like a whole different species.

People complain about the weather, there I notice. What is it like? I live in the Boston area. Can it be worse than that? Thanks.

No idea what Boston is like, having never lived there, but I can at least give you my perspective of a six-year Michigan resident. It's not unheard of to have freezing nightly temperatures (and an occasional snow flurry) into May, interspersed with occasional 70-degree days in February. Spring is usually pretty short. Summers are hot and humid. Winters get a couple of deep freezes (below 0 Fahrenheit at night and most mornings) that last a couple of weeks, as well as two or three really strong snowfalls (like, a foot a day or more). Sunlight can be hard to come by in the winter, sometimes for weeks on end.

[craig11152]

With respect to seeing the sun, here in SE Michigan we only see it about 50% of the time over a year. So when you think how much we see it in the summer that's how little we see it in winter.

[scorpio516]

Originally Posted by LPC4U

People complain about the weather, there I notice. What is it like? I live in the Boston area. Can it be worse than that? Thanks.

Much colder in the winter.
Not as snowy.
Much cloudier in the winter.

Much hotter in the summer.
Much more humid.
Less rain.

The weather in the midwest is worse in every measurable way than New England
Boston is in USDA zone 6b - minimum daily temperature of 0 to -5F
Ann Arbor is in zone 6a - min temp of -10F to -5F

Growing up, we had school canceled for a week due to the cold. It was down into the -20s.
In the last 6 years here, the coldest I've seen is -3F. And in 5 winters it hasn't gotten below zero.
On the other hand, the driest of these winters was two years ago (15-16) when we got only 48" of snow in Worcester. That's an average winter in Ann Arbor. The 120" we got the year before would have crippled the area

[jackmccullough]

Funny, I was going to say that winter's are not so bad in Ann Arbor, or in Michigan in general (although things get tougher as you go farther north). It gets cold, it snows. It's winter.


It is true that Boston has had a few years lately where they got even more snow than we got up here in Vermont. I suspect that the congestion and difficulty of clearing the streets make it even worse in Boston.

[craig11152]

I would say using the term "much" hotter, colder, whatever is an exaggeration when comparing Detroit (Ann Arbor) with Boston.

Phoenix is much hotter than Boston in the summer. Detroit is slightly hotter.
Minneapolis is much colder than Boston in the winter. Detroit is slightly colder.
New Orleans is much more humid, Detroit slightly more. In fact in the summer when humidity takes the biggest toll the difference between Boston and Detroit is virtually nonexistent.

[highlanderfil]

Originally Posted by craig11152

With respect to seeing the sun, here in SE Michigan we only see it about 50% of the time over a year. So when you think how much we see it in the summer that's how little we see it in winter.

That's untrue by the simple virtue of the fact that days are longer in the summer than they are in the winter. The number of hours with cloud cover might be the same, but the ratio of visible sunny vs. cloudy sky is definitely not in winter's favor.

[craig11152]

I didn't mean it literally minute for minute for crying out loud. I am 66 years old I've lived close to the 42nd parallel most of my life and I am fully aware of the summer and winter solstice as well as the spring and fall equinox. My point was simply that we see the sun a little more than half the time it's up over a year and we see it a lot more than half the time in the summer and a lot less than half the time in the winter. So I was actually agreeing with your last point. Does that work for you?