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It seems as though you're a bit unfamiliar with one thing - the "outdoors" in far SE Michigan is very little like the "outdoors" in NW Michigan. Traverse City is a beautiful area by anyone's standards. Gorgeous Lake Michigan beaches and dunes, nautical culture, thick woods and some hills to the east. Near Ann Arbor, in addition to the fact that the nature there is far more densely packed with people, you're talking flat farmland, for the most part.
So, if the nature portion is as important as you've stated, Traverse City all the way - unless Grand Rapids works for you. I'd probably suggest land NW of GR.
That's just too remote and unpopulated for it to be practical for us. It should at least be a small, maybe medium metro population of 200K-1M.
Of your choices, that would count out Traverse City. Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo are the only two cities in West Michigan with 200,000+ metropolitan areas. Lansing is right in the middle with close to 500,000 in its metro as well as literally being in the middle of Michigan (well, at least the southern middle). But again, it's an inland city and is mostly flat all around. Though on the plus side, not as much snow as TC or GR.
Without compromising on any of your preferences, your options are increasingly limited.
If you can handle a region 200k, you can handle Traverse City. Having experienced Traverse City many times I don't get these comments about it being that small. I get Isolated sure, but it's airport handles more passenger traffic than Kalamazoo or South Bend, and not much less than Lansing. It has the same retail offerings as Lansing, and it's restaurant scene is consistently rated high in the midwest. So much so that you have people like Mario Batali raving about it.
It has some of the strongest population numbers in Michigan, and a stronger economy than it's being given credit for. The way people talk about it being a tourist town you'd think that there were a couple gift shops and roadside motels. But that's so disingenuous. Traverse is a tourist town the way Colorado ski resorts are tourist towns. You're talking big named seasonal residents and low rise condo developments. It's seasonal resident population surges in the summer and it's even bigger.
When you look on paper and you see 15k city population that's so misleading. It's an immediate urbanized are of over 70k people and a full time resident resident population of 170k in the Grand Traverse Bay region.
Ironically I had this little chart sitting on my computer for something else. Even with population numbers at this level, the retail and restaurant offerings of Traverse City bat at a level of a metro area 2-3x its size.
edit: if you add Charlevoix and Emmet Counties in you're looking at a growth rate over 2.5% and a population over 230k
If you can handle a region 200k, you can handle Traverse City. Having experienced Traverse City many times I don't get these comments about it being that small. I get Isolated sure, but it's airport handles more passenger traffic than Kalamazoo or South Bend, and not much less than Lansing. It has the same retail offerings as Lansing, and it's restaurant scene is consistently rated high in the midwest. So much so that you have people like Mario Batali raving about it.
Eh, not really. Traverse City is small and isolated.
The entire Grand Traverse County has 85,000 residents. I have no idea what you're saying with the airport passenger traffic, which has nothing to do with city size. Traverse City doesn't have remotely the same retail offerings as a Lansing, and the restaurant scene is pretty limited.
Mario Batali, BTW, doesn't live in Traverse City. He has a cottage 40 miles away where he spends a few weeks every year. Obviously he isn't going to bad-mouth his family cottage, where they have been going for generations, but I don't think anyone would call TC a culinary mecca. It's great for outdoorsy types and retirees, but hardly some happening city.
Eh, not really. Traverse City is small and isolated.
The entire Grand Traverse County has 85,000 residents. I have no idea what you're saying with the airport passenger traffic, which has nothing to do with city size. Traverse City doesn't have remotely the same retail offerings as a Lansing, and the restaurant scene is pretty limited.
Mario Batali, BTW, doesn't live in Traverse City. He has a cottage 40 miles away where he spends a few weeks every year. Obviously he isn't going to bad-mouth his family cottage, where they have been going for generations, but I don't think anyone would call TC a culinary mecca. It's great for outdoorsy types and retirees, but hardly some happening city.
You hardly have any idea what you're talking about. Traverse City is a major tourist destination and generates more economic revenue from tourism than does Lansing. Plus for Lansing, since it's the state capitol, most of that tourism is skewed from business travel.
Either way, Traverse City gets far more visitors (3 million per year, in fact) than what can be judged from city size and therefore actually has more retail than otherwise would be there in a non-touristy town of the same size. TC feels far from sparsely populated because there's always people around even if they're not from the area.
I used to live in Michigan and in my opinion its no contest. Traverse City is in one of the nicest areas in the entire Midwest. The small city has everything you would need and its close to so much scenic beauty and of course the beaches of Lake Michigan. Sleeping bear sand dunes is nearby as well. You really could call it a cold weather paradise, its beauty is hard to overstate. I also think the OP will not find Ann Arbor to be noticeably nicer in the winter like he/she thinks. Ann Arbor often has no snow in the winter, its brown and dead, and yes it can be grey. Traverse city will almost always have snow on the ground, and of course it will be grey as well. Still the snow covered environment is pretty there. Michigan has a lot of clouds in the winter, no way to avoid this. I am not saying Ann Arbor is a bad place, on the contrary it is a pretty nice city compared with some of Michigans other cities. (Detroit, Flint, Saginaw) Ann Arbor is bigger, and for better or worse it has the college. However the country side around it is very plain, nothing special. If the OP is looking for outdoor living, again this is a no brainer. Traverse City hands down.
Eh, not really. Traverse City is small and isolated.
The entire Grand Traverse County has 85,000 residents. I have no idea what you're saying with the airport passenger traffic, which has nothing to do with city size. Traverse City doesn't have remotely the same retail offerings as a Lansing, and the restaurant scene is pretty limited.
The urbanized area of Traverse City overflows into both Leelenau and Antrim Counties. In fact part of the city itself is in Leelenau. It also does have the same retail offerings as Lansing. It doesn't have Gucci and Nordstrom, but neither does Lansing. However if you look at the mall and other retail centers in Traverse, they are the same as the half million person Lansing market.
You should probably split the difference and look into Grand Rapids honestly. It hits all of your points, with the exception of having Trader Joes and Whole Foods (Though that is scheduled to change). There are other organic stores in the area, plenty of farm to table restaurants, and a few really awesome farmers markets. It's strongest point is going to prosperous economy and growing population. It has one of the highest growth rates in the nation for people with Bachelors degrees or higher.
If you don't mind smaller cities look deeper into Traverse City, it's the Anchor of a 200k micropolitan area which puts it right around the size of Burlington Vermont. It's not considered a metropolitan area because it doesn't have a core city of 50k or more, but it's definitely an urban area. Outside of that its airport serves about 400k passengers a year which makes it busier than some mid sized metro areas. Also its retail offerings are also on par with a medium size metro area and in the summertime (which is phenomenal in Michigan) it's population swells with a fairly elite seasonal resident base. The population numbers on paper would be misleading. However the nearest Major metro is still going to be Grand Rapids. Grand Traverse County is the fastest growing county in Michigan, and it's unemployment rate is hovering around 4%, economically it's doing just fine. The access to nature in the area speaks for itself, and is known nationally. I'd say that would be the strongest point. Bottom line is you're not going to feel like you're in that small of a city if you move there.
Ann Arbor is well known, and worrying about it's proximity to Detroit is most likely because you have a lack of knowledge of the area. Detroit's suburbs are well known for their quality of life and low crime, so a city like Ann Arbor that is even further out wouldn't be affected by it at all. The pollution for the Detroit area is no more than any area it's size perhaps even less. Obviously the University is going to have a big influence, but Ann Arbor is not a one horse town. It's got a decent tech presence and is the home to multiple R&D centers for foreign automakers. Ann Arbor not surprisingly has one of the highest educational attainment rates among its population and it shows. Decent population and job growth. It's proximity to the Detroit area is a plus with the access to the shopping variety of a 4.5million metro. Also with an established organic scene. The only real draw back is proximity to the nature things you are looking for which Traverse is going to be centered in, and Grand Rapids is only minutes from.
You really need to investigate in person because there are pluses to both.
Or a place like East Lansing may work as well.
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