moving to work in Detroit,WHERE to live?SAFE,SHORT COMMUTE and quiet along i-75. (Warren: apartments, to rent)

[shaba]

Hi all,i am going to work in Detroit very soon,but cannot seem to make up my mind where to live.I would like to live near Wayne State Uni. but i don't know if its safe to live around there.Basically i don't know much about Detroit and all its counties to make the best option.The reason why i rather live close to work,is because i don't want to commute a daily lengthy journey.I went by southgate and it looked really nice,but i have to travel say 15 miles to work.
Is downtown detroit a considerable option?Please could somebody advise?

[and the]

Downtown is a good option as long as you don't have kids.

[BurtsBees]

Do not live near Wayne State, forewarning

Where at in Detroit where you be working?

[shaba]

will be interning at Wayne state University,thats why i want to live near that place.

BurtsBees, that area has a really lovely estate called Woodbrige .
It looks really nice although surround by rundown neighbour hood.

Actually this makes it less attractive to live in ,but it would still be close to my work place,less commuting!

[and the]

That's not really downtown....that's the "New Center Area". Sort of a second downtown......Personally, I wouldn't want to live around there, but I have kids....I used to go to the Ramp Room quite a bit in my single days to hang out with the nurses from Henry Ford Hospital.

Someone once told me that West Grand Boulevard used to be the boundary of the city of Detroit. If you look at a map, you can see it makes a big circle. I'd guess around the early 1900's and maybe into the 20's, that was were all the big shooters lived. Or a lot of them anyway. You can see all the nice houses on West Grand Blvd., that are now a lot of halfway houses and group homes, and in the Boston Edison area. You can have a nice mansion next to a crack house in there........Anyway...they said as the city grew, they acquired more land and formed a new boundary; Outer Drive. Check out the map. Another concentric ring around the city. They expanded more after that, but didn't build any more concentric circle boundary streets. Not sure if that's true or not....I always thought Detroit's boundaries were bigger than that at an earlier time....

A lot of auto magnates lived near the New Center area in the early 1900's. Henry Ford lived in a house on Edison. There's a historic marker out front. I think he and the wife moved to the suburbs by 1915, so I guess you could say the guy who was largely responsible for building Detroit and who revolutionized mass production via the assembly line in Highland Park was one of the first guys to bail out! They say he got sick of the riff raff banging on his front door looking for a job.

Ironically, the guy who did so much for Detroit is pretty much buried in a rotten neighborhood...Joy Road and Greenfield.......Not a place you want to be wandering around at night. In fact, they put armor guard bars over his grave so nobody can dig him up and steal the copper from the casket! (Just kidding about the copper in the casket, but there ARE burglar bars over his very modest grave). No big mausoleum, just a small headstone to mark the grave in the old family farm cemetery plot. If you go out there on a cold Autumn night...around Halloween, you can sometimes see a translucent spectre swinging a chain and chasing another spectre that looks like Walter Reuther......

If I worked downtown, I'd seriously think about living in Windsor.....not sure what the tax implications are though.

[shaba]

Thanks alot about the History of this place.
I really appreciate it and the time your have take to explain all.
Gives me a good picture of where i have been.

Never been to Detroit before,only this summer!!

Anyway,so this is New center area? Well does that mean that its not safe to live in along with the other areas near/surrounding downtown detroit boundary?

[and the]

I don't know....I'd say "no", recon would say "yes, if you get the right area...." Crime in the area is all relative. It all depends on what you're willing to accept. Most homicides are drug related or between people who know each other, so even though Detroit has lots of homicides, you're not likely to get KILLED......You might get robbed if you go to the wrong places at night.....If you live in a single family home and are not home regularly, there's a pretty good chance you'll be a burglary victim eventually. Find out what kind of cars are being stolen for parts or resale and don't buy that kind of car. Make sure to get secure parking if you're going to rent an apartment around there. If you're going to own a car, there are plenty of nice suburbs within an easy commute of Henry Ford Hospital. Royal Oak, straight up Woodward for instance....Even Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, Huntington Woods......or west down Warren Avenue to Dearborn....Not as nice as the suburbs up Woodward, though probably a little cheaper....East Dearborn is probably only 10 or 15 minutes from Henry Ford Hosp. You can even take Tireman all the way instead of Warren Ave.

Personally, the only way I'd live around there is if I didn't own a car or if my work schedule was so brutal that I couldn't deal with a 15 minute commute. But that's just me...

[Guardian]

Actually, Wayne State is considered part of Midtown (http://www.modeldmedia.com/neighborhoods/Midtown.aspx - broken link), although it doesn't really make a difference. As for living there, there are many apartments, condos, and even single family homes in the area. Concerning crime, this article (http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070109/BIZ/701090342/1001 - broken link) mentions that "property crime, particularly vehicle break-ins, is the most prominent type of crime." The article also mentions Wayne State Police, who patrol Wayne State University and the surrounding area. As long as you live somewhere near Wayne State, you should be fine.

And lastly, WELCOME!

[shaba]

Am pretty disarmed about living in WSU area now!!!!!!!!
Am single and female and burgarly is the last thing i want to experience is that not to mention other types of crime.

So ,can anybody please tel me something about southgate?
Or How much do apartments in Royal oak,ferndale cost? $600-$700 per month?

Thanks i really appreciate your replies.
Shaba.

[jaynarie]

Short commute on I-75?! Apparently you haven't seen 75 at rushhour! There is NO short commute! I don't know the Detroit area well enough to recommend somewhere. A friend of mine has a really nice apartment in Auburn Hills near the mall (Great Lakes Crossing), but that's a long commute in traffic.