Daughter relocating to Pontiac (Detroit, Ann Arbor: new home, neighborhood, buying)

[dolli3coutur3]

Originally Posted by rageman24

Is auburn Ave close to m59 and Woodward crossing? If so that's not too bad of an area in my opinion.

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Yes it is! We've gotten so much feedback negative and positive and I'm at a crossroads with what we should do. We are getting a dog and installing a security system. I really don't know what else we could do. I'm going to the police station tomorrow to get specific information on our neighborhood

[animatedmartian]

Yea, Pontiac is very hit or miss. Very similar to Detroit in many ways, but I feel it's slightly worse because it's a smaller city. Then again, that might just mean it might be easier for the city to improve in the future faster than Detroit could.

A dog and a security system is always a good idea in this case.

[dolli3coutur3]

Yea the neighborhood we are moving to people seem to consider bad but they are tearing down all the old houses and building brand new ones. So basically almost every other house is brand new!

[rageman24]

In case u want to know where the attempted murder happened to me if u go down 59 towards telegraph right behind that elementary school pretty much where the crossbridge is above the road. I was walking the backroads home which we lived on Lincoln Ave which is one street over from Johnson. Lincoln Ave is where the sunoco is right across from the hospital. That hospital saved my life as I nearly bleed to death.

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[dolli3coutur3]

Yes we live just 5 minutes from there so it will be good. Plus the police station is a couple blocks from our house too so it's good to be so close to things like that.... just in case.

[MS313]

About the new houses replacing old ones. That is more like a trend in very blighted or troubled neighborhoods. Even Highland Park's worst areas have new homes built on them. Just a thought. If many people say it's a bad neighborhood then it might be. But that depends on what your used to. Idk how Rochester, NY is like but things can get pretty ugly in some places out here.

[hiphopcr]

Pontiac is a little mini Detroit (sans cool downtown stuff) nestled in the middle of many very nice suburbs... I have no idea how it got there.

I lived in Auburn Hills and now in Rochester Hills, both are great (Rochester is like the most amazing place to live for a family).

But your daughter will appreciate Royal Oak. It's cool to live there and not too far from where she'll work.

[dolli3coutur3]

Originally Posted by MarvinStrong313

About the new houses replacing old ones. That is more like a trend in very blighted or troubled neighborhoods. Even Highland Park's worst areas have new homes built on them. Just a thought. If many people say it's a bad neighborhood then it might be. But that depends on what your used to. Idk how Rochester, NY is like but things can get pretty ugly in some places out here.

Well not MANY people say it's bad... it's kind of an even amount of both so that's why I need opinions of people who know the area well

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by hiphopcr

Pontiac is a little mini Detroit (sans cool downtown stuff) nestled in the middle of many very nice suburbs... I have no idea how it got there.

The same way in how Detroit was filled with factories that eventually closed, so too did Pontiac. People moved out and the crime came in. The surrounding suburbs were generally more affluent with white-collar autoworkers and many non-manufacturing based businesses.

This is sorta trivial, but at one point in time Pontiac was a little sprawling city out in the middle of farmlands. The only thing between Detroit and Pontiac was Woodward, a railroad line, and a few houses here and there for the local farmers. If you've ever traveled through Pontiac (or looked through on google), you can notice that a lot of the homes are of similar age and styles of those in the older parts of Detroit.

So in the end, both cities effectively went through the same process of being strong working class towns that couldn't adapt to the changing economy, just on different scales. Whereas the other suburbs are more like bedroom communities. And so, now you know the basic history of Pontiac.

[FF-fan]

Are you guys talking about the "Unity Park" neighborhood? If so that's where all the new houses are being built with grant money. I must say I do agree that building new homes there won't solve the problems in that area. Just in the past month, we had that young man shot to death over his Ipad/Iphone nearby in that area and another case where a gang-banging wannabe stabbed his dad to death because his dad didn't want him in a gang. Thankfully the OCSD is in charge and without their resources, the man who shot that kid or the thug that killed his dad would still be on the loose.

Yes Pontiac has more crime than the surrounding communities, and the decline of the economy and white flight took part in that. However when I was living in the city, I noticed that people from the surrounding communities would come in and buy drugs, or dump their furniture in empty lots, and homeless people from other towns settling into Pontiac (because Oakland Co. dumps them there along with parolees, etc). So yes Pontiac has it's problems, but let's be real; the city's been treated as a dumping ground for the County's problems. Those half-homes, and homeless shelters and welfare offices didn't just pop up in the city overnight. I guess the govt. realized having a "ghetto" in the middle of their nice suburbs isn't working out anymore, so who knows what will happen with the sudden interest (which is a good thing mind you) in revitalizing the city.

Putting aside my bitterness, I think Pontiac will come back in the future, but now there's still a lot of issues that need sorting out before it can attract new people in, unless those people are urban pioneers that'll add something new to the community.