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Yeah, you need a car here in Detroit but you do in most American cities.
I currently live in what you can describe as the more 'suburban' part of detroit but even a BLOCK from my house are things like KFC, white castle, liquor stores, car parts stores, bars, sit down restaurants, banks, etc
Now you can't get that in the pointes, and you definitely can't get that in Bloomfield Hills.
Do they allow chains in the Pointes or BH? Chains are stongly discouraged in Grosse Ile, but there are plenty of places to walk to if you want to live close to the business strip.
IN pretty much any place, you certainly can live within walking distance of a bar or resturuant if you choose, but it will probably not be white castle or KFC. Car parts? Probably not. Living a block from a car parts place or a check cashing place or a liquor store has no appeal to me. Are you saying that is a good thing?
Do they allow chains in the Pointes or BH? Chains are stongly discouraged in Grosse Ile, but there are plenty of places to walk to if you want to live close to the business strip.
The Pointes have their village. I see some chains there like brueggers bagel but it's very small and I think everything shuts down at 10. I admit I drive to the pointes to do grocery shopping (the krogers is pretty good, reminds me of the ralphs out in cali).
BH is mcmansion suburbia. I didn't see much of anything except houses. I maybe wrong, never spent much time there but I got the impression they just drive to Birmingham when they want 'city' amenities.
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IN pretty much any place, you certainly can live within walking distance of a bar or resturuant if you choose, but it will probably not be white castle or KFC. Car parts? Probably not. Living a block from a car parts place or a check cashing place or a liquor store has no appeal to me. Are you saying that is a good thing?
Yea..... Wouldn't you rather walk 30 seconds to get your bottle than drive
Just today my fuel pump is broken (can't get enough vacuum to flush) so I can walk 1 minute to the auto parts store (there are 3 for me to choose from) and fix my problem. If it wasn't for that I'd need to take the bus or get a friend to drive me or something.
lol, I stand corrected. They got one on Michigan Ave in Dearborn some ways from Inskter. I drive that road a lot and it all probably blurred together
I like Inskter, there's this great Italian place and bar I always get ****faced at after work.
oh really??? I thought they hated people "from the city"
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Fair enough. But you can still pretty much fit three San Franciscos into Detroit, so you're still talking 2.4 million people, 500,000 more than Detroit had its peak. That's still a lot of people, and demonstrates the sprawl Detroit has going on in its outer neighborhoods.
I agree that it gets denser the closer you get to Midtown. Mainly, there is less space between the houses, while they still have decently sized front and back yards. It's still a far cry from row houses though, like you said.
Yea, I see the row houses to be an east coast thing mostly with the exception of SF and STL. the mid west has the close together homes and the west coast and the south is the most spaced out. At least it used to be. With the street grid Detroit does have the potential to be as big as it wants.
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Yeah, you need a car here in Detroit but you do in most American cities.
I currently live in what you can describe as the more 'suburban' part of detroit but even a BLOCK from my house are things like KFC, white castle, liquor stores, car parts stores, bars, sit down restaurants, banks, etc
Now you can't get that in the pointes, and you definitely can't get that in Bloomfield Hills.
Yea the walkable city era is pretty much gone. Notice how the older cities are the most walkable and the newer cities you need a car. It's so common to need a car in a big city now because of the suburban type sprawl. But the only thing I really need to use a car for (other than work or dowtnown) is the mall, a chain grocery store (even though there are local ones all around the city) or a place like Best Buy or something. But basic things are all over the main streets for the most part. It's not like Sterling Heights or something where even their main streets don't have much on them but sprawl and a couple of chains here and there. and they actually have suburban sprawl which takes twice the amount of time to get 2 the main roads. Detroit doesn't have the street mazes and just about every side street puts you on a main road if you go strait.
My old neighborhood has 2 gas stations, a couple grocery stores, a motel, a bar, a few autoshops and liquorstores, a family dollar, Little Caesars, white castle, KFC, a subway, 2 coney islands, a cell phone store, a library, and a couple more restaurants. This is all about a mile or so down one street. My old house was also near Gratiot too which would include much more within a mile than Harper would.
oh really??? I thought they hated people "from the city"
In Inkster? Nah, lol compared to the other burbs that seem to have a hit on us. You know what I'm talking about with the border streets have half their police force cruising up and down
Now I dunno what people think. I'm no mind reader but Inkster is a chill place to unwind if you're out in that area. It's got a mix of working class people.
This is off topic but we hear so much how violent the city is blah blah I got to point out how simply nice the people are here!
On my way to the parts store, I saw some people BBQing on the sidewalk. I chatted them up a little and before I knew it they were letting me in on their food and allowing me some beer. While I was killing their beer, a police guy rolls by who we all know, he waives to us, we waive back, and he doesn't bust us for public drinking.
Now, do you get that friendly vibe in the burbs? I'm asking those who live there cause I never have. Everytime I roll through, it seems people are just all about themselves. When Detroit starts to warm up, people here seem much more to give you a hand than up in Oakland county where even giving you a second look is about torture for them.
My old neighborhood has 2 gas stations, a couple grocery stores, a motel, a bar, a few autoshops and liquorstores, a family dollar, Little Caesars, white castle, KFC, a subway, 2 coney islands, a cell phone store, a library, and a couple more restaurants. This is all about a mile or so down one street. My old house was also near Gratiot too which would include much more within a mile than Harper would.
I can say similar things about the area around my house in Warren - just look up what I wrote earlier in this thread. And If I want my bottle I can walk a couple of minutes to CVS or an actual liquor store. My girlfriend in Madison Heights can get all the types of things you just listed in a minute or two's walk. My cousin in Hazel Park would have to walk about maybe 5 minutes, like me.
Now, don't get me wrong, I think in the the suburbs inside of Detroit along some of the major roads, you do get a little better access to those kinds of stores and restaurants if you're in an area that's still decently populated. Detroit's suburbs are theoretically more dense, but it's not necessarily the night and day difference you want us to believe when those areas are compared to many of the inner ring suburbs, which also have less vacancies on average (but I'm sure there a couple of exceptions). Yes, the outer Detroit neighborhoods have smaller driveways so they can pack in a few more houses, but does that really make that huge of a difference?
There's a reason outsiders want to move into Midtown but could care less about Gratiot and East McNichols ever having a renaissance. If they want the sort of urban experience Gratiot and East McNichols offers, they'll move to inner ring suburbs, where at least the city governments don't have Detroit's gigantic budget deficits killing the schools and police and fire departments. Maybe it's not fair, but it's reality at this point.
Look at the designs all those urban planners moving into Midtown are sketching up - they want to turn outer Detroit into quaint farming communities, with isolated pockets of neighborhoods surrounded by corn stalks and soy pods. It's kind of messed up, but that's what they're openly pushing for. It's even been printed up in our local newspapers. Personally, the spirit of it reminds me of all that brilliant urban planning they did in the '60s that fell flat on its face, but what do I know?
With the inner ring suburbs essentially competing with Detroit, Detroit has been forced to focus on what makes it unique to separate itself from the pack. From the looks of things, that appears to be the more traditionally urban areas around downtown and Midtown and the immense open spaces left behind after all the abandonment. It's definitely not the KFC within walking distance on Gratiot.
Now that it's hot on my mind, there's one thing I want to say about all the urban planners in Downtown and Midtown right now, even if it's kind of off topic. I believe their attempts to "fix" Detroit are going to fail for one reason: the questions they're asking. They're asking: how can I make Detroit a cool, hip, livable place I'd want to move to? But the real question they need to be asking is: how can I fix the social injustices and social inequalities that have been killing Detroit for over 50 years?
In Inkster? Nah, lol compared to the other burbs that seem to have a hit on us. You know what I'm talking about with the border streets have half their police force cruising up and down
Now I dunno what people think. I'm no mind reader but Inkster is a chill place to unwind if you're out in that area. It's got a mix of working class people.
Oh ok. I always heard about Inkster vs Detroit fights and how they used to try to jump people from the city at Inkster high school ect.
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This is off topic but we hear so much how violent the city is blah blah I got to point out how simply nice the people are here!
On my way to the parts store, I saw some people BBQing on the sidewalk. I chatted them up a little and before I knew it they were letting me in on their food and allowing me some beer. While I was killing their beer, a police guy rolls by who we all know, he waives to us, we waive back, and he doesn't bust us for public drinking.
Now, do you get that friendly vibe in the burbs? I'm asking those who live there cause I never have. Everytime I roll through, it seems people are just all about themselves. When Detroit starts to warm up, people here seem much more to give you a hand than up in Oakland county where even giving you a second look is about torture for them.
I don't think so. At least most of the time. In Detroit every neighborhood I am familiar with is like sort of a small community in a big city. When your a cool person it's easy to meet new people. You see neighbors chilling on eachother's porches attending barbecue's ect. In the suburbs (or at least most) it seems like everyone is to themselves, not much interaction going on. Maybe a few words here or there but that's it. And that violent stuff is usually over drugs or personal beef, most of it not random.
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I can say similar things about the area around my house in Warren - just look up what I wrote earlier in this thread. And If I want my bottle I can walk a couple of minutes to CVS or an actual liquor store. My girlfriend in Madison Heights can get all the types of things you just listed in a minute or two's walk. My cousin in Hazel Park would have to walk about maybe 5 minutes, like me.
Now, don't get me wrong, I think in the the suburbs inside of Detroit along some of the major roads, you do get a little better access to those kinds of stores and restaurants if you're in an area that's still decently populated. Detroit's suburbs are theoretically more dense, but it's not necessarily the night and day difference you want us to believe when those areas are compared to many of the inner ring suburbs, which also have less vacancies on average (but I'm sure there a couple of exceptions). Yes, the outer Detroit neighborhoods have smaller driveways so they can pack in a few more houses, but does that really make that huge of a difference?
There's a reason outsiders want to move into Midtown but could care less about Gratiot and East McNichols ever having a renaissance. If they want the sort of urban experience Gratiot and East McNichols offers, they'll move to inner ring suburbs, where at least the city governments don't have Detroit's gigantic budget deficits killing the schools and police and fire departments. Maybe it's not fair, but it's reality at this point.
Look at the designs all those urban planners moving into Midtown are sketching up - they want to turn outer Detroit into quaint farming communities, with isolated pockets of neighborhoods surrounded by corn stalks and soy pods. It's kind of messed up, but that's what they're openly pushing for. It's even been printed up in our local newspapers. Personally, the spirit of it reminds me of all that brilliant urban planning they did in the '60s that fell flat on its face, but what do I know?
With the inner ring suburbs essentially competing with Detroit, Detroit has been forced to focus on what makes it unique to separate itself from the pack. From the looks of things, that appears to be the more traditionally urban areas around downtown and Midtown and the immense open spaces left behind after all the abandonment. It's definitely not the KFC within walking distance on Gratiot.
Inner ring suburbs does have access to much of the things I mentioned but I was referring specifically to what I need to use a car or PT for and what I don't. And also was comparing suburbs further out hence why I used Sterling Heights as an example. Inner ring suburbs are more urban like than suburban like in most cases so therefore Im not even really comparing inner ring suburbs. And another thing inner ring suburbs doesn't have the confusing maze type sprawl as bad as suburbs further out. For example Dearborn or Redford doesn't have the sprawl of RH, BH, or Troy.
Well, to sum up this up... the opposing arguments to my positions on Detroit have been reduced to "hey, at least the suburbs in Detroit are still denser than Rochester Hills and Troy!" I'm going to take this as victory. Downtown and Midtown has the potential to be a true urban core again, but we've still got a very long way to go, and the most of the rest of Detroit fails to offer a more urban experience than the inner ring suburbs.
Oh ok. I always heard about Inkster vs Detroit fights and how they used to try to jump people from the city at Inkster high school ect.
lol I'm so far removed from HS man and all the BS. I can't tell you what the kiddies are thinking these days. I remember my daughter singing along to the radio and some song and guy I never heard of. I felt so ****ing old man, I even asked her who the **** he was I remember when I was a kid thinking I'd never get this way, I'd always know what's going on but now it just flies over my head.
It's not surprising though. HS is all about chest puffing and since Detroit has all the press, Inkster boys got to represent harder and take down some detroit kids. It was like that when I was going to school and as scary as to think, I was once stupid like that
I just remember when I just moved back to Detroit and pumping gas on a cold night seeing 'Mack (some number) UTUBE US *****' spray painted all over the gas pump. Made me break down laughing. See, you know, I know 90% of these kids are just dumbasses the problem is half the suburbs believe them
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Downtown and Midtown has the potential to be a true urban core again, but we've still got a very long way to go, and the most of the rest of Detroit fails to offer a more urban experience than the inner ring suburbs. 
