Recommend Suburb Please (Detroit, Dearborn, Farmington Hills: homes, catholic schools, place to live)

[dave w]

Originally Posted by MS313

Your acting like there are no grocery stores or restaurants in and around the Grosse Pointes, there are.

Assuming the OP has a car, there are also about 5 or 6 malls within a half hour drive of the Grosse Pointe area, I'm not even thinking about strip mall shopping centers that you can also buy clothes at but actually shopping malls. But seriously, how often are you really shopping for clothes?

Also Amenities? Aside from it's own amenities, the Grosse Pointe area is 20 minutes from downtown Detroit, closer than any other suburb except maybe Dearborn. Also close to the riverfront/ lake with easy access to Belle Isle and the Riverwalk. They also have a park themselves with a beach, a pool, playground, basketball courts, ect. I have been there before and it's somewhere on the Grosse Pointe coastline.

OP: for someone who doesn't like cookie cutter, the GP area is a great place to live if you can find something affordable there. Yeah you might not have Somerset in your back yard but it is great for families, I can't give much advice on schools but from what I hear they are excellent (another poster can correct me if I'm wrong?), the crime is also low, and you have beautiful scenery especially near Lake St Clair not to mention MANSIONS, some celebrities even live there. Very nice area you should check out, if you prefer better access to high end or mega mall shopping then OC will be the place for you, either way, you can't go wrong, just avoid Pontiac in Oakland County.

That's part of my point , who wants to travel 1/2 hour to get to a mall. Where you going to shop, on Mack Ave. You have Eastland Mall , but that area is not all that safe. How many people want to go downtown to hangout, thats well and good just don't break down in between. My main point is I would feel isolated by ghetto and high crime areas surrounding the Pointes. Sure the Pointes themselves are nice but ghetto areas surround would be a deal breaker for me. There are too many other nice areas in the northern suburbs.

[MS313]

Originally Posted by dave w

That's part of my point , who wants to travel 1/2 hour to get to a mall. Where you going to shop, on Mack Ave. You have Eastland Mall , but that area is not all that safe. How many people want to go downtown to hangout, thats well and good just don't break down in between. My main point is I would feel isolated by ghetto and high crime areas surrounding the Pointes. Sure the Pointes themselves are nice but ghetto areas surround would be a deal breaker for me. There are too many other nice areas in the northern suburbs.

Eastland mall is fine is far as safety goes, used to go there all the time. Macomb mall is also up I-94. How can you feel isolated and surrounded by ghetto when for one, the pointes stretch for roughly five miles from end to end (that's the equivalent of a small city), and for two the only true ghetto bombed out area is over by Alter Rd, everything else that borders the pointes are working class suburbs and working class Detroit neighborhoods (Morningside and East English Village), and the lake. In technical terms your talking about 10% of the pointes actually bordering a real ghetto. Grosse Pointe Park more specifically is really the one with this problem. If you are isolating yourself that is your problem, although I'm not sure why you would isolate yourself from Macomb county which shares the northern border.

We all know there are plenty of nice areas, it's just a suggestion.

[usroute10]

The city of Plymouth

184 Caster Avenue, Plymouth MI 48170 - MLS# 214125205

194 ROSE Street, Plymouth MI 48170 - MLS# 214114693
(not a Real Estate Agent)

Nice old homes in the city of Plymouth (not Plymouth Township)
Very pretty downtown, and Plymouth-Canton schools are arguably top 5 in the region.

The Grosse Pointes are good too, especially if you want to be very near the water. Even if malls are like Lakeside or Partridge Creek are around 35 to 45 minutes away, how often do you go to the mall? Maybe two or three times a month? Plus, the Grosse Pointes have 2 or 3 small walkable commercial districts that have some good clothing stores like MooseJaw. Plus, downtown Detroit (15 minute drive) is slowly getting some retail, with Restoration Hardware rumored to be putting a store on Woodward.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...wntown-detroit.

[snoopygirlmi]

Originally Posted by DTWflyer

Birmingham
Bloomfield Township/Franklin/Bingham Farms
Beverly Hills

Huntington Woods
Pleasant Ridge

Plymouth
Northville
Novi
Farmington Hills

Ann Arbor

I'd take out B'ham, Bloomfield, and Beverly Hills.

Yes, they are in your price range, but the commute would be awful, especially if the house wasn't super close to Telegraph or Woodward Ave. They are just too far north for a reasonable commute.

You have to remember we get weather - snowstorms, rain, slick roads. That adds time to any commute, and accidents.

[DTWflyer]

I disagree - Birmingham and more so even Beverly Hills are an easy commute to Dearborn. In the morning its a 30 minute commute, closer to 45 minutes in the afternoon during peak rush hour, less than that if before 4 or after 6pm. Straight down Southfield Freeway. Shorter and easier than Novi/Farmington Hills, let alone Ann Arbor.

Trust me, I've done this commute for several years. There are many Ford executives who live in Birmingham/Bloomfield who work in Dearborn.

Most of Bloomfield Township is reasonable too, unless in the far northern parts. But anything south of 15 Mile/Maple or 16 Mile - Quarton/Big Beaver is reasonable.

With commuting to/from Dearborn - the morning commute generally isn't too bad. It may slow down a little bit on the Southfield Freeway between 7:30-8:30am, but it flies before 7:30am. The afternoon is a little worse. but the biggest bottleeck is getting out of Dearborn, getting on to the Southfield Freeway up to I-96. North of I-96 traffic lightens up, since everyone headed to points north or west use this road.

[Coldjensens]

My suggestions:

Grosse Ile if you like water/forests and are not pretentious.

Plymouth for more of a small city lifestyle with lots of events and near Ann Arbor. Northville for cute small town lifetsyle. Novi for malls and cookie cutter subdivisions. Parts of South Lyon/Lyon township for rural living.

Canton for stereotypical modern suburban living (McMansion subs and strip malls/big box stores). Novi and Canton are much the same, except Novi has more shopping (more than anywhere I think) and probably better schools (close call as long as you are in Plymouth Canton district, not Wayne Westland.

[leroythelion]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

My suggestions:

Grosse Ile if you like water/forests and are not pretentious.

Plymouth for more of a small city lifestyle with lots of events and near Ann Arbor. Northville for cute small town lifetsyle. Novi for malls and cookie cutter subdivisions. Parts of South Lyon/Lyon township for rural living.

Canton for stereotypical modern suburban living (McMansion subs and strip malls/big box stores). Novi and Canton are much the same, except Novi has more shopping (more than anywhere I think) and probably better schools (close call as long as you are in Plymouth Canton district, not Wayne Westland.

Welcome back, Coldjensens.

[Republic of Michigan]

Birmingham.. North of Maple and South of Quarton and between Southfield rd and Cranbrook. Unique homes and a straight shoot down Southfield Rd/Freeway to Dearborn.

[DTWflyer]

Originally Posted by Republic of Michigan

Birmingham.. North of Maple and South of Quarton and between Southfield rd and Cranbrook. Unique homes and a straight shoot down Southfield Rd/Freeway to Dearborn.

Nice neighborhood, however impossible to get there for under $500k. Most on the market in there is $600k - $1.0M+.

[Arthur Digby Sellers]

The suburb that best meets your needs and provides the most tolerable commute is Plymouth. Very good schools, varied and charming homes (including quite a few historical homes downtown), access to plenty of shopping and a 20-30 minute commute to Dearborn. Quite a few Ford employees live in Plymouth because of the schools combined with the easy access to Dearborn.

I would also recommend Northville. It is very similar to Plymouth, but more upscale with better schools. Outside of downtown, it has more of what would be considered "cookie cutter" subs.

A lot of the places mentioned - Beverly Hills, Birmingham, Grosse Pointes, Farmington Hills, Novi, etc. - are very nice but would be nightmare commutes to Dearborn, IMO.