Would you say that metro Detroit is "uglier" than other metro areas? (Warren: foreclosed, for rent) - Michigan (MI) - Page 6 - City-Data Forum

detshen · 10-16-2010, 10:08 PM

Metro Detroit is a huge area, there are many beautiful neighborhoods with tree lined streets. Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale are very nice places to live and to spend time in their downtown areas. I live in Huntington Woods and it's one of the most beautiful tree and park filled neighborhoods I have seen anywhere, and I have lived in many US cities. Detroit has built a river front walk that is filled with walkers and bikers on nice days. Downtown Detroit has nice areas with restaurants where the beauty of the old buildings are preserved. There is much more work to be done, many areas need a lot of work, but the idea that it's all of metro Detroit an ugly industrial wasteland is ridiculous.

AlohaHuey · 10-17-2010, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by detshen

Metro Detroit is a huge area, there are many beautiful neighborhoods with tree lined streets. Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale are very nice places to live and to spend time in their downtown areas. I live in Huntington Woods and it's one of the most beautiful tree and park filled neighborhoods I have seen anywhere, and I have lived in many US cities. Detroit has built a river front walk that is filled with walkers and bikers on nice days. Downtown Detroit has nice areas with restaurants where the beauty of the old buildings are preserved. There is much more work to be done, many areas need a lot of work, but the idea that it's all of metro Detroit an ugly industrial wasteland is ridiculous.

90% of it is.

detshen · 10-17-2010, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlohaHuey

90% of it is.

How long did you live in metro Detroit?

Remisc · 10-17-2010, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by detshen

How long did you live in metro Detroit?

If I may say so, I've lived here all my life, and it's a fairly depressing looking area. 90%? No. More like 65% of it is pretty bleak.

AlohaHuey · 10-17-2010, 09:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by detshen

How long did you live in metro Detroit?

Thirty years and was just back five months ago. Nothing much has changed.

detshen · 10-17-2010, 10:58 PM

There are lots of beautiful neighborhoods here, others only see the negative and always will, I find that weird, but, whatever, I don't really care.

michsnowlvr · 10-18-2010, 09:10 PM

Say what you want about the industry of Detroit itself, but my god, how can people say that the area is "ugly". Ive heard many people say that Detroit has some of the nicest suburbs in the country, especially many of the Oakland county burbs. Most suburbs have tall tree-lined streets. There are thousands of parks in the area, and the metro-parks, of which there are many in SE MI, make you feel like you are hiking up north, not in a major metro-area. I was just in the Franklin/Bloomfield area yesterday and the scenery is gorgeous. While I dont live in OC, I will say that downriver has many nice parts as well. And yes, I have been to many other cities/metro areas as well.

AlohaHuey · 10-18-2010, 09:32 PM

For every Franklin Hills, you have five Warrens. For every Pleasant Ridge, you have five Livonias. For every Birmingham, you have seven Wayne/Westlands.

There are nice areas, of course, but a lot of the suburbs (see my previous comment).

magellan · 10-19-2010, 08:06 AM

I agree that many of the major boulevards look the same throughout the Detroit metro area. And areas that were probably nice (relatively speaking) twenty years ago are starting to look run down, like areas of Farmington Hills, Southfield and other parts of Oakland County.

But I was also in Las Vegas this past weekend and traveled through the Western suburbs on my way to my next destination, and it is a dump. At least in Michigan, most empty lots fill in with grass, bushes and trees. In Vegas, it's one nice commercial building (Home Depot or some other chain), 3 dumpy rock and weed strewn lots, 150 houses packed so tight you can barely see daylight between them surrounded by DEFCON 4 concrete retaining walls, one nice building, 3 dumpy rock and weed strewn lots, repeat, repeat, repeat... Oh, and lots of abandoned development "model homes."

canudigit · 10-19-2010, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by magellan

I agree that many of the major boulevards look the same throughout the Detroit metro area. And areas that were probably nice (relatively speaking) twenty years ago are starting to look run down, like areas of Farmington Hills, Southfield and other parts of Oakland County.

But I was also in Las Vegas this past weekend and traveled through the Western suburbs on my way to my next destination, and it is a dump. At least in Michigan, most empty lots fill in with grass, bushes and trees. In Vegas, it's one nice commercial building (Home Depot or some other chain), 3 dumpy rock and weed strewn lots, 150 houses packed so tight you can barely see daylight between them surrounded by DEFCON 4 concrete retaining walls, one nice building, 3 dumpy rock and weed strewn lots, repeat, repeat, repeat...

I noticed that a lot out west too! The nice areas are very nice, but the bad areas look like some kind of desert wasteland and are really depressing. The lack of green is what I couldn't adjust to. Brown, rocks, tan houses with concrete block walls, brown, rocks, tan houses...repeat, repeat, repeat...when I flew back into Metro in August it literally felt like I had landed in some kind of rain forest, so lush did it seem after living in the brownlands...

And no, I don't think that Metro Detroit is "uglier" than other metro areas. It's all in where you are and how you choose to see it. Ugliness is a subjective thing. There is no city in the U.S. that doesn't look ugly to someone and gorgeous to someone else. To each their own. I know that areas like Northville, Plymouth, Bloomfield Hills, Rochester, and the Grosse Pointes rival any suburb that I have seen in any large U.S. city, but again, that's a subjective opinion, same as all of yours.