Detroit & the "fools" who talk (Warren, Dearborn: apartments, insurance)

[detroitlove]

Originally Posted by us66

The thing about metro Detroit and metro Detroiters is that metro Detroit is a "can't-do" place, whereas others are "can-do" places. I am guilty of this too, and am unrepentant. My family never took part in the white flight of Detroit; my grandparents came here in the 50s due to a job transfer. I'll admit, I do hate Detroit, often with a passion; however, I hate other places such as Roseville (and pretty much anything with a 586 area code) equally as much as Detroit, and sometimes more. Unlike other suburbanites, I can occasionally find something redeeming in the city here and there, and I actually do things in the city besides attend sports events (I hate Detroit teams anyways. I'm a Cleveland fan.). Also, most of my time in Detroit is not spent downtown, also unlike the average suburbanite. I'm also resentful that earlier generations left a great city such as Detroit (they say it was great, and eighty years ago I bet it was, but it's hard to see now) in such a shambles.

Well I'm sorry you feel that way. Like my mother always said "hate is a strong word". This is the reason why although I have experienced plenty of racism in places like Howell. For instance when visiting my cousin who has a white wife and biracial children and people openly say racial slurs or give us plenty of negative looks I don't "hate" Howell I just dislike the people. I don't hate Warren although I've been called the n-word by drivers for stupid road rage incidents. I don't hate Daytona beach FL, although I really dislike it, for my own personal reasons. But I won't wish any city to fail.

[detroitlove]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

DetroitLove, great thread!

I'll share a recent 'Detroit' story with everyone as well.

I recently flew into Detroit back in February...snow storm outside...and the family members who were coming to pick me up, had a car accident - however, I had no idea.

I had a ton of stuff with me at the airport...just came off an international flight....really looking forward to seeing my very young son.

No one was there to pick me up. 20s something African-American guy...who worked for the airports...asked me if everything was okay. 'Yeah, just waiting for my ride to pick me up'.

'You need to use my phone'....'nah, thats okay'. 'No, here, give 'em a call'. I called home...began to hear about what happened...motioned that I have to give this cellphone back, just borrowing it. The guy said, 'nah, talk as long as you need'. I tried to hurry, found out about the accident...and basically I was going to be sleeping in the airport that night, book a hotel, or rent a car and drive through the snow storm myself. I also didn't have much money, but wanted to see wife and son, so nothing was an easy answer.

I explained to the guy what happened...immediately he started calling around to hotels and car rental agencies with his cellphone...he knew some of the people ar the car rental agencies, asked them if they had any good deals...asked for people he knew personally who might be able to help with a good deal - car rentals at the airport without a reservation were insanely expensive, etc.

Anyways...he basically sorted everything out for me...even though he was employed and probably had other things he could have been or should have been doing...he said he just liked to help people...made him feel good.

Honestly speaking, I have been in many many many airports all over the U.S. and international as well...and never had anyone take that much time and with so much sincerity and helpfulness and genuine interest in helping someone out with no alterior motive whatsoever.

Thank you very much for the story! People don't understand that their are plenty of good people in the city as well as the suburbs. You should see some of these threads about how evil Detroit residents are . Its all about how you approach people, in the city and the Metro area period. I've seen incidents where people have passed out at the wheel in my neighborhood and five or six people stopped and called the ambulence and waited with these people. Or someone with a flat, in the city, with no cell phone and people willing to help. I have also witnessed this in the burbs as well as people riding by people who clearly need help smh. Some suburbanites on C-D try to give this ficad that everyone in the city is just mean and rude and won't be polite or talk to you or help if you need it and that suburban people are all just Angels. This is by far no the truth. There are ignorant people everywhere as well as people who will stop what they are doing to help someone.

[Northsider 248]

Originally Posted by us66

Fraser, Utica, Warren, Sterling Heights, Richmond, New Baltimore, St. Clair Shores and Shelby Township love you too

I actually like SCS. Fraser I can tolerate. Sterling Heights, maybe, but I don't do Lakeside. New Baltimore and Chesterfield Township (and all the St. Clair county folks, too) are the worst, though. They've ruined my morning commute.

Chesterfield's just a bunch of farms and drug condos... hence why I left it out

[DANNYY]

Grandma and Grandpa live in Detroit, they love it there, although they say the winter situation could be better, but I've given it a fair chance and have thoroughly ENJOYED my visits in Detroit. With that being said, I always defend it whenever I can.

[Tricia819]

I sympathize. Flint gets the same flack too, and as much as I'd like to move away, it's only due to the economy and lack of amenities. I don't wish it to fail. I'd move back downtown Flint in a heartbeat. My apartment downtown was so much nicer than my house.

[Bhaalspawn]

Originally Posted by detroitlove

I'd say most if not the majority of posters never have been to Detroit and the "Metro" Detroit posters have some kind of underlying hate for the city (which is honestly sad and stupid).
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Then you have the suburbanites smh. Many of you have been programmed to hate the city that you do it subconciously.

I am one of those evil suburbanites who like the Metro Detroit area and the region in general but hate the City of Detroit itself because it is a ****hole. This viewpoint is completely legitimate because many of the suburbs are nice but the City itself has been horribly mismanaged, it's filled with crime, and the people of Detroit keep electing corrupt government officials. (Why is Carolyn "Buttcheeks" Kilpatrick even a viable candidate for U.S. Congress?)

The City of Detroit drags down an otherwise nice metropolitan area and offers far fewer vocational and economic opportunities for people who live in the region. I think we all wish that we could magically swap out the City of Detroit itself with Minneapolis, Portland, or Seattle.

I'd be willing to bet your parents or grandparents who were invovlved in the white flight told you all your life how you are so much better than the residents of Detroit so now you think its true.

As a matter of fact, no. There really isn't an organized or even a cultural conspiracy passed on from parents to children to keep Detroit down. If you really believe that, you're delusional; it's all in your head.

• Did people from the suburbs tell teenage girls to have children (babies having babies)? No.
• Did they tell poor women to have children they couldn't afford to take care of? No.
• Did they tell people to abuse drugs? No.
• Did they tell people to commit acts of theft and violence? No.
• Did they vote for the horrible government officials who helped run the City into the ground? No.
• Did they tell the students not to learn how to read? No.

Some of you are so negative saying you want Detroit to fail

I think the rationale for that sentiment is along the lines that the City needs to completely collapse and empty out so that it can be razed to the ground and rebuilt.

Do you not realize you too are apart of the problem? Like do you all not understand that if people who have been going elsewhere to become successful would have BEEN investing and giving back instead of keeping that same Detroit attitude that so many of you say the people here have of complaining and doing nothing where the city would actually be right now?

People will always seek out a better life for themselves. No one wants to sacrifice their interests on the altar of Detroit (or for any other city). It might be more productive to ask why people left Detroit and the region. I mean, would you want to invest in the City of Detroit when people like Kwame Kilpatrick are running the show and when the residents vote for that kind of scum?

There are plenty of cities with problems just as bad or worse but some of these same cities get glorified.

Such as? Is there another U.S. city with a similarly-sized metropolitan population that is in nearly as bad shape as Detroit?

Im not saying down these cities either but aknowledge their problems too because all the media does is talk about the negatives of Detroit and totally ignore the positives. How do you all expect the city to recover if people have no interest or believe there is NOTHING positive going on?

The City of Detroit will not improve unless the economy of the State of Michigan improves, and that will not get better unless the U.S. economy improves. Even if the U.S. economy improves, the state of Michigan might not improve. Michigan is now widely regarded as being a backwards state with a horrible business climate and one of the nation's most pathetic anchor cities.

I highly recommend that you try to distance yourself, mentally, from the City of Detroit and consider the possibility of living in other cities and other states. Michigan is dying. After you graduate, you should give serious consideration to fleeing the entire region.

If you want to help the City of Detroit, figure out a way to:

• Completely eliminate serious crime;
• Put an end to babies having babies and adult women having children they cannot afford to care for;
• End all drug use;
• Improve educational achievement;
• Root out and end all corruption in the city government.

I don't think it's ever going to happen.

[Bhaalspawn]

Just a quick comment about White Flight.

Detroit residents really need to stop feeling like they are inferior to white people and need white people in order to have a good city. They would be better off adopting the attitude, "The white people fled, good riddance, we're better than them, and we don't need them!" Instead of lamenting the loss of white people, they should try to focus on raising the smartest children and eliminating crime and drug use. In other words, they should try to focus on becoming the highest quality group of people in the world living in the cleanest and most-crime-free city in the world.

[us66]

The Bhaalspawn message was pretty much right. Detroit simply is not a viable investment for most ventures. It isn't completely about Kwame Kilpatrick, though. People have simple desires, sometimes, like for their stuff to not be stolen, and for an ambulance to come when they are sick. (I know, the 'burbs are often little better, but there's the perception.) Also, is Detroit really Michigan's anchor city? If someone were to ask me the center of commerce in Michigan, I'd probably say Troy.
There's no vast Macomb County conspiracy to keep the city down. People vote with their wallets and if they don't want to pay 3% in income taxes and something like $60 per thousand in property taxes, they're not going to. If they want schools where all the children learn to read and write, then they'll go where all the children learn to read and write. It's things like that that Detroit doesn't offer, and the free market is punishing it, the same as how people couldn't stand K Mart or Farmer Jack and started going to Target and Kroger, and we all know what happened to K Mart and Farmer Jack.

[Bhaalspawn]

The local news is reporting that a 69 year old woman was killed today in her home by a stray gunshot (allegedly fired by someone who was firing it at an assailant in self defense). This didn't happen in the evil suburbs. It happened in the City of Detroit.

I'm not trying to make a particular point by posting this. Rather, I just find it ironic that this murder occurred on the day I read the post defending Detroit.

[UKUKUK]

Originally Posted by Bhaalspawn

The local news is reporting that a 69 year old woman was killed today in her home by a stray gunshot (allegedly fired by someone who was firing it at an assailant in self defense). This didn't happen in the evil suburbs. It happened in the City of Detroit.

I'm not trying to make a particular point by posting this. Rather, I just find it ironic that this murder occurred on the day I read the post defending Detroit.

In my small Kentucky town of 20,000, a suburb, predominantly white, lower than the national average in every crime, a high school principal blew up his own house to collect insurance money and a 13 year old girl was beaten to death with a baseball bat in a public park.

Your point?

Bad things happen all over, all of the time.