[Klarabel1982]

Hello everybody! I need you for a relocation

First, I want to say sorry for my pretty bad english. I would like to introduce myself. I am French, my husband is German, and we have 3 Children (age 8, 7 and 3). We are living in Germany. We have already sold our cars, our house and we have just got our visas. In 3 Months we are going to move to the beautiful Michigan, and we are very HAPPY!!

We want first rent a house but my question is where? We want to live not too far from my husband's work at Plymouth. And the choice to live could be Novi, Plymouth, Northville or Canton. I've heard that the public school are good there.

_Please can you tell me A LOT and everything about these 4 cities?
_The differents between them, the good and the bad?
_Perhaps the best city of them, where we may be "better" accepted as a German - French family?
_What kind of shop there are, park, things to do with children....

I want to say a BIG thank you to the people who are going to answer me, it will really help me to find the perfekt place.

Klarabel

[belleislerunner]

Plymouth and Northville have more quaint downtowns. Canton and Novi are more suburban sprawl.

Compared to other suburbs of Detroit - all four are good places to be.

This is a fun German bar to take your husband once he gets here...

Willkommen! | Dakota Inn

[animatedmartian]

Novi:

The good; very safe, very clean, very good schools, lots of newer buildings, main shopping area is around Twelwe Oaks Mall, close to highway access.

The bad: very suburban, spread out, will definitely need a car, can be somewhat expensive, no public transportation, many strip malls with huge parking lots.

Northville:

The good: small older downtown area, older 19th-20th century homes, very community oriented, has newer homes as well, very safe, very good schools

The bad: still considerably suburban, will need a car, no public transportation, still somewhat expensive

Plymouth:

Very similar to Northville except a little bit bigger (or seems that way), slightly cheaper than Northville or Novi, but still very safe with good schools. However, you'll still need a car as there is no public transportation.

Canton:

Very similar to Novi (strip malls, somewhat spread out, etc) except a little cheaper and is closest to the Metro Detroit Airport. The drawbacks are still that it has no public transportation and you'll need a car.

As a side note, these 4 cities form the western edge of what is considered the Detroit urbanized metro.

No one ought to have a problem with your nationalities and I believe, in general, metro Detroit has a lot of those of German decent. Maybe a little bit of French. But at most, you'll just likely have to condition yourself for the American lifestyle if you haven't experienced it before (very car oriented, sometimes a little flashy, big houses).

[Coldjensens]

I would suggest that you stick with Pymouth. Live in walking distance to downtown. It is a cute little city. It is close to Ann arbor wihch is probably our most cosmopolitan city in Michgian. My brother and his wife live in Plymouth. She is from Germany. He lived in Germany for serval years (where they met). They love it there. It is a nice small city with a quaint downtown and lots of neat turn of the century through 1940s homes (newer homes just outside the downtown area too). It is a good place to walk around and if you live near town you can walk to a few stores, cafes and resturuants. It is close to Ann Arbor, the international airport, Hines park. It is about 1 hour drive to downtown Detroit.

The schools are execellent. The high school is very large. They have three high schools on a single campus.

Plymouth has a lot of community festivals downtown. They have an annual ice scupting contest and the entries are really amazing. It is not a large town, but it is nice.

Canton is pretty much newer subdivisions and a bunch of what we call big box stores (Ikea, Wallmart, Home Depot). There is no downtown. Traffic is heavy on the main streets. It is nice enough as far as clean, safe and well kept, but I find it a bit dull. I like older homes, architecture, concentrated downtowns with small shops and cafes and a stong sense of community. Canton lacks those. Commuity depends on whch subdivision you are in. Canton has several School districts. Plymouth/Canton is execellent. Wayne/Western is not so good. I cannot remember the other, but it is not so good too.

Northville is one of the neatest little towns in S.E. Michigan. It is very quaint and has a strog sense of community. Schools are execellent. Lots of neat parks. Northville is somewhat more expensive. The town is not heavy traffic, but the outer subdivisions do get a lot of traffic. (Beck road is heavy and the road is in terrible shape.) Downtown Northville also has a neat small horse racing track just outside of town. Hines Park is very close. Mayberry State park is also on the outside edge of Northville. Northville has a park where they moe a dozen or so historic homes and buildings and built a little villiage. It is neat. To me Northville and Plymouth are neck in neck with Northville having the edge for being a little nicer, a little quainter and having better houses and parks. Plymouth has a better location (to me because it is near Ann Arbor).

Novi is suburban sprawl at its finest. Novi was a tiny tiny town in the 1970s, mostly farm community. Then they built what was then touted as the worlds largest shopping mall there. Then they built extenstions to the mall, strip malls, and big box stores. Novi grew around this. Housing is almost all newer subdivisions with what we call McMansions the prevailing style. It grew recently and quickly. The farms are mostly gone. turned into subdivisions and strip malls. There is no downtown. Like Canton, community is tied to individual subdivisions. Novi gets a lot of traffic due to the large number of shopping opportunities and the fact that five freeways converge in Novi. They have a fantastic public library. You do not have to live in Novi to use the library. Novi is the longest commute. Novi has execellent schools.

Personally I love Plymouth and Northville. I would not consider Novi or Canton. Part of what you must decide is whether you want a small town/comunity, or newer subdivisions of mass produced homes that are mostly simlar. There are plusses and minuses to either lifestyle and some people love one and hate the other. Some people are happy or miserable in either. All are safe, clean and have execellent schools. You have no bad choices here.

You may want to consider South Lyon (another small town near Plymouth with very good schools); and possibly downtown Ann Arbor, a good sized college town with great schools. Ann Arbor is a busy place with lots and lots of stores, cafes and resturuants. It is very cosmopolitan because students come from all over the world to attend University of Michigan. It gets insanely busy during college football games (over 100,000 people watch the game, almost the same as the entire population of the city). There is a nice farmers market. Some great places to shop and eat, but most of the town centers around the university. It is crawling with rowdy students in the University area. However they do not tend to infest the neighborhoods or streets in other parts of town.

You may also want to consider outlying areas. Plymouth Township. Salem, Salem Township, Dixborough, Lyon Township, Northville Township, Ann Arbor Township. These areas offer rural or subdivision living and execellent schools. The townships are often a bit less expensive than the towns. You can even find an old farmhouse and some acreage in those locations.

One of the first things you want to do is visit the following places:

Kensington Metropark (Between New Hudson and Milford)
Hines Park.
12 oaks Mall in Novi.
Downtown Ann Arbor.
Downtown Plymouth and Downtown Northville.

Figure out which of these things you would most like to be near. Then decide if you want subdivision living or small town living or rural living. Then start looking at houses or apartments.

You can find lots of differnet kinds of houses and neighborhoods in each area. Choose the area first then a house. Otherwise you may fall in love with a particular house in a less than ideal area.

[aoletsgo]

Coldjensens summed up the western suburbs very well, as a 30 year Northville resident (10 in township, last 20 in city) I will add a few. Both Northville and Plymouth have nice downtowns, I like Northville from a proximity point for me, but I find Plymouth to have more people, choices and excitement.
Since your childern will be elementary age I will give you my biased opinion on the 6 elementary schools in Northville (don't have the knowledge of Plymouth schools).
Silver Springs - most diverse, pulls from a mix of subdivisions, condos and apartments
Winchester - had many friends at this school, pulls from older, nice subdivisons all kids go to Meads Mill Middle School
Ridge Wood - newest school pulls from newest subdivisons which tend to have residents who are new to the area, many who are here for a short time
Moranie - has a mix of kids from the older and newer most expensive subdivisons
Thornton Creek - similar to Moranie but a greater porporiton of kids from newer most expensive houses.
Amerman - the oldest, (but maintained) school this is the City school and has kids from a wide background and many familys have been residents for a long time.
There are also two Catholic elementary schools that are good, Our Lady of Good Counsel in downtown Plymouth and Our Lady of Victory in downtown
Northville
Finally, I recently meet a couple from Germany who's kids go to Amerman, I heard a German couple were renting in Northville Twp at 7 Mile and Ridge Road and have meet a younger mother at the Northville city dog park who speaks French since she is from Morocco.