[Green Guy]

Here are my primary criteria. Michigan in general hits a lot of these:

Outdoor activities
Beautiful nature
Four dominant seasons
Health/organic food and restaurants
Low crime
Friendly folks
Prosperous economy
Clean air, very low pollution
A swimable, boatable, clean body of water

I think the key criteria where a city will differentiate itself will be economic prosperity and low crime. Which Michigan city hits these checkboxes best?

[usroute10]

Ann Arbor
Grand Rapids
(the swimable, boatable, clean body of water for GR is Lake Michigan - 30 minutes away from GR; for Ann Arbor, maybe the lake at Kensington Park? or maybe Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron about 1 to 1.5 hours away)

[animatedmartian]

Most Detroit's suburbs fall under this depending on what you mean by prosperous economy.

In sheer growth, Grand Rapids currently is the fast growing city in Michigan. But the northern suburbs of Detroit have a far higher median income, a bigger economy, and easily more amenities than Grand Rapids. It's arguable that metro to metro, Detroit kinda has the same median income of Grand Rapids, but that's only because Wayne County skews it towards the bottom, but otherwise, I think there's more wealth present in Metro Detroit than any other area in Michigan.

[magellan]

Originally Posted by Green Guy

Here are my primary criteria. Michigan in general hits a lot of these:

Outdoor activities
Beautiful nature
Four dominant seasons
Health/organic food and restaurants
Low crime
Friendly folks
Prosperous economy
Clean air, very low pollution
A swimable, boatable, clean body of water

I think the key criteria where a city will differentiate itself will be economic prosperity and low crime. Which Michigan city hits these checkboxes best?

Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor.

Grand Rapids/West Michigan has some of the best outdoor recreational offerings in the Midwest, and there are hundreds of lakes around (some only allow up to 50cc motors and others are "all sports" lakes, meaning speed boats and jet skis). There are also some good "mountains" here for snowboarding and fat tire mountain biking.

Ann Arbor doesn't have as many trails, dunes and lakes nearby but it checks off the prosperous, clean and health food stores categories.

[Jswee]

Traverse City meets all of those criteria.

[zthatzmanz28]

Inkster or Taylor

[MS313]

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

Most Detroit's suburbs fall under this depending on what you mean by prosperous economy.

In sheer growth, Grand Rapids currently is the fast growing city in Michigan. But the northern suburbs of Detroit have a far higher median income, a bigger economy, and easily more amenities than Grand Rapids. It's arguable that metro to metro, Detroit kinda has the same median income of Grand Rapids, but that's only because Wayne County skews it towards the bottom, but otherwise, I think there's more wealth present in Metro Detroit than any other area in Michigan.

According to this Highest-income metropolitan statistical areas in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Detroit ranks #17 highest income and Grand Rapids ranks #39

But I think Grand Rapids is probably the most economically prosperous area in MI right now. IMO it would probably blow alot of more well known mid sized cities around the country out of the water. I'm personally not a huge fan of West MI in general but Grand Rapids is very underrated.

[Coldjensens]

Much of Michigan consists of places to live and places to work. It is not real common to have both in one place. Places to live are not "prosperous" per se, but you might mean you want a place where lots of rich people live. On the East side of the lower peninsula, wealthy clean safe communities with a nice atmosphere include Northville, Ann Arbor, Plymouth, Novi, Saline, Birmingham, Grosse Pointe(s), Bloomfield Hills, Franklin Villiage, Troy, Grosse Ile, Chelsea . . . .

Areas with water are going to divide into small rivers, small lakes, big lakes and the Detroit River. All are swimable and boat ably clean. There are no bodies of water that are so polluted they are not safe or pleasant to swim or boat in with he exception of some parts of the Kalamazoo, Rouge, and Raisin Rivers. Beaches on lake St. Clair get shut down the most frequently due to organic pollution (sewage). For boating are you looking for large boats, small boats or a canoe? Do you want water frontage or just access. You have nearby access to bodies of water pretty much anywhere in Michigan. You are always near a lake or river. If you want direct access, you must pay a premium and your options will be more limited. Probably only a hundred places where you can have direct access to recreational water as opposed to several hundred that potentially fit your list but have water access within a reasonable drive.


Of these I think Grosse Ile and Chelsea are the best options, but pretty much all the nice suburbs will fit much of your list. However only a handful have water access or water frontage.

I cannot help much with the west side of the state other than to say it is prettier there. Lake Michigan is fabulous, and pretty much every town I know of on Lake Michigan is terrific.

[mjlo]

In terms of numbers I think GR and Ann Arbor stand out the most. Traverse City isn't necessarily a heavy hitting population center, but it hits on all of those points and In my opinion is among the most beautiful places in the country.

This argument about income between the east and the west side I think is disingenuous. The sheer number of STEM and white collar jobs in the Detroit area will naturally blow Grand Rapids out of the water. Grand Rapids until the last 20 years was a manufacturing center with very little R&D and brain trust activity, heavy on the non-union blue collar workers. The economy in the area has clearly shifted with a strong emphasis on Education, Bio-Sciences, STEM and a growing corporate presence. The growth rate for people with a bachelors degree or higher is among the highest in the country, and with those people comes higher incomes and standard of living.

As an engineer in the Grand Rapids area my salary was right in line with my peers in Metro Detroit. When you look up salary figures for both cities an engineer in Grand Rapids doesn't makes 50k while one in Detroit makes 80k. If someone know how to obtain a job and negotiate a salary they won't have any trouble. Especially with unemployment being under 4% and all sectors hurting for talent. There's just not this giant difference of quality of life and expectation of such, as one would expect when leveraging that income statistic.

[michigan83]

Originally Posted by magellan

Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor.

Ann Arbor doesn't have as many trails, dunes and lakes nearby but it checks off the prosperous, clean and health food stores categories.

Not to be nit-picky, but I think there might be more inland lakes near Ann Arbor than Grand Rapids. The area north and west of AA has a ton of lakes. GR has quite a few lakes to the northeast as well, but just from a quick look at a map, I think there might be more within a half hour of Ann Arbor. Neither city is really a "lake" city, in the sense that they have a lot of nice natural lakes within city limits, or very near to the city limits, like those big lakes right in the middle of Madison WI, for example. But GR definitely wins in the "number of Lake Michigans nearby" category.