this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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What would you say are the downsides to southern Michigan? I’m seriously considering MI and just curious what the downsides would be. I don’t mind some snow.
Being incredibly car-centric is probably our biggest issue in my opinion. If you're expecting to be able to use public transit or even walk to basic necessities, and are looking to purchase a house, you'd likely be looking at areas outside of your price range, generally within highly urbanized city centers. Owning a car is very much the norm here, even within those urban environments.
Luckily I go nowhere and have no desire to do so. Beyond having to go to a store or two a few times a month, my needs are few and far between
I'm from Kalamazoo. Lived in the sf bay now for the past 12+ years and many other places in between.
Winter is no joke, and drags on for a very long time. Diversity is much less than elsewhere I've lived (esp compared to the east bay), as a mixed race person my experience growing up was so much different than my kids' experience in Berkeley. Kzoo is halfway between Chicago and Detroit so not horrible but any big name concerts or museum shows or whatever require a few hours of travel. Like another poster said, also car culture - nobody walks anywhere nor can you feasibly do so (not just because of winter but also due to the influence of Detroit) and outside of AA public transportation is non-existent. And the job market in general isn't great (if you are working remote maybe it doesn't matter, but at least in tech the salaries are significantly less even in Ann Arbor or Chicagoland area vs California, and the number of opportunities way fewer).
Thanks for the info! I don’t care about access to anything significant. I’m currently in SoCal and quite honestly don’t leave my house much do to being remote and many personal issues. Looking to just make ends meet doing my remote job where my money and sanity can go the longest. Enjoy nature, seclusion and a temperate climate.
@Anissem
I'd say the best places to reside in Michigan are going to be in the lower half of the Lower Penninsula if you want a temperate climate. Doesn't mean winter won't fuck your shit up at least two or three times a year.
Beautiful nature spots are a day trip or long weekend away and quite lovely, though smaller in scale than the sprawling, mountainous naturescapes of California. We don't have anything quite as epic as Big Sur, Lake Tahoe, or the Redwoods here (souece: Michigander lived 13 years in the Bay Area), but we do have some very lovely areas and they're imo much more accessible for the average Joe. Oh yeah and when fall comes in, the color is AMAZING. It's a rather flat state all in all, though. Most places you have to drive to see anything rolling lamdscape-wise. It makes winter with all of the leaves off of the trees rather bleak if you're in sputhern Michigan.
But, there's a lot of interesting lore that you don't really get anywhere else like Great Lakes shipping/shipwrecks, bootlegging hotspots, a fucking shit-ton of musical history, tons of breweries and local agricultural festivals. If you're willing to pick and choose your urban areas, you can definitely find those spaces that have a Californian vibe about them, but they're not really centralized.
It’s really flat here compared to California, you can’t just drive a couple hours to get what you call hills and we call mountains. The Great Lakes are great but they’re not an ocean.
Flights from DTW are more expensive than from big cities. It’s funny that Detroit is 2,000 miles closer to Europe than SFO, but flights to Europe from SFO are cheaper.
We started getting wildfire smoke from Canada this year, but I imagine we’re still doing better than SoCal.
California is still more progressive than Michigan, but we also don’t have as much craziness around ballot initiatives.
I adore Detroit, but it’s no LA or SF. Chicago is about 4 hours away.
Regarding Detroit, when I step back and look at the country from a climate perspective, it looks great. From what I’ve been exposed to media wise, it sounds scary and crime ridden. I live on the outskirts of LA county, so I’m no stranger to a large city next door. Why wouldn’t I want to be looking at a town 30 minutes or so from Detroit? It seems like a logical option from my perspective.
There are some incredibly rich and affluent communities with very safe neighborhoods in some of the "suburbs of Detroit". Metro Detroit is a much larger area than Detroit itself and there are many types of communities to choose from.
Random interesting trivia...but the city of Dearborn in that area is home to some of the largest number of Arabic speaking individuals. There will even be signs in the downtain area written in Arabic instead of English. It's not a city I would recommend to live in due to safety, but it's a random interesting blub I wanted to word vomit out lol.
Winters in Michigan can be absolutely gorgeous when there is a fresh snow...but unfortunately much of winter is just freezing, brown, ugly, and incredibly dark and depressing (less sunlight hours in Northern winters due to the position on the globe). Subjectively, winter seems to last around 5 months out of the year. It starts late October to early November and lasts until mid April.
Thanks for the info!
Detroit has some great suburbs (check out areas like Ferndale and Plymouth/Canton), but don’t write off Detroit based on what you’ve read in the media. A lot of people in Michigan are in the same boat as you and are missing out on what Detroit has to offer because of what they think Detroit is.
If you've never experienced upper Midwest winters, you'll be in for an interesting experience.
Also, not much in the way of topology, contrasting with SoCal.
I grew up in Chicago and got out of the entire area as soon as possible, due to (in no particular order) allergies, weather, and seasonal affective disorder.
I live in SoCal now and love it here, but climate change will probably force us elsewhere within 20 years. We already spend most of the summer somewhere else to escape the heat.