OT: Best Suburban SE Michigan Neighborhoods
Long time stalker, few time poster seeking help.
My wife and I are are potentially moving back to SE Michigan (I'd be working around Dearborn) sometime in the next year. We're trying to get a feel for the best neighborhoods for young professionals. We've both got degrees from UofM and trying to find somewhere with people with our same age/interests.
Looking for good schools, nice neighborhoods, low crime, relaxed atmosphere. Probably nothing about 200k or so in terms of pricing if that helps with suggestions.
Edit: My wife and I are in our late 20's. We enjoy nice restaurants, walking our puppy, gardening.
I've heard good things about:
Royal Oak
Grosse Point (Woods,Farms, etc)
Farmington Township
Any first hand knowledge would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
I would not consider AA a suburb of Detroit. I think that cuts off around Plymouth/Canton.
If you work east of say Novi it would be a serious hike to get to AA each day with the traffic. If you work in the western suburbs its a valid option.
There is definitely a hipster happening in Ferndale. But the schools..... depending on the building violence can be a problem.
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That might depend on the specific block in Ferndale. Close to RO Township? Not good. Close to 8 Mile? Not good. And you wouldn't believe it but there is some crime right on 9 Mile steps from the police station.
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East of Woodward a couple blocks south of 9 used to have a pretty high WT quotient. There used to be a decent sweet spot that started maybe 3 blocks south of 9 and went to a little south of 8 1/2.
Never got too familiar with the west side just south of 9. Really use to love the neighborhoods northwest of 9 & Woodward.
Yes, east of woodward you start getting some bleeding in from the Hazel Park crowd, esp east of the railroad.
I dont think insurance companies really are doing this block by block. They just see "Ferndale" (which is a tiny city) and assign a rate. But for such a tiny city it is funny how different just moving 4 streets can have on the neighborhood.
Even north of 9 mile, east of woodward you want to be between the railroad tracks and woodward - its very quaint and its really changed the past 20 years. It's a very nice pocket of about 10 blocks. East of the railroad tracks and it becomes hazel parkish.
Not sure how it is north of woodward heights
Spend a lot of time in both cities. Ferndale is still "in development" south of like 8.75 mile. North of 9 mile and the first few blocks south of 9 mile is doing pretty well but you go south half a mile nearer Detroit and it is amazing how quickly the neighborhoods change.
As other have said, schools leave a lot to be desired in Ferndale as well.
If you don't have kids and are a young professional or couple northern Ferndale is good bang for the buck. If you have kids it is better just to pay up and go to Royal Oak. Not that the schools are amazing there relative to say Troy or Novi but compared to Ferndale a big difference. But if public school is your #1 option neither of these cities would be in a top 5.
Schools are decent in Berkley.
Yeah I forgot about Berkley - often gets lost in the crowd. When I was looking around I didnt find Berkley much cheaper than RO and if I was going to pay the same I thought RO had more going for it.
In many ways RO does indeed have more going for it. But strictly on the subject of schools Berkley is definitely in better shape.
Not true at all. Im not saying the Royal Oak schools are amazing, frankly Im out of the know there. That said I have some younger cousins who recently graduated from Berkley and the situation there is not good at all. Lots of problems with drugs and violence at Berkley high currently.
Obviously if OP has kids its going to be 14 years before they attend said cities high school so all of these school systems are going to be in a different place by then.
For what it is worth, north Southfield at about 12 and a half to 13 mile between Greenfield & Southfield road are a part of Birmingham schools.
Darn it, its Grosse *Pointe*.
The Woods is nice, but unfortunately its not quite as nice as it was a generation ago.
Royal Oak? Schools are very uneven.
It's Grosse Pointe.
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Yes it's all relative. What is sad about metro detroit is the center of the spoke is so broken. Major urban areas are where a lot of people want to move - you are getting a massive migration back into big cities as a backlash to the move to suburbia of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. However in metro Detroit its not a real option if you value safety and good schools. You are getting the "hipster" crowd and there are pockets like midtown but its just pockets right now. If it was a healthy city you'd have had a massive influx of 20/30 year olds out of suburbia and into Detroit like is happening everywhere else the past 15 years.
I like this new mayor but I mean to get a thriving Detroit its probably a few more decades. There are buds happening but its very niche and narrow and the bigger problems of safety, insurance, taxes, and schooling are 20+ year issues. Detroit didnt have a chain grocery store in the ENTIRE city until Whole Foods just opened up - I mean can you imagine Chicago or LA or Miami or Boston not having a major grocery food store? Detroit is still working on getting street lights on most nights.
One thing metro detroit has is ethnic diversity. I took that for granted- was down in Raleigh for a while and while a cute little city that always scores high on almost every "livability" factor (great schools, affordable, green space, jobs) there is a lack of diversity as compared to metro detroit IMO. Which surprised me with all the universitities there (I am sure there is diversity at that levelbut I am speaking in the broader city and suburbs).
You go to a supermarket in 80% of metro detroit and you are liable to hear 5-6 different languages spoken in a 30 minute shopping trip. Not like that everywhere.
Man this thread makes me thankful to live in a community full of culture
Thank goodness you are here to serve as our moral compass. We would be cast adrift otherwise.
moral compass? What does a community, and whether or not you live in it, have to do with morals?
Your statement makes me beileve that you tie the two together in some regard, feeling a littlwe guilty about that white flight, huh?
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I'm from Downriver. So, no.
Downriver White Trash unite!
jdon
Grew up in Royal Oak. Has grown from a kinda-nothing town in the 80s and early 90s to a "happening" place, though as a result it's also a bit douchier than you might like. Property values are stable, though, and the schools are fine. Farmington area is also nice from what I've heard, but I didn't run in those circles when I was in Michigan so I can only go on recommendations.
I won't repeat what others have said, but I'll add a layer to the argument of Royal Oak or the Northville-Plymouth area - access to the Southfield Freeway, which runs straight through the middle of Dearborn and would possibly provide you with easy-on / easy-off access to work depending on where you are. From NW Wayne County, it's a matter of 275 to 96 to the Southfield southbound, and from Royal Oak, 696 to the Lodge to the Southfield, both of which in good traffic would be 30-ish minutes. The commute from the north side of the region tends to be more hectic though.
Canton doesn't really meet the criteria - good schools but essentially 90,000-strong bedroom community with decent shopping. Belleville, Romulus, Taylor and Allen Park sit on the I-94 corridor in Wayne County and would be a short drive from Dearborn. For sheer convenience, those might not be a bad option.
So, I would argue that easy access to the Southfield is a bug, not a feature. When I was taking classes at UDM and working in Dearborn, it would take about 15 minutes to go the three-ish miles up the Southfield to 96. Then, if you happen to live out Plymouth / Canton / Northville way, I understand the 96/275 interchange is a holy terror.
I will say, people talking about HS's for a couple without kids might be a stretch. Chances are you will move as your family expands, so figure out what works for you now, not a hypothetical 15 years from now.
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I live in Wyandotte and you'll easily find what you're looking for here housing wise, love the Wyandotte downtown area and it's a short drive to Detroit or AA or Dearborn. But I know lots of people knock the downriver area but honestly I don't mind it at all. Plus Wyandotte proper has their own power, water, cable and internet service so you don't have to deal with Comcrap...
...but it is not a short drive to AA, at all. You have to go to the Southfield (the non-fwy part) to even get to I-94, and then you still have a ways to go.
It's still a fun town to a visit, and a good place to live if where you need to go is places like Dearborn, Detroit, the east side, etc. But if you're heading west regularly, there's a lot better options.
I live in Grosse Pointe Park and work in Dearborn. Some hopefully helpful notes:
- The commute is about 25-30 minutes without traffic, 30-35 with. It's longer in the afternoon than the morning by about five minutes. 94 is a pain in the ass and occasionally a huge pain in the ass, but there are lots of alternate routes that help limit my commute to no more than 40 minutes if traffic is really nasty on the freeway.
- You can find a house for around $200K. The selection would be more limited than if you were looking for one around $500K, but they're there. In general, proximity to the border with Detroit depresses a home's value and you should be able to find something with some patience.
- Excellent schools. Crime is basically limited to petty thefts. Things like bikes and power tools have a habit of occasionally making their way into Detroit. It's not exactly rampant, though.
- GP sorta has a few downtown spots. Each of the Pointes except the Shores has a little bit of a downtown, and there are nice restaurants and bars to be found although not so many that you don't want to go out and around, too. But fortunately we're only about 15 minutes from downtown Detroit.
The Pointes do have more interesting restaurants than when I grew up there. Way more.
I wouldn't consider anything in Wayne county unless it's the Plymouth area, but 200k isn't going to get you what you want there. You might find something in Canton along the Plymouth border though, but you need to be west of Westland. Generally speaking, Wayne county is becoming more of a low income and elderely population. You're going to pay more in insurance just for living in Wayne County. I think the majority of young professionals are looking for houses in the Ann Arbor/Dexter/Saline areas, the I-96 area between Novi and Howell, and in Royal Oak. The 96/275 area is a bitch in rush hour.