OT- I can't wait to hear this...
This weekend, we will get to hear a lot of people say:
"Woooooo! We're going to DETROIT!!!!!!!!!"
I laughed when anybody said it for the Super Bowl, and I will laugh every time I hear someone talking about it this week and this weekend. And though I grew up in Michigan and spent a lot of time around Detroit, it still just sounds plain ol' funny to hear someone happy to be going there.
Don't be a hater.
Mastur_____
debater
's degree in haterology.
People from Detroit need to get over their collective inferiority complex; the area's not that bad. People outside of Detroit need to find a new punching bag.
I spent the first 18 years of my life in the Detroit area and have since lived elsewhere.
It *is* that bad.
Could you elaborate? What is it about Detroit that you find that bad?
I must. Detroit is a cesspool, man. The roads are in gawd-awful condition, street signs missing all over, poverty in and around the city is bad, the race segregation is pretty severe, abandoned buildings are everywhere, stripped down police force, bodies in frozen in elevator shafts, extreme per capita murder rate, and Flint is rape capitol U.S.A. I could go on but, just, Detroit sucks. Seriously.
Aaand there's the whole auto industry debacle going on right now.
I wish it were otherwise, but right now it's bad.
Edit: Damn, missed the mini-meme below. Oh well, my epinion stands.
The area's not that bad!? I lived there, I walked home through Cass. That statement proves you've either never been there, or never gone beyond Greektown.
Yeah and when I go to St. Louis I head right for the east side. That is stupid. There are parts of every city that you don't go to. Why would anyone visiting Detroit head through the "bad parts?" The part of the city where anybody would be if visiting is not crime ridden and is actually a very nice and reasonably priced place to catch a concert or game. I hate when people talk shit about Detroit. It really isn't that bad.
Do you honestly think I'd post something like this if I'd never been there? For the record, I've lived in both Detroit proper and a few different suburban communities. The area (both city and suburbs) is not as horrible as people make it out to be. I don't understand this obsession with tearing it down.
OK, so you lived in Detroit, and you think it's "that bad" because there are bad parts. That fact that you were even willing to walk through them makes me think they aren't that bad. I live in LA. Most people's perception of LA is pretty good, right? Better than Detroit, at least. You couldn't pay me to walk through Watts right now. Does that make LA as a whole "that bad?"
Is every other building a burned out warehouse in LA too?
Every other building in metro Detroit is a burned out warehouse?
(Spare me the "I'm only talking about the city proper" nonsense. It's one metro area. They don't call them the Auburn Hills Pistons.)
actually, yes. Most are just abandoned though.
Average home price in Detroit is...wait for it.
$18,000. Yep
I've always found it's the people who have never been, or rarely been, to Detroit who think it's "sooo bad!"
I have lived here all of my life, save the college years, it is not that bad. So now I wonder does my saying that I live here now disqualify your opinion of Detroit like you just tried to disqualify jmblue's.
The problem with the "every city has bad areas" argument is the proportionality of good to bad when it comes to Detroit and other major cities. Even LA, which has a large "bad area" has a very large "good area" to balance it. Detroit really is just a few blocks around the entertainment district with some highlights here and there.
Detroit has its fantastic areas, but unless you just earned a trip to the Final 4, there's really no reason to visit it in April (or most other times for that matter).
There is a huge difference between the suburbs and the City of Detroit too. Just as Martha Reeves and Jay Leno.
I respect your complete lack of any evidence whatsoever, but did you know that Oakland county is one of the wealthiest counties in the US? As a proportion, I would doubt that LA and Detroit are much different at all. And I've lived both places.
What did you want? Maps of the cities? Demographics?
What evidence should I throw at you that will change everyone's basically subjective opinions about Detroit?
don't post pictures of dead people like a certain poster on this site once did
I love Detroit. Something about cheering for the underdog.
I just recognize that it's just not that great of a city compared to most in America.
Just because evidence doesn't change everyone's opinions doesn't mean it's irrelevant. You said that, proportionally speaking, LA has more nice areas compared to bad areas than Detroit. I didn't know if this was your opinion, if you read this somewhere, or what. LA does have more nice areas. It also has waaay more shitty areas. I was just curious as to how you came to that conclusion is all.
If I were to visit Detroit vs LA. I'd have more things to do in LA (bars, events, sites, shops, etc), and more physical space I could travel safely to do those things.
I should not have said the good vs bad as a proportion as I don't know the size of LAs bad. But again, that's all subjective because you or I may not worry about walking Detroit at night while the original poster or others wouldn't walk those same streets in the day light.
OK, then I suppose we're talking about different things. As far as a vacation destination, then of course I would prefer LA to Detroit. No brainer. I would also prefer Gulf Shores, Alabama and Panama City, FL and Tijuana. If you went to LA on vacation, you would be nowhere near the bad areas, making this a moot point.
I thought we were comparing the two cities in general, not as vacation destinations. In that case, you win, hands down.
I guess it's like porn "I know it when I see it."
I've been to New York, Chicago, Indianapolis, LA, San Diego, Columbus (on purpose), some others. In every one of those cities I'd say there are more good areas than there are in Detroit. Now I don't know the physical layouts like I do Detroit's, but I'd go out on a limb and say there are more good than bad areas. Again, it's all subjective, whether I'm defining it as "places where I can do things and do them safely" or you're defining it as "places I can walk through without getting shot."
Detroit is not a great city. It's a failing city with some cool things in it. Kinda like Cleveland was 15 years ago, or others may argue that Philly, Baltimore or Pittsburgh are now.
"Detroit is not a great city. It's a failing city with some cool things in it."
That's actually a pretty good way of describing the city. There are some good bits and pieces in the city, but the declining population, moribund school system and severely dysfunctional city leadership make the city itself largely unattractive.
That's basically the point of the original post.
"Woooooo! We're going to DETROIT!!!!!"
LA is pretty horrible. I haven't been back to Detroit in over a decade but I remember catching some Red Wings games and being around "the hood" and feeling *SAFER* there than in most areas of LA.
I also don't know about calling LA a vacation destination. It's a dirty, smoggy, crime infested slag pit pretty much everywhere you go. You can't count Disneyland because that's in Anaheim :P. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone say they were going on vacation...to LA (anecdotal but whatever).
OK, now that's taking things a little too far. The smoggy crime infested parts are no where near where I live, and no where near where you would go on vacation. It's not Cabo, but it's not exactly Gary, IN. The bad parts of LA are bad, no doubt about it. But the rest is pretty awesome. There's a reason it's one of the most expensive places to live in the country.
Detective John Kimble > Jennifer "Holy Moley" Granholm
Where does this Detroit guy play on offense or defense??? did I miss something???
Detroit is in Wayne county, not Oakland. Also, when people say Detroit sucks, they typically mean Detroit and it's immediate surroundings, not the nice suburbs farther out.
I know what county Detroit is in. I don't think you can discuss a city without including the entire metro area. Every major city's lines are drawn differently, some to also include the nice areas, or in Detroit's case, to exclude them. In LA, for instance, many of the bad areas - Compton, Inglewood, etc. are different cities. Does that mean they shouldn't be included when discussing the "bad areas" of a city, because it's across an imaginary boundary? Also in LA, cities like Brentwood and Westwood are comparable to Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, however they are in the actual LA city limits. They are analogous areas, and should be treated as such, regardless of which side of the city borderline they fall.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-detroit-housingjan29…
and the best line from the article:
"On a positive note, Detroit's homicide rate dropped 14 percent last year. That prompted mayoral candidate Stanley Christmas to tell the Detroit News recently, "I don't mean to be sarcastic, but there just isn't anyone left to kill.""
2nd best line:
"There is no major grocery chain in the city, and only two movie theaters. Much of the neighborhood economy revolves around rib joints, hot dog stands and liquor stores."
Detroit is a hellhole, sorry you are so fond of it. Don't you live in LA?
I do live in LA. I just think a lot of the feelings toward Detroit are unfounded, or at least unfounded to the degree to which they are felt. I have a number of college friends who live in metro Detroit, they like it, and I like it when I visit them. They just don't spend a lot of time in the neighborhoods where the economy revolves around rib joints.
Metro Detroit is polar opposite of inner city Detroit. That's really the issue. People from the metro area don't usually identify as "from Detroit" at least not in my suburban experience.
Yes they do.
March 24th, 2009 at 12:52 AM ^
Shrug, I guess I'm wrong then. I allowed for that when I said "in my experience" because I know people from Troy, Clarkston, Livonia, Royal Oak, etc, etc, and none claim to be from Detroit.
I had class with a shit load of people who were from one of the nice burbs and said they were from "Detroit" - almost as many people who did the same thing with Chicago burbs.
It's a silly thing to say that you are from Detroit if you really are from Novi, but I will tell you that most people from the area will say "from Detroit" when they are out of town.
If you are talking about classmates of yours, I could see how they would say Novi and not Detroit as most in Ann Arbor would know where that is.
Like I said, dex and cgc, in MY experience. I just so happen to have elitist friends that don't like the Detroit connotation I guess. Personally I'd rather point to my hand and say "I'm from here" than say Detroit. Then again, I grew up closer to Ann Arbor than Detroit but never knew this until I was 17.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:24 PM ^
The Metro-Detroit area is not bad. I think we can all agree on that, its not perfect but its all in all a nice place to live. The actual city of Detroit has a nice part, which is what everyone sees when they go down to watch a Lion or Tigers game.
HOWEVA, a large amount of Detroit is horrible, and the numbers back it up. These are 2007 numbers, not bothering to look up 2008 but I doubt they changed enough to make a difference. Per 100,000 residents, Detroit tops the list of US cities with 2,289 violent crimes, as opposed to, lets say LA, who checks in at a paltry 718. Detroit is only tops in one of those kind of crimes though, but they pick a doozy, with 46 murders per 100,000 citizens, as opposed to LA, with 10. Oh, also, Detroits elected officials get into incredibly emberassing text message scandals and manage to get on committees about event planning yet don't know the final four is going on. I hate it, but Detroit is a joke. Sowwy :(.
A major problem when comparing statistics of cities and only using the city proper is that each city is divided differently. Sure, the city of LA has lower violent crime statistics than Detroit. But Detroit proper includes nearly every bad part of the metro area, whereas LA proper excludes most of the worst areas: Compton, lynwood, inglewood, LB, Gardena. Those cities are where the gangs are, that's where the violent crime exists. So your statistic is virtually meaningless.
between LA and detroit, only one needed a cyborg cop to clean up the streets.
What's all this hoopla about??? All I'm hearing is Detroit this and Detroit that...I don't see this Detroit anywhere in scouts or rivals top 100....hmmm, did I miss something???
You missed the "OT".
"I bowled a 129 the other day. It was like the special olympics."
they are from "detroit," I laugh at them and ask what their area code is. when they say "248" i laugh even more. no ever says 313.
The GP does.