Assistant Sports Editor, The Detroit News

Shit! Balls!

 

piss

 

?

 

Ear muffs!

 

I'm proud to say I helped this thread dissolve into nonstop swearing.

Jizzum. Grandma.

 

you DID say muff.

 

Thank you for swooping in to take the credit, Sen. Clinton ...

 

I said helped, dammit.

 

Oh, yeah, you were above the fray. You essentially called me an asshole in your first post.

I lived in the Detroit area. My family is originally from there. Out of seven, all but one left. You know why? Because they hated living somewhere where taxes were ridiculous, where it snowed six months out of the year, where every fucking road is six lanes of ridiculously potholed asphalt, where you have to make a retarded "Michigan left" to go anywhere, where you can't take public transportation anywhere, meaning you're marooned if you don't have a car, where nearly every community is soulless and turned into a strip mall, where half those strip malls are vacant, where sections of Detroit pass for a bombed-out Baghdad, where the economy is in the crapper and has been for years, where the city that's supposed to be the main economic engine is run by corrupt foofs who commit perjury and think nothing of it.

Hey, if that's the type of place you wanna live, and the type of place you wanna be proud of, go ahead. I know the reality of it. People like you choose to keep your heads in the sand, build a few more I-696s and pretend like there's nothing wrong with the region. Be my fucking guest.

And there are some beautiful parts of Michigan -- up north. And Grosse Pointe.

 

I can vouch for some people's heads being stuck in the mud in Michigan. Witness Jennifer Granholm earning election not once, but TWICE. God. Some people are clueless.

Do not get me wrong. I'm proud to be a Michigan resident, but this state's economy was in the shithole long before the national economy started turning down.

 

As a lifelong native and booster of the NJ/NY area who moved to Michigan cold about six years ago, I'm going to weigh in with an outsider/insider perspective.

You could make an interesting comparison between Detroit and New Jersey's struggling core of Newark/East Orange/Irvington. Both have tremendous issues related to poverty, corruption and crime. There is a size difference (combined pop of the New Jersey areas is about half of Detroit's), but that's somewhat offset by the fact Detroit has a few positives the New Jersey core doesn't - pro sports teams to anchor downtown, no competition with NYC.

The biggest difference, of course, is that Northern and Central New Jersey aren't defined by their struggling areas. It's pretty much seen as a thriving suburban area with good schools, albeit also with high taxes and soaring housing prices ... that happens to be near Newark, etc.

Southeast Michigan is defined by Detroit, even though - if you take the city out of the mix - the overall area is much like New Jersey or the communities surrounding DC or Chicago. It has tons of thriving suburbs, many excellent k-12 school districts, a fantastic state college system. And - of course - housing prices about half of what you'd pay in New Jersey, if not less.

You can buy a new, 3,000 square ft, 4BR house with granite countertops and all those other HGTV touches in a fantastic school district in my area for under $275k. If I returned to New Jersey, it would cost me at least $500k to duplicate that, and probably $600k.

There are fantastic recreation opportunities - the Great Lakes, Northern Michigan, some decent skiing, a tremendous local parks system.

And - as much as I hate to admit it - Midwesterners are generally much friendlier and more community oriented my fellow New Yorkers and Jersey guys. We know our neighbors and co-workers much better here. There's much less cynicism and focus on the material.

Yes, there are challenges. The struggles of the auto industry pushed Michigan into a recession at least 18 months ago and the housing collapse has it us harder than most areas. This isn't an area that's going to be known for job growth for a long time.

But if you have a good steady job - like, say ASE at the Detroit News - you might find you'll have a much higher quality of life here than in many other regions, and it's a great place to raise a family.

The weather, incidentally, is totally overrated as a factor. Winters are not much worse than Northern New Jersey.