My Thoughts on Detroit
I’ve had some pretty major life changes recently and I wanted to reflect before I wrote about them. That’s why this blog has been inactive for the past three months. But now that the reflection is over, I’ve turned my thoughts into a three-part series — today will be part 1.
So what’s happened? In March, I was accepted to the MMM program at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Kellogg has a top-notch MBA program, so taking the opportunity was a no-brainer, but it also meant I’d be leaving Detroit; a city I’ve grown to love.
So let’s start at the basics: an outsider’s thoughts on Detroit.
When I tell my classmates that I moved to Chicago from Detroit, I usually get the follow-up question, “So what’s Detroit really like?”
I think most of you know about Detroit’s problems and if you dont, Time Magazine is about to make sure you do. Instead I want to talk about my personal experience living in the Detroit suburbs.
Detroit has a unique culture to it that you can only really experience if you meet somebody who really loves the city. I think that’s what made my experience so incredibly positive. I met a lot of people who genuinely loved their hometown and that let me experience some of the more special parts of the city. When I found out I was leaving, I actually made a list of things I still wanted to see, and went on a six-month mission to do it all (I didn’t). What really shocked me was that there were many things my Detroit-native friends had never even seen — and they were just as excited to see them with me.
My biggest disappointment about Detroit is that the racial politics of the city are so bad that a lot of Detroit suburbanites have no idea about parts of their their native city. I remember one weekend this summer when I went to see the Heidelberg Project and Eastern Market with my friends Stacey and Michele. On Monday morning I was sharing my weekend stories with a coworker who’d spent almost all his life in Detroit. Sadly, he’d never been to either and didn’t even seem interested in what I was telling him. There is a very palpable tension between residents of the city and residents of the suburbs, and the two sides pretty much fall on racial lines. Many suburbanites remain very skeptical and almost above anything in the city (except three of the four pro sports teams), and city residents remain incredibly mistrustful of suburbanites. Sadly, Detroit’s politicians play off this this to remain in power.
Despite all of this, I really met some great people in southeast Michigan and I think that is my biggest attachment to the area. Not long after I found out I was leaving, I ran into a casual acquaintance who not only already knew I was leaving, but seemed genuinely sad about my departure and even made it a point to spend time with me in my last week there. It seemed like no matter where I went in and around southeast Michigan, I met a lot of really friendly people.
I won’t lie that when I moved to Michigan in 2006, I had a very different image of life in southeast Michigan, and I couldn’t be more wrong.
I guess there are a few conclusions I can make from my Detroit experience: A) There are unique things to find in every city you’ll live in — go find them; B) Ultimately it’s people you get attached to, not cities; C) If the economy allows for it, I’ll move back in a heartbeat.
