Driving in and out of this city I have seen this building. Want to know what the Detroit Fed. looks like? Pristine.

It is the poster child for Starnesville. A once rich city reduced to rubble. Too close to home. :(

If you haven't, here is the trailer http://www.regmovies.com/Movies/Movie-Fo...

I am officially trained in chemical engineering and materials science. Over the past 16 years at Florida Tech, I started their nanotech minor program and helped start a biomedical engineering department. We have a top notch Physics and Space Sciences Department; proximity to the space program does help in that regard.

Whatever the pet cause of the left is will certainly be protested at U of M. One needs to be especially watchful in Ann Arbor of what you say. Regardless of what you say, you are likely to offend someone.

If you are going to Ann Arbor to go to U of M, their research equipment is first-rate.

Most of the statism that is in Ann Arbor comes from The University of Michigan, which is ironically my alma mater. Property taxes aren't low, but they are low compared to NY or New England. Stay out of Wayne County. They do have very high taxes. If you can get into eastern Jackson County west of Ann Arbor, you'll get a lot more for your dollar. Where are you commuting to?

Thanks for your replies. I'll be sure to live far from Starnesville/Detroit. Just wondering, any examples of why Ann Arbor is supposed to be "liberal"? Do they have rip-off taxation? Would I be better off living say in Plymouth?

She wasn't a prophet. She was a logical predictor.

Thanks. My specialties are astronomy and physics. How about you?

Welcome to the Gulch, ProfChuck. It's nice to meet a fellow professor.

JCabello, enjoy the People's Republic of Ann Arbor. I left A squared in 1994. If you can put up with the winters and live sufficiently far from Starnesville/Detroit, there are a lot of things to like about Michigan.

Let 'er rip

It's actually turning around more than other states. Rick Snyder is decent, but also very open to Federal meddling unfortunately, so long as it benefits Michigan.

I didn't know you were local. Where are you? I'm in Romeo area

Yeah...not a bad idea, Jan.

Um...yes, yes it is.

I think I might have seen that....

I hope you get to see Joel Gilbert's There's No Place Like Utopia. In addition to covering Detroit as you do, he interviews the inhabitants.

Hey, isn't that the "21st Century Motor Company"?

From what I understand, (I haven't lived there for two decades), the unions have killed it... the whole State. Jobs are scarce, properties are for sale rampant style, and LOTS of welfare. Some of these backwoods, country folk aren't the smartest tools in the shed either, BUT they'll take a stand for freedom faster than most. There was a bunch of millage signs in people's yards....why anyone votes to increase their taxes is beyond me. (I was mostly Up North my entire trip.)

Hey Detroiters, quick question for you... I'll be moving to Michigan soon, to the vicinity of the sister republic of Ann Arbor. How is the state doing as a whole? And do you see the welfare cancer spreading even further to that area? How about taxation, is it getting worse the take from the "rich" producers and give it to the poor?

Born & raised in the inner city, my folks moved to the Outer Drive area and from there to the Bloomfield area. When I got married, we lived near 7 mile and Evergreen and eventually out to Southfield (10 Mile & Southfield Road.) As I grew up it was as if my city was being eaten away, piece by piece. Where it was OK to go to certain areas, the next year, it wasn't. There are many things I miss about the Detroit I knew as a young person, but the only time I was back there was a few years ago when my wife's mother died.

I think that your picture should be a poster for AS3. Or a t-shirt. Or both.

This image encapsulates both the decades-old theme of AS and the current "Now non-fiction" subtext. Frightfully well done. Brrrrr.

Jan
(I would buy the shirt!)

I was born 2 years before the riots. I can't remember a Detroit that wasn't a ghetto.
(I was a Brightmoor girl).
I got out to the 'burbs, and we're moving further out soon.
I'm very bitter too.

I was born and raised in Detroit. I was there during its most prosperous times and left the area when it was halfway through its total destruction. As a "youngster" in my early 30s, I bought a house in a close-in suburb and for the next 25 years watched the deterioration creep ever closer. When the porno palaces, the prostitutes, and the dope dealers infiltrated to within 2 miles of our home we started thinking about leaving. Eventually we left the state altogether. I have a hundred horror stories about "my city." It was a place I loved so I can also tell you what it was like growing up in the most prosperous of cities. Am I bitter? You damn well betcha!