I thought I would make a thread for the Great Lakes State.  For those of you that have been here what are your favorite towns?  I live in Michigan so I've had the chance to go to many places.

 

Here are my 5 favorite cities:

1. Detroit

2. Grand Rapids

3. Ann Arbor

4. Monroe

5. Howell

1. Royal Oak

2. Birmingham

3. Windsor

4. Rogers City

5. Toledo

1. Royal Oak

2. Birmingham

3. Windsor

4. Rogers City

5. Toledo

 

rogers city? what have you been hanging out with michi?

 

I love Michigan.

1. Bellaire

2. Flint (Flint Township)

3. Detroit(bloomfield)

4. Ann Arbor

1. Saginaw

2. Lansing

3. Ludington

4. Hamtramck/Detroit

5. St. Ignace

 

I lived in Metro Detroit and didn't see much else..

 

1. Royal Oak

2a. Ann Arbor

2b. Ferndale

3. Birmingham

4. Grosse Pointe

5. Grosse Ile

Ferndale is my hero.

Ferndale is my hero.

 

^ And vice versa, I suppose.

 

My fav five:

 

1. Hamtramck

2. Ferndale

3. Birmingham

4. Bel Air

5. Kalamazoo

^Hamtramck is its own city?

^Yes.

 

For my actual top 5, jokes aside:

 

1). Detroit

2). Grand Rapids

3). Birmingham/Royal Oak/Ferndale/Woodward Corridor of Love

4). Ann Arbor

5). The small towns near the peninsula's tip (Traverse City, St. Ignace, etc)

 

The rest of the state is trash.  Especially Lansing.  Christ, they have more downtown parking lots than Polaris Mall.  I wonder if they have a parking space for state government worker infront of their pencil-esque capitol building.

 

Then again, Columbus has a parking space for every Au Bon Pain worker @ Capitol Square.

^Hamtramck is its own city?

 

Blasphemer! BLASPHEMER!!

1.  Ann Arbor

2.  Detroit

3.  St. Joseph

4.  Grand Haven

 

Agreed with ColDayMan that the small towns near the tip of the mitten are neat.  I liked Petoskey, and U of M has a research station near Pellston, which is an absolutely beautiful area (even if the town consists entirely of six buildings).

... and U of M has a research station near Pellston, which is an absolutely beautiful area (even if the town consists entirely of six buildings).

 

It's a pity it's U of M.

 

It's a pity it's U of M.

 

 

Oh man, now I'm gonna have to go Amrap on your ass for ripping on my school.  :-)

*yawn* ;)

Oh, you university trash and your rivalries. How quaint.

Don't you have a moon to shoot?

I see that it's snowing in Michigan today.

Not snowing in Ohio yet (even east of Cleveland), is it?

 

BTW,

I have no favorite cities in Michigan.  Give it to Canada.

Charlevoix

Ok a real top 5

 

1. Detroit

2. Ann Arbor

3. Traverse City

4. Suburbs (mainly Northville CITY, Royal Oak, Birmingham, and half of Dearborn)

5. Grand Rapids

 

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of Michigan, and to the state for which it stands, 2 beautiful peninsulas united by a bridge of steel, where equal opportunity and justice to all is our ideal."

 

Don't you have a moon to shoot?

 

Yeah. Hold still.

1.) Ann Arbor

2.) Traverse City

3.) Ypsilanti

4.) Detroit

5.) Grand Haven

 

Don't care too much for the over-populated, over-priced northern burbs.

You know my first ever experience with Michigan was absymal.

 

My dad took me on a fishing trip to Hess Lake, near Newaygo, north of Grand Rapids. 

 

It did nothing but pour rain...no fishing...and we where holed up in this cabin, with nothing for me to do but play with the Lincoln Logs that the resort owner lent us.  He said the only thing to see in the area was to take a plant tour of the Gerber Baby Food factory.  We passed on that. 

 

Later, though, I spent some time on trips w. my dad camping and backpacking in the Upper Penninsula & Isle Royale and the Porcuppin Mountains and other places, and IMO the UP is really Gods Country.  I love that area (in the summer, I hear the winters are brutal). 

 

My favorite towns of any size up there are Houghton and Marquette.

 

We also took a trip to the Sleeping Bear Dunes country in Northern Michigan...my favorite town up there is Leland, which is sort of transplanted New England Fishing Village (maybe, ive never been to New England) on Lake Michigan.  And the sunsets from Empire Beach are fanstastic.

 

I did take a quick tour of Detroit after going the the Henry Ford Museum for their 100th Anniversery of the Automoblie exhibit...basically we drove around the River Rouge plant, through Dearborn and this arab neighborhood in Detroit n. of Dearborn, then into Detroit, onto Grand Boulevard, through that New City area, then to Hamtramck (as Im polish I wanted to see the polish area..it wasn't that polish), then down Woodward into downtown, then under the tunnel into Windsor (just to say weve been to Canada).

 

My impression of Detroit is that isn't as wasted as I thought.  Dearborn reminds me of an older Chicago suburb, and Hamtramck was sort of Daytonesque.  I really didnt spend enought time in Detroit to make a solid opinion, and of course didn't see the suburbs.

 

 

 

 

boo to Michigan

 

I like Benton Harbor

It's a riot!

-- Detroit (Greektown, New Center/Woodward/Mexican Town -- plus gorgeous homes/mansions in the Palmer Woods part of the City)

 

-- Royal Oak: one of the hipper, cooler active (ped-oriented) areas in the state; very gay-friendly, too.

 

-- Birmingham; shares similarities to Royal Oak, but much, much more preppy and, really, too far from Detroit.

 

-- Lansing's very boring, but East Lansing's pretty nice -- MSU's campus is stunningly gorgeous.

 

NOTE: because it's only got one mega metro area, Michigan pulls together as One State much more than Ohio, which is very balkanized.

MSU's campus is stunningly gorgeous.

 

Yeah, in the cattle prod sense.

 

NOTE: because it's only got one mega metro area, Michigan pulls together as One State much more than Ohio, which is very balkanized.

 

Ahem, I present to you the scorched-earth political and worldview schism between minority, democrat Southeast MI and lilly-white, hard right arch conservative Western, MI, all simmering in the most toxic stew of fear and racism anywhere in the US. Aside from all that, MI is one big happy family. (See the Mansons).

Yeah, in the cattle prod sense.

 

Little school bashing, eh?  You a U-M guy? This comment makes little sense, it's a nice town and campus.

 

Ahem, I present to you the scorched-earth political and worldview schism between minority, democrat Southeast MI and lilly-white, hard right arch conservative Western, MI, all simmering in the most toxic stew of fear and racism anywhere in the US. Aside from all that, MI is one big happy family. (See the Mansons).

 

Actually, the 'minority' and 'democrat Southeast' begins and ends with Detroit, Dearborn and, a few other 'black suburbs' like, say, Inkster.  Oakland and Macomb counties, directly to Detroit's north (across 8-Mile Rd) are very conservative.

Yeah, in the cattle prod sense.

 

Little school bashing, eh?  You a U-M guy? This comment makes little sense, it's a nice town and campus.

 

Ahem, I present to you the scorched-earth political and worldview schism between minority, democrat Southeast MI and lilly-white, hard right arch conservative Western, MI, all simmering in the most toxic stew of fear and racism anywhere in the US. Aside from all that, MI is one big happy family. (See the Mansons).

 

Actually, the 'minority' and 'democrat Southeast' begins and ends with Detroit, Dearborn and, a few other 'black suburbs' like, say, Inkster.  Oakland and Macomb counties, directly to Detroit's north (across 8-Mile Rd) are very conservative.

 

I am hardly a UM guy. Though, comparing East Lansing to, say Ann Arbor, there is, well, no comparison.

 

Oakland County, while it has its Bloomfields, nets out liberal (all those educated people really throw off the curve) and has gone Democrat for the last three or four presidential elections. Macomb Co. while chock full o' honkies, is getting blacker by the day. There positively is a statewide political divide. If you have a little spare time and a strong constitution, I direct you to http://www.mackinac.org.

 

And West v. Southeast aside, Michigan is home to the #1 and #2 racially segregated metros in the country (Flint and Detroit, [dis]respectively).

 

Damn, it's good to be in Ohio.

I am hardly a UM guy. Though, comparing East Lansing to, say Ann Arbor, there is, well, no comparison.

 

Why must East Lansing be compared to Ann Arbor -- an awesome college town, to be sure?  Why can't East Lansing be viewed in it's own light; I thought the purpose of this thread was identifying cool areas of Michigan of which, in addition to the others listed to which I agree, I added East Lansing... And yes, the MSU campus is considered by most people with eyes, very beautiful.  Your 'cattle prod' comment just sounded dismissive, air-headed and plain dumb, ... and you hardly strike me as a dumb individual...

 

Oakland County, while it has its Bloomfields, nets out liberal (all those educated people really throw off the curve) and has gone Democrat for the last three or four presidential elections. Macomb Co. while chock full o' honkies, is getting blacker by the day. There positively is a statewide political divide. If you have a little spare time and a strong constitution, I direct you to http://www.mackinac.org.

 

And West v. Southeast aside, Michigan is home to the #1 and #2 racially segregated metros in the country (Flint and Detroit, [dis]respectively).

 

When I 1st made the comment about the 'Michigan pulling together aspect, I was really talking more in a collective mentality sense, particularly as it relates to sports: which one could argue is trivial, in the larger scheme of things.  In Ohio, you can't get all of the state to pull for a Cleveland or Cincinnati team, or even Ohio State, on some levels (some here in Cleveland, consider a downstate school – I’m not one of them, though, as I’m a huge OSU fan).  Plus, we clearly have the upstate/downstate divide here where downstate people hate Cleveland and Clevelanders (very misguided, of course) look down their noses on downstaters...

 

As to the more serious stuff – yes, I do know parts of Oakland are extremely liberal (like Royal Oak, which is also large in population) and even streaky liberal, like Birmingham and Bloomfield, which has a lot of those rich crusading do-gooder whites; similar to those in Shaker Heights and Oak Park (outside Chicago) which both voluntarily bused white kids into black neighborhoods.  Ann Arbor is similar to this and, of course, is solidly Dem.  East Lansing (there I go comparing) is solidly Dem, too, but not quite as activist as is A2.

 

As to the really serious stuff... there isn't a region, state, metro area or even city in the USA that's not largely divided along strict racial lines.  Such is the ugly legacy of this generally otherwise great nation we live in.  A few weeks ago, the Free Times did a cover story noting -- as we've known for some time -- that some of the greatest concentration of racial/religious hate groups is in places like Parma and Seven Hills; areas that are immediately adjacent to Cleveland, the epicenter of 'solid blue' NE Ohio.  I do know, as you allude to, there's a serious anti-Detroit (read btw the lines "anti-Black) mentality in Michigan as you head west, north and south of the Motor City along I-94, I-96 and I-75, respectively. 

 

The overall point being, just as in Illinois, when your state has only one dominant major metropolitan area in a state as is the case in Michigan -- as opposed to having somewhat smaller but more numerous metro areas like in Ohio -- the state has the ability to, on a number of levels, mobilize and pull together (economically, sports-wise) as One... Here in Ohio, it really does seem, at times, like there are sub-Ohios, almost to the extent where parts of the state, like NEO, could secede and become their own states (like my Dem friends wanted NEO to do after the 2000 and '04 presidential elections, where we felt the rest of the state was so horribly out of touch in voting for clueless George).

 

I am hardly a UM guy. Though, comparing East Lansing to, say Ann Arbor, there is, well, no comparison.

 

Why must East Lansing be compared to Ann Arbor -- an awesome college town, to be sure? Why can't East Lansing be viewed in it's own light; I thought the purpose of this thread was identifying cool areas of Michigan of which, in addition to the others listed to which I agree, I added East Lansing... And yes, the MSU campus is considered by most people with eyes, very beautiful. Your 'cattle prod' comment just sounded dismissive, air-headed and plain dumb, ... and you hardly strike me as a dumb individual...

 

The cattle prod comment was a juxtoposition of concepts known as "a joke." Not an uproariously funny one, I suppose, but it made me giggle.

 

Let me state: I have spent many, many enjoyable days and nights up at Michigan State. But, based on my experience, East Lansing, while not Siberia, is not the most attractive campus in the land. It has its picturesque aspects--the Red Cedar can be pretty and there are pleasing stretches of Grand River and Harrison Road--but as a single, integrated whole, MSU's campus, with its towering dorms and wide-open spaces, tends to sprawl as only a large state university known affectionately as "Moo U" can. I don't know. I haven't been there in a few years. Maybe the trees have matured some.

 

This is what my eyes tell me. Apparently our eyes disagree. In which case, damn your eyes.

 

The Detroit metro is certainly the most monolitihic in Michigan, but in the absence of physical metros, there are more nebulous, philosophical metros in MI, and most coalesce around the "us versus those people" mentality--"us" being outstaters, and "those people" being blacks, browns, gays, and liberals--all of which plays well into the Republican fear-factor machine. Geographically, this school of thought concentrates in Grand Rapids and other Western MI mini metros (I have an aunt who lives in Howard City which she describes as "a suburb of Muskegon)." The Macinac Center for Public Policy crystalizes this, and the outstate Republicans follow it as marching orders. These are people who are still angry about the 1930s sit down strikes, mind you.

 

So, my point being, just because MI isn't a multinodal state doesn't mean there isn't balkanization. It's just that Detroit's enemies have no specific homeland and can strike from anywhere without warning.

 

Much like The Taliban.

say yes michigan. anyone remember that old ad?

 

i love the top of the mitt. to be a true michigander you have to do the dune climb. so traverse city is at the top of my list. if you have a family with small kids this area is the best in the country for quiet anti-disney family oriented vacations. yooperville is interesting enough too. i had a lot of good times in detroit/aa so they are ok by me too.

 

otoh, the royal oak/oakland thing is fine for them, but boring who cares to me as we have several of those style of places in ohio. grand rapids & their college towns thing? whatever. lansing eh. flint? hell i mostly grew up in lorain so ef you flint & micheal moore you dont know loss of industry like ne ohio does so stop yer cryin. ha!

 

i can critique but that is from love as i spent a lot of college youth time up there from bg/toledo so i cant bash. michigan has its good & bad points like anywhere and is ok by me. if you really want to bash well here's a hint don't forget all those cracka barrel honky militias they seem to love up there. wtf?

 

 

say yes michigan. anyone remember that old ad?

 

yes michigan, the feeling forevever

 

 

say yes michigan. anyone remember that old ad?

 

yes michigan, the feeling forevever

 

 

Frankly I prefer the current Michigan slogan, "Great lakes. Great times. Great Oldies. Michigan 104.3 FM."

 

Wait, I think I got that worng...

Back OT...

I like all the little cities along the west coast (sun'set' side)..most seem to have their little harbor and walking/shopping district and harbor trail, and not yet over run by fudge shoppes (Sagatuck, Holland, Gran Haven, Manistee); I love the sand dune geology (Nordhouse Dunes are serene).

 

BTW caught my biggest fish ever in the Pere Marquette River at Ludington. a 15# to 20# salmon (previous record 2 oz bluegill)

say yes michigan. anyone remember that old ad?

 

yes michigan, the feeling forevever

 

 

Frankly I prefer the current Michigan slogan, "Great lakes. Great times. Great Oldies. Michigan 104.3 FM."

 

Wait, I think I got that worng...

 

my old church used to be near (within 2 miles) of the giant 104.3 tower in Hazel Park, no matter what frequencies we used (i'm not a techie) we always would hear a faint broadcast of 104.3 during mass.

say yes michigan. anyone remember that old ad?

 

yes michigan, the feeling forevever

 

 

Frankly I prefer the current Michigan slogan, "Great lakes. Great times. Great Oldies. Michigan 104.3 FM."

 

Wait, I think I got that worng...

 

my old church used to be near (within 2 miles) of the giant 104.3 tower in Hazel Park, no matter what frequencies we used (i'm not a techie) we always would hear a faint broadcast of 104.3 during mass.

 

And now, with today's scripture reading, Paul Anka.

Cleaned up.

^That seems to be happening a lot lately :|

^Aye. I will have to wait another day to redisplay my arcane knowledge of the Toledo War.

^That seems to be happening a lot lately :|

 

There are reasons for everything.

^That seems to be happening a lot lately :|

 

There are reasons for everything.

 

Except for this thread. 

This thread has purpose.  Unlike you.

I see none of you said Port Huron!  Try living there for a year with this across the river. Canada will give you cancer.

 

I like Ann Arbor and that's it, lol.

 

I see none of you said Port Huron!  Try living there for a year with this across the river. Canada will give you cancer.

 

I like Ann Arbor and that's it, lol.

 

 

in defense of Sarnia, its not like port huron is michigan's coastal mecca either.

Actually, I have to spen a night in Port Huron next week.  Is it a nice town?

Port Urine.

^Doesn't it have a pretty dramatic bridge to Canada?

^^ Port Huron is .... an experience, at the very least. Gotribe, if you have a few free minutes, I suggest you go to the Brass Rail on Main Street, an old-timey bar that is like walking into a time machine. Then go to The Raven Coffeehouse on the other side of the Black River. It's the best coffeeshop I've ever been to.

 

St. Clair County, Michigan is probably the most surreal place I've ever lived in. It's only an hour from a giant metropolitan area, but it's remarkably detached. And then Sanilac County above it. WOW. I would never, ever, ever want to live there again, but it provided life experience that is unmatched.

The good old Blue Water bridge. Overwise known as the Golden Shower Gate Bridge.

 

No, it's not. I just made that up. Can you tell?