Finally, we travel outside the Detroit city limits to see where most "Detroiters" live. The population of the Detroit Urban Area (Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties) is 3.8 million, while the city of Detroit has about 700,000 people, so less than 1 in 5 people in the Detroit area actually live in the city.
Some of the points of interest in the map above are:
- Southfield, the suburb where I lived from 1960 to 1973 (when I moved to North Carolina).
- Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, in Dearborn
- Ford Motor Company River Rouge Plant
- The Grosse Pointes
- Royal Oak, and the location of the Woodward Dream Cruise
- Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills
Let's begin in Southfield. Below is the house where I lived, as it was in 1963. At that time, Southfield was the fastest-growing part of the metropolitan area, populated largely by Jewish families moving out from Detroit. Southfield's population is about 65% black, largely middle class.
Here is the house in October 2013. Unlike our house in Detroit, it's still in very good shape, and there are viable commercial areas nearby.
E.J. Lederle School, where I went for grades 3 through 9. Still in use, although a little worse for wear.
Southfield High School--when I graduated from Southfield High in 1969, our graduating
class had approximately 1000 white students, and 3 black students. The student body is now 97% black.
A significant part of Southfield is occupied by office towers--a lot of the businesses that moved from downtown Detroit in the 1960's through the 1990's moved here. For my fellow SAS people, the photo below was taken from the SAS Detroit office, which was located in one of the towers in this complex.
This is a view of Southfield and other suburbs looking northwest from the SAS Office.
Next, we head about 10 miles south, to Dearborn. Dearborn is most famous for being the headquarters of Ford Motor Company, and home to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. In the 1950's and 1960's it was known for being the most racist city in the North (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orville_L._Hubbard for a little history). Ironically, the eastern part of Dearborn now has the largest Arab population in the world outside the Middle East.
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| Typical house in Dearborn |
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| Orville Hubbard is turning over in his grave |
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| Ford Headquarters |
The
Henry Ford Museum is (for my money) the best museum of American history outside the Smithsonian. Next to the museum is Greenfield Village, a recreated 19th century village that contains several original historical buildings (Wright Brothers bike shop, Edison's Laboratory, etc.) that were moved there from their original locations. If you are in the Detroit area and you can only see one thing, the Ford Museum/Greenfield Village should be it.
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| Entrance to Henry Ford Museum |
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| Inside the Henry Ford Museum |
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| Inside the Henry Ford Museum |
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| Greenfield Village |
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| Wright Brothers Cycle Shop at Greenfield Village |
A couple of miles away is the Ford Motor Company
River Rouge Plant, which at one time was the largest single factory in the world. Not only do they make cars and trucks here, they make the steel and other materials to make the cars and trucks. You can take a tour of the truck assembly plant here.
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| Steel mill at the River Rouge Plant |
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| Aerial view of the River Rouge Plant |
Now we go to the other side of the Detroit area, to Grosse Pointe. There are actually several towns here with Grosse Pointe in their name (Park, Shores, Farms, etc.). When the auto moguls first decided to build mansions out in the country, they built them here, and this is where the "old" money resides.
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| Downtown in one of the Grosse Pointes |
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| Starter house in Grosse Pointe Shores |
Moving back to the northwest suburbs, we come to Royal Oak. This is a typical suburb, but downtown Royal Oak is where the hipsters hang out.
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| Residential street in Royal Oak |
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| Downtown Royal Oak |
Royal Oak is the center of the
Woodward Dream Cruise, in which about 40,000 classic cars are driven down Woodward Avenue through several suburbs. The Dream Cruise draws about a million people every year. Here are a few shots from the Dream Cruise.
Further on up Woodward, we come to Birmingham, another upscale community. North of Birmingham is Bloomfield Hills, which is where the "new" money resides.
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| Downtown Birmingham |
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| Starter home in Bloomfield Hills |
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| Cranbrook Academy, a private school in Bloomfield Hills. Mitt Romney went here. |
Finally, to the north and west of Bloomfield Hills are dozens of lakes (Orchard Lake, Cass Lake, Long Lake, etc.) When I was growing up, these were "out in the country" and there were small cottages around them. Now the Detroit metropolitan area has engulfed them, and most of the lots around the lake are occupied by huge houses.
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| Orchard Lake |
Thus concludes our not-so-brief tour of the Detroit area. Yes, there are parts of the area that probably match your image of Detroit, but it's more than abandoned buildings and vacant lots. As I like to say, "It's a great place to be from!"
