A Trip to the Motor City: Outside the City Boundaries

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:

1. Southfield, the suburb where I lived from 1960 to 1973 (when I moved to North Carolina).  
2. Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, in Dearborn
3. Ford Motor Company River Rouge Plant
4. The Grosse Pointes
5. Royal Oak, and the location of the Woodward Dream Cruise
6. 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.

Typical house in Dearborn

Orville Hubbard is turning over in his grave

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.

Entrance to Henry Ford Museum

Inside the Henry Ford Museum

Inside the Henry Ford Museum

Greenfield Village

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.

Steel mill at the River Rouge Plant

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.

Downtown in one of the Grosse Pointes

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.

Residential street in Royal Oak

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.

Downtown Birmingham

Starter home in Bloomfield Hills

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.

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!"

A Trip to the Motor City: Some Residential Areas

This page covers the area that extends from Midtown out to the outer city limits, shaded in yellow below.  Most of this area is (or was)  residential.  Now you're going to see a lot of what you visualize when you think of Detroit. 

Some of the areas we will visit include:

1. Boston-Edison
2. Hamtramck
3. Highland Park
4. Dexter-Livernois area (where I lived until I was 8)
5. Palmer Woods

Detroit had no (and still does not have) any rail mass transit, since that would keep people from buying cars, and GM, Ford, and Chrysler wouldn't want that.  So, everybody drove everywhere, which made for massive sprawl, and low density housing.  When I was born, the city of Detroit had 1.95 million people, the vast majority of them living in single-family houses.  Today, there are about 700,000 people living within the city limits.  Below is what happens when you have 700,000 people living in an area that originally held almost 2 million.  Can you see any vacant lots?

Let's start our tour in a residential area that's not so depressing.  The Boston-Edison area (named after the two main streets in the neighborhood) was where the early auto moguls built their mansions.  Most of the houses in the area are in good shape, but there isn't much commercial development (any more) near there.  Here are a few of the houses in Boston-Edison.

To the east is Hamtramck, one of the two cities that are entirely within the border of Detroit.  Hamtramck was at one time almost entirely Polish (and the subject of many local jokes), although other ethnic groups have moved in.  The commercial streets still have a lot of Polish businesses, and the residential streets are modest, but well kept.

Houses in Hamtramck

North of Hamtramck, and still within the boundaries of Detroit, is the city of Highland Park.  Henry Ford built his Model T plant (the first assembly line) in Highland Park, and for many years the area around the factory was a middle-class area.  Not so much any more.

The Model T factory is behind this shopping plaza

Part of the Model T factory

Along Woodward Avenue in Highland Park

Highland Park High School (abandoned)

Highland Park Police Department

Some houses in Highland Park

Now, let's head west, back into Detroit to the Dexter-Livernois area, where I lived until I was 8 years old.  Here's the house I lived in as it appeared in 1999.

Not bad, huh?  Well, here's how it looks in October of 2013

As far as I can tell, the house is empty.  According to the web, it sold for a whopping $24,000 earlier this year.

OK, so the house isn't doing that well.  Let's take a walk (a block) down to Dexter, which was the local commercial street when I was growing up.  This is where the corner grocer, drugstore, bank, and restaurants were.

A view down Dexter

The corner drugstore

Where the corner market was

A few more "stores" on Dexter

And, of course, the Dexter Bar

Let's visit the residential areas a couple of blocks from my old house.  

This was a block full of houses at one time

And a few more from Dexter

Lest you think that all of Detroit looks like this, let's go to Palmer Woods, a neighborhood in northwest Detroit.

Unfortunately, even Palmer Woods can't avoid the Detroit syndrome:

Now, let's cross Woodward, about 1/4 mile from Palmer Woods

But a few blocks away.....

Next: Outside the City Limits