{"id":12382,"date":"2013-01-17T19:29:26","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T19:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/challengedetroit.org\/blog\/kathytian\/?p=24"},"modified":"2013-01-17T19:29:26","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T19:29:26","slug":"three-reasons-not-to-live-in-detroit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/three-reasons-not-to-live-in-detroit\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Reasons NOT to Live in Detroit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part Two of\u00a0Reasons <\/strong><\/em>Not\u00a0to Come to Detroit<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Continuing the series I started yesterday, I return to offer you, Dear Reader, three reasons not to live in Detroit. Let the record show that I have lived in Detroit since August 2013 (I lived in Ferndale for a year prior to that, in Toronto for a year prior to that<\/em>, and earlier than that<\/em> things really get too complicated for the scope of this introduction); the following is based on scientific* observations from living downtown for the past several months.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

It\u2019s okay if you fist-bumped the screen. I did too.<\/p><\/div>\n

Without further ado: three reasons to find somewhere to live that is not<\/em> Detroit.<\/p>\n

1. It’s weird to be able to live in this style.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Periodically my parents remind me how much I have grown up in privilege compared to generations past. I maintain a car, a smartphone, a laptop, a connection to the Internet, and means enough to buy books at a reasonable pace of consumption. This makes me uncomfortably aware of how unfair it is to the rest of my recent college grads that I can, on top of this, live in a building designed by a world-famous architect for next to nothing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

I took Architecture 100 for kicks and this building was in my textbook. Now I live in it. That\u2019s nuts.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

I live in the Lafayette Towers, a Mies van der Rohe design that maximizes views of \u2026 pretty much everything around the building. That includes Detroit’s waterfront, Windsor’s waterfront, the Renaissance Center and other famous buildings, the Dequindre Cut, and the sprawl of the city on all sides. My windows are floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall, affording warmth from the sun during the day and a great view of moonrise in the evening. My closet is half the size of the average dorm room and twice the size I need. All this comes at a price that is $100 less<\/em> than what I paid to live in a garret** in Toronto Chinatown and enough to rent perhaps a shelf in New York City.<\/p>\n

This can\u2019t be fair. Sometimes I think about how hard it is for a young professional in other cities across North America, usually when I am guiltily paying my miniscule electric bill for the month. Reader: it is a weight upon my conscience.<\/p>\n

2. It\u2019s too easy to eat well in this town.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I\u2019ll readily admit that I am one of those<\/em> twenty-somethings. Given sufficient motivation and opportunity (AKA impending deadlines), I can and will subsist on dehydrated noodles, spinach, and ice cream.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

This has happened in real life. But I mean, carbs + vegetables, right? Add guac and you\u2019ve got protein. How is it not a meal?<\/p><\/div>\n

More often than not, though, I have a fridge stocked with fresh vegetables, organic meats, and Michigan-grown fruit. For this I have Eastern Market to blame: from my apartment it\u2019s barely a fifteen minute walk along the Dequindre Cut (that lovely, urbane greenway) to reach sheds and sheds filled with fresh food at alarmingly low prices. Food to last me two weeks sets me back less than $20 if I just say no to the heritage-pork bacon; even with the bacon, my food costs are lower than anything logical in a big city.<\/p>\n

This has left me in the bizarre quandary of having more money than I expect to have in the bank at the end of each month. Perhaps, Reader, you do not understand why this is a negative \u2013 but recall reasons not to play in Detroit, and you will recall the remarkable ease with which one can be entertained. All the time I meant to allot to browsing aimlessly through Tumblr has vanished into the ether of a growing collection of museum memberships.<\/p>\n

3. It\u2019s too easy to walk places.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This, I realize, is a complaint not often leveraged against Detroit. It\u2019s true that there are parts of the city that are difficult to walk \u2013 it\u2019s just that that\u2019s not true for my part of the city. I can visit half-a-dozen friends without leaving Lafayette Towers, and it\u2019s barely a hop, skip, and jump over Lafayette Park to reach friends in the Pavilion. There\u2019s a great Thai place and a grocery just downstairs, plus the aforementioned Eastern Market in walking distance, and Campus Martius is only ten minutes at a brisk walk down a bright, populated street in day time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

\u201cDetroit streets are so scary!\u201d<\/em> It\u2019s true. It\u2019s terrifying how hard it is to pronounce their names. (The Detroit Historical Museum says it\u2019s the fault of the r\u00e9gime seigneurial<\/em>. That’s “ray-jeem say-new-ree-all”, and roll those\u00a0r<\/em>s.)<\/p><\/div>\n

This means that if I am vegetating slowly in my apartment, contemplating any number of urgent household chores, it is far too easy to put on shoes and a coat and walk to a friend\u2019s place, or to a place to eat and read, or to go skating (now that I know how: see this post<\/a>). What this means in hard data is that I have been only 80% unpacked since I moved in August, am only ever 80% done cleaning, and only ever have 80% of my clothes put away.<\/p>\n

So, Reader: if you love having nothing better to do than dishes and laundry, are easily consumed with guilt for low cost of living, or prefer the fragrance of a fridge empty of naught but fumes — stay far, far away from Detroit\u2019s downtown.<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/em><\/p>\n

* — Scientific in a purely empirical sense.<\/em><\/p>\n

** — For real, a garret. Charmingly sloped floors are significantly less charming when one is forever dropping things and watching them roll gently into the darkest recesses under the bed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part Two of\u00a0Reasons Not\u00a0to Come to Detroit. Continuing the series I started yesterday, I return to offer you, Dear Reader, three reasons not to live in Detroit. Let the record show that I have lived in Detroit since August 2013 (I lived in Ferndale for a year prior to that, in Toronto for a year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":207,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}