Questions about Detroit area.
 

This is not related to the auto show.

A friend of mine is moving from Nagoya, Japan later this year, to Detroit. Her husband is reasonably high up in Denso and is being posted there for work. Specifically they will be moving to Southfield (I think).

I'm planning on visiting them later this year once they get settled, but know next to nothing about the area. (8 Mile, Red Wings, Autoshow, Chrysler Superbowl commercial.) Any recommendations on things to see and do in the area?

Also anything I can tell her to alleviate her rather Japanese fears about moving to 'crime city' (She thought parts of Vancouver, Canada were scary...)?

Thanks.

Lots of old badass architecture if you like stuff like that, good for abandoned building photo shoots.

Outside of the autoshow I fly into detroit to goto Cedar Point in Sandusky Ohio :)

I talked with a couple of guys at work that have been through the area on service calls. I can't tell if they are messing with me, or if Canada really is kind of soft. They made it sound like you can drive two-blocks in any direction and you end up in some filthy, falling apart neighbourhood where if you stop at a red-light after 11pm you will get car-jacked.

I was like "No, that's silly Canadian negative stereotypes of the US in general." But he swore it was true.

So are there really areas that need to be avoided by tourists? In Vancouver we have the Lower Eastside which is where all the 'harm-reduction' facilities are (~legal heroine injection sites).

What areas have the architecture?

Very few people actually live in the city proper. There's a very large Japanese population out in the Western Suburbs (Novi / Farmington Hills) and I grew up in the Northern Suburbs (Troy / Royal Oak / Rochester Hills). Most of these areas are safe, the people are friendly.

Downtown can be neat, the area around Cobo and the Ren-Cen is full of landmarks, statues, art deco era buildings. Greektown's a great place to get food, I hear a lot of good things about Mexican Town too.

The DIA, Belle Isle, The Henry Ford would make for a good visit Downtown. Somerset Mall seems like a popular destination. Ann Arbor and Royal Oak are both trendy places for the under 30 crowd.

Detroit's got some unpleasant neighborhoods, but you tend to have to be pretty lost to end up in them. The last time I drove though one it was only because I got lost on my way to Dearborn trying to avoid some road construction and detours on the Southfield Freeway.

Thanks guys.

I see you have heard of "Eight Mile" Road among other noted descriptions of "Detroit". This is a major east/west six lane road, that forms the municipal border of Detroit to the south and the suburbs to the north. The differences are extreme in regards to crime, abandoned buildings and, yes, even race.

Living in Troy, a suburb about 12 kilometers north of the central downtown district of Detroit, I live in one of the most affluent, and safest, counties (Oakland) in the country. It is progressive, well-financed, and managed in a professional manner. You would do well to consider Troy and its immediate adjacent communities.

A good friend of mine worked for Denso and spent significant time at their nagoya facility (repatriated the week before the Tsunami, actually). It is true there are some not nice and downright ugly areas of detriot, but there are a lot of very nice places too, lots of mixed cultural, artistic, and great cuisine scattered throughout the area. Southfield itself has some nice places, and some not so nice places... I'd highly recommend they get with a local coworker and really scout out the landscape a bit before deciding on where to live. Their biggest cultural shock will be the dependancy on personal transportation, and their place of living will be greatly dependant on how much they are OK with driving. Cities like royal oak, birmingham, rochester, or even burkley offer more of the cityesque atmosphere but still dont offer much of any public transportation and you still have to commute.

Will be there (Southfield, nice area, apparently some of the Swedish Red Wings are/were in the neighbourhood) next weekend. Christmas party with some Denso executives. I'm going to be one really out of place Canadian.

Thanks for the tips everybody.

Southfield is a nice area. It is pretty much just a bedroom community. If you're wanting any kind of down town you will spend some time in Berkley and Royal Oak. These small towns are far enough from Detroit proper that they suffer little if any negative influence.