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Thanks for the correction. I was too lazy to look it up :).

Being from the suburban area and not much of a "Michigan tourist", we always hear of the income tax being the "big detractor" to investment in the city. There are so many other problems in the neighborhoods that pinning the issue of investment to income tax is to convenient.

As for the Detroit Schools issue, you're also dead on. It's a big deal. The folks that I know who have relocated (whether Boston Edison or Brightmoor) of Detroit have done so because they want to help the city for charitable reasons. The biggest problem was DPS.

The enabler for all but one of the families is two-fold: Michigan is a very homeschool friendly state. And even in the good neighborhoods of Detroit, all of the families were able to buy their homes without a mortgage (5,000 square feet in the Boston Edison neighborhood for $120,000, though requiring a lot of TLC). As you put it *no sane couple will put their children in the Detroit schools". Out of six families that I know of who have relocated, five homeschool, the sixth sends his two children to Detroit Country Day School (a good private school in Southfield).