[ghshephard]

Without getting into a "mine is bigger than yours" game - I'd just like to note that I have a 600 square foot bachelor-suite (no bedroom), in a very, very old apartment building overlooking (complete with sound) the 101 freeway in a low income (and un-walkable) neighborhood of Redwood City and pay $1210/month + $65 water/sewer/garbage.

On the flip side, I used to fly out to Detroit and was interested in some of these $10,000 houses, but we could never work up the nerve to actually go into the neighborhoods out near 8 mile that had them, and I can't imagine living there.

Has anyone on HN been out to Detroit recently? There are many parts of that city that are like a war zone in terms of building/lot damage, and others that I would not go without armed escort. I guess this is just another way of saying the "absolute value" of property is pretty low in Detroit as well.

It's kind of like the "Anti-Paul-Graham-Geographic-Recipe-for-a-successful-startup-community" type of environment.

[decode]

I was in downtown Detroit on Saturday night, and I felt safe and had a good time, though I was near the "reinvigorated neighborhood around Wayne State" referenced in the article. There are lots of cool places in downtown Detroit. Good restaurants, art, theater, music, it's all there. In the summer there are some great outdoor music festivals.

But one of the interesting things about Detroit is that you're never far from urban decay. Even nice houses, or the revitalized part of Woodward, is at most 2 or 3 blocks from abandoned buildings and boarded-up houses.

[nradov]

You're getting ripped off. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/pen?query=&minAsk...

[nostrademons]

Not by much. Most of those places seem to go for $1150-$1200.

[nradov]

Most of them have more space.