[sitkack]

A suburb. Not Detroit proper. The only thing in Detroit (besides downtown) are mini marts. They don't sell food.

The largest "grocery store" I went to sold canned food, pasta, etc but at prices 2x to 4x what we would pay. There is a huge ghetto tax in place. A can of refried beans was over $3. And this place looked respectable, for Detroit, meaning no lotto tickets or bulletproof glass.

[tcpekin]

I'm in Detroit right now, Midtown is not really a suburb at all, it is 1.4 miles from downtown according to Google Maps. Midtown, which houses Wayne State, has all the amenities a urban state college would have, including a grocery store. There is also a fantastic supermarket in Mexicantown.

Detroit is a very interesting place. There are bombed out sections I would hate to go to, but there are also great areas such as Eastern Market, Midtown, the Riverwalk etc. Some areas are extremely hospitable to biking on the road, but the custom is to ride on the sidewalk. Other areas have very nice bike trails. It's one of the most interesting cities I've been to. The dichotomy of buildings being destroyed next to areas in which young people are attempting to revive the city is impressive to watch.

[sitkack]

I'd consider Midtown and the Whole Foods as downtown.

It is interesting, everyone I talked to was great. Way safer than Chicago (probably cuz everyone is gone, ;)

The one thing that really surprised me was that all the black people I talked to WANTED white kids to move to the city and bring it back. They weren't worried about gentrification, they were more worried about decay.

The property taxes are too high and are pushing old people onto the street. 5k a year was not uncommon for taxes on lots of places I looked at. Rent would barely cover the taxes, leaving nothing for upkeep, so a rental market is not viable. I applaud the move at the next auction to require local buyers.

[ironchef]

I guess I'm confused. Where (besides downtown) do you actually mean then? Downtown has plenty like the Supermercado, Honeybee, etc. As you start to go out, hit Grosse Pointe, Hamtramck, etc. there's quite a few as well (and the prices were pretty reasonable). So...can you be more specific about where there aren't grocery stores so there can be a reasonable discussion with concrete data?

[sitkack]

I'd have to dig up my notes. I was there in Sept for the auction for 10 days, drove a couple hundred miles over a couple days, just in Detroit. I probably went through Hamtramck a couple times, Grosse Pointe had almost no foreclosures.

I didn't buy anything, for a myriad of reasons. Nearly everything was ruined, could get something on the open market for lower marginal cost of repair. The only homes, and I say homes, worth buying were those clearly occupied, all by old people that had lived there for many years. I am not going to be that person.