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Old Posted Oct 8, 2019, 11:54 AM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Brooklyn, NYC/Polanco, DF
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Quote:
Originally Posted by memph View Post
So I had a look at the census data, and you are right, at least for the areas close to downtown Royal Oak. But it seems like it's also a case of many of these inner suburbs looking good by comparison.
Yeah, it's not like these areas are white-hot or anything, but they've clearly fared much better than the rest of inner-suburban Detroit. It's more a case where these suburbs were a bit tired/over the hill 20 years ago; where grandma lived, and now it's younger families lured to the older homes and semi-walkability. And there really is a ton of teardown activity in Birmingham and Royal Oak, which is unusual for Metro Detroit.

I could see Clawson and Northern Royal Oak not faring as well, as they're the least walker friendly of the bunch and mostly just generic postwar bungalows. Also lots of aging 1960's apartment complexes that aren't particularly desirable. Areas like this:


I grouped Clawson in with the rest because its downtown is kinda hot right now, and it seems to be a cheaper fallback to Royal Oak.
Quote:
Originally Posted by memph View Post
I also looked at Southfield (26.7% decline), Harper Woods (17.9% decline) and Dearborn east of the Southfield Fwy (35.7% decline). And with Bloomfield Hills, it experienced a 36.6% decline.
Southfield has clearly declined somewhat as it transitioned from Jewish to African American, though remains ostensibly middle class and still a huge office center. Harper Woods also underwent a white-to-black shift, and was always very modest. And Dearborn has definitely declined. West Dearborn was almost like a mini-Grosse Pointe for Ford HQ employees; that area has stagnated and wealth moved west to Plymouth and Northville. Northville/Northville Township, in particular, is an up-and-coming wealth center.
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