Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
I would imagine Detroit has, by far, the largest Japanese automotive expat population. Every Japanese automotive supplier/engineering concern is in Detroit. Novi, MI has a huge Japanese infrastructure, from Japanese signage in the hospital, to a Japanese school, to a bunch of restaurants and stores. The Detroit airport even has announcements in Japanese.
The vast majority of auto jobs are with the suppliers and engineering concerns, not the car companies themselves.
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I wouldn't doubt that when you add the entire metro up, there are more expat Japanese in Detroit than anywhere else in the Midwest. But I've been told repeatedly by Honda counterparts that Dublin has the highest concentration. I could see that too; there are entire subdivisions in Dublin that are ~50% Japanese expats. Multiple language schools for kids to go to on the weekend. Wholesale importers working with major sogo sosha / trading companies. All the daily life infrastructure you'd find in the other major expat Japanese communities (Singapore comes to mind).
And it all just stood out so much more because Dublin, while definitely a nice place, is still just a run-of-the-mill suburb of less than 50,000. The Japanese presence is that much more visible.