My images of Detroit are going to be a little different than most of my
classmates because I have never lived in Detroit. In fact, I have only been there
three times in my life and one of those times was only to go to the airport. So my
idea of Detroit comes from a combination of my limited experience with it and
what I hear on the news. The impression it has left me with is not good.
I don't watch any tv shows or movies about Detroit, but I do occasionally
hear about Detroit in the news. The most common information about Detroit in our newspaper is about people coming to Traverse City from Detroit to deal drugs. I have also seen articles about the worst places to live in the United States. Detroit frequently ranks toward the top of the Forbes list of America's Most Miserable Cities. These things make Detroit seem like a dangerous area that should be avoided.
My first trip to Detroit was in 2004. I thought it would be fun to take a road trip with my daughter and her father to Detroit to visit the museum and the zoo. I grew up in Chicago and my family made frequent trips to the zoos, plays, and museums. These places were always clean and fully stocked with interesting exhibits. Since all I knew of Detroit at that time was that it was a relatively large city I expected to have an experience similar to the ones I had in Chicago. I was sadly mistaken. When we arrived at the zoo the exhibits were small and the animals seemed depressed. If I remember correctly there were no extras like a walk through rainforest area, butterfly house, petting area, or anything else. These were things my daughter and I were used to seeing at other zoos so we were quite disappointed. We left and went to the museum. Again we found a lack of exhibits and entertainment. We were in and out of the museum in less than an hour. I am not sure how things are in Detroit's museum and zoo now because I have not been back. Hopefully they have made some improvements.
My second trip to Detroit was in 2006. I was going to a concert downtown
with a friend. It was dark and we ended up getting lost so we pulled into a gas
station in a deserted area to check a map. That is when we noticed two black
males approaching our car swinging a baseball bat. Luckily we managed to
escape unharmed and made it to the concert on time. Since we had seen enough of the locals and the area we decided to drive home that night instead of staying in a hotel. The feeling that my friend and I were left with is that Detroit seemed like an area of total anarchy. I have been in Chicago downtown at night and never had a problem. I'm sure that it could happen, but I think that Chicago has more of a police presence. I feel relatively safe walking downtown in Chicago, but it is something I would never do in Detroit.
My last trip to Detroit was to the airport. We used mapquest to plan our route and we had problems because so many of the roads were closed. There was trash on the streets everywhere. It looked like people had a total lack of respect for their city. When we finally made it to the airport it was filthy. The floors and chairs were dirty. There were even missing ceiling tiles with clouds of dust bunnies hanging down. It was disgusting. Seeing the airport in such a state of disrepair made me worry about the plane we were about to board. Checking our baggage and getting our boarding passes was quite an experience. The customer service representatives were unbelievably rude. Actually most of the people in the airport were rude. It was the worst experience I have ever had in an airport.
As you can see I am not a fan of Detroit. There are probably some
people who love it. Maybe? Unfortunately I have only had bad experiences
there. The thing that surprised me the most was just how dirty it was. If you live in Michigan and you are looking for a city to visit this summer I would say check out Chicago or even Cleveland, but whatever you do don't go to Detroit.
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