Comments

1

$200 a month in rent sounds fantastic until you open up the Help Wanted listings and start trying to find a way to pay it.

Maybe you need a Hard City before you can find a salaried job with benefits for pecking out 5000 words a week about whatever crosses your mind, rolling into work at 10:30, hitting one bar at lunch, and two more at 4pm when you knock off for the day, with most of the time in between spent skimming books at your desk.

2

Not entirely bad advice. Detroit is indeed one of the few places left in America where low cost housing meets a large urban population with a lively underground arts scene.

Baltimore is like that, too.

The problem with these places is, shitty weather. I mean, really shitty. Summertime is a scorching hell, and the winter is a time when homelessness is a death sentence. Further, the state level politics in both cities is anti-union, Republican, reactionary.

Seattle thrived because it was a progressive city in a progressive state. When I arrived in 1993, I had come to Seattle from the Midwest and the South, where my childhood had featured a constant terror of being discovered as a young gay man. My first stop was Tacoma. I remember noticing how Tacomans even back then couldn’t give a fuck less about my sexuality. It was pretty much a non-issue, a trait akin to a liking for Italian food-nice to know, but who cares? Tacoma was violent back then, but not because of any anti-gay animus.

In Seattle, this was even moreso. My impetus for coming here had been, after all, the liner notes to Nirvana’s album Insecticide, in which Kurt Cobain stated flatly that if anyone did not like gay people, he would prefer if they did not buy their albums or attend their concerts. I was struck by that, and had asked around my shitty Southern town, only to be told with a shrug “Seattle has always been that way”.

Since gay people are some of the most creative people on Earth-look at the list of literary award winners, or well known visual artists-90% of them are gay, and the others wish they were- you attract a creative population by having a tolerant society.

Michigan is not a tolerant society. Nor is heavily Catholic Maryland. Not in the way Washington is and always has been. Maryland tolerance is begrudging, as if it was being dragged out of them. Washington tolerance feels more like an open armed welcome. Not only are you in no danger here, people actually want you to be here with them. You’re not just tolerated, you’re seen as a good addition to the team.

So I don’t think it is as simple as “Move east, young man”. It’s cheap, I’ll give it that. And there is a thriving underground arts scene. However, nobody can snuff the candle of creative light quite like the GOP, and they’re in power in Annapolis and in Lansing.

3

Who gives a fuck if a budding young artist is in your town or some other town?

4

Yeah, Seattle was in its peak in the 1990's.
Grunge, the Mariners, and the city was affordable for almost every segment of the population.
(Salmon was $6 / pound! -sigh)
It's becoming the city of haves and have nots.

5

Seattle in the 70's and into the 80's was somewhat akin to what Charles imagines Detroit is today: A former middle-class union stronghold where the manufacturing base was gravely wounded. Housing was cheap and plentiful. There were slacker jobs galore, but part of that was because it was before technology and consolidation took its toll.

Seattle was definitely a backwoods part of the country, known for airplanes, lumber, The World's Fair, and "Here Comes The Brides". It had a quirky and interesting underground scene. Places like Shelly's Leg and The Monastery were the epicenters, and Samis made lots of funky warehouse space available for the artsy crowd. Groups like PONCHO were will willing to fund all sorts of advant garde stuff.

That ship sailed for Seattle, but is it still there for Detroit?

6

@2 There are lots of ways to cure a state infected with Republicanism. One is to import a diverse population.

This is actually one major reason why Colorado is trending blue and Arizona is trending purple. Same could well happen in Michigan too.

7

Oh and there is something to be said for four seasons. And the Great Lakes do serve to moderate the summers and winters a bit, making them more tolerable than, say, Nebraska. Summers will generally have some uncomfortably hot and sticky days, but nothing to compare with, say, Atlanta. And there are lots of beautiful days too.

Plus, if you’re willing and able to travel a bit within the state, there’s lots of natural beauty too. Different from the mountains and oceans, yes. But still absolutely gorgeous. I highly recommend the UP at the height of fall, for instance.

8

You should move to Detroit Charles. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

10

Detroiter here.

We have gentrification here.

I used to live in a neighborhood called the Cass corridor in the early 90s, before marriage and children. The Cass Corridor was a mix of skid row and college town. It has since been rebranded as Midtown oh, and it is the most gentrified part of the city.
A few weeks ago I went back to my old neighborhood. My current partner wanted to check out a restaurant. I hadn't really noticed it's a dress before we left. I pulled into a parking space and noticed the numbers 404 painted on the bright yellow wall of the building. It was 404 Willis Street, an address which I knew very well.
Back in the early 90s 404 Willis was an apartment that had been transformed into a hub for activists and a performance art space. I saw a number of punk shows in that crowded little apartment.
Now it's a trendy dress shop, next to many other trendy little shops and brand new apartment buildings.
The food co-op on the corner that used to double as a homeless Outreach Center had been transformed into a hipster restaurant. Not the Hipster restaurant my companion had wanted to visit, that little hipster restaurant was directly across the street.
Thankfully, after I explained the situation my dining companion agreed that it would be best to go home.
I felt a lingering melancholy for the rest of the day.

@2
Although the state legislature here in Michigan is still under Republican control, Governor Gretchen Whitmer is a Democrat.
Also as a side note, Rashida Tlaib is my congresswoman. That was the most satisfying vote I've cast in a long time.

11

Hell, swaths of Detroit are being ^farmed^...
@10 - Ach, triste. Hopefully St Andrews has not been demo'd or sold out.
Any word on the Trumbellplex?

12

@11
The Trumbullplex expanded a little in 2016, when they bought a few adjoining vacant lots. I believe they are still doing well.
Saint Andrews Hall is still operating under the same name. I'm not sure if the ownership has changed or not.

13

@12 - Lovely, thank you!

14

6,

I suppose it would be cheaper than the plan I had in mind, which is to simply deport the GOP. Even so, I’d still like to deport Tim Eyman, if nobody else.

10,

The problem with Michigan Democrats is, sometimes they’re even worse than Republicans. In 2001, a gay family in Cass County held their version of Hempfest. The Democratic Governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm responded by requesting assistance from the FBI to supplement a raid led by the state patrol on their farm, burning it to the ground, and killing the two parents after kidnapping their 6 year old son.

Because she felt she needed to show that she was tough on marijuana. You know, to get re-elected.

This would not happen in Washington. It did happen in Michigan.

15

Hi Charles,
Last week while reading a story on a serial killer in Detroit, I found this startling stat:

"Six years ago, Detroit had at least 30,000 empty houses and 20 square miles (50 square kilometers) of vacant land. Mayor Mike Duggan has said removing blighted houses is a priority in his efforts to revive Detroit since the city’s 2014 exit from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history."

30,000 empty houses? That's shocking by any standard. Alas, Detroit is a mess. I'm dubious that any artist from Seattle would want to relocate there.

16

Detroit still has a vibrant DIY culture that I believe a few of my Seattle artist friends would find comity with.


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