I spend the majority of my time here in midtown, so I really can’t speak too much to the area outside these few blocks. We live here, I work here, and I do a lot of my playing around here (though I’m trying to branch out as time goes on!)
One thing I’ve noticed when walking around midtown is how friendly people on the street are. It’s something I was used to growing up in a small town, but in the past 4 years living in Chicago and Ann Arbor, it’s something I’ve kind of forgotten. The first time a stranger said “Good Morning!” to me on the street, I was so taken aback I almost forgot to respond. It’s not that Chicago or Ann Arbor folks are particularly rude by any means, but something about a densely populated city makes people look ahead to where they’re going and not at the dozens of people around them.
In Detroit the streets aren’t so packed and I find myself saying “hello!” to people in passing or as they sit on their front porch enjoying the summer. I recently heard someone describe Detroit as “the biggest small town around” and I find myself agreeing! I see people I’ve made connections with all over the place. The Detroit community feels more accessible to me than Ann Arbor or Chicago ever have. I’m going on 3 years in Ann Arbor, and while there are things I love about that city, the people of Detroit have made me feel much more welcome and at home in the past 4 weeks than I have in my years in Ann Arbor.
That friendliness and sense of community building is extended into my office space. The people of the Green Garage are kind and welcoming, and while they’re all often hard at work, that doesn’t mean they don’t have time to chat every now and then.
There’s a feeling of active community building in Detroit that I haven’t felt anywhere else. People here want to be connected and are willing to open their arms to others in order to do so. It feels good, it feels warm, it feels like home.
I’ve noticed the friendliness of people on the streets here, too! It’s so different from Ann Arbor, where people go to great lengths with headphones, cell phones and etc. to avoid human interaction on the way to classes. When I got down here this summer and mentioned to my cousin how neat I thought it was that people actually acknowledged each other when passing, she said something like, “People don’t do that everywhere?” Nope! It’s one of the things that makes this a truly special place in my mind.