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Old 03-05-2011, 02:18 AM
 
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We are relocating to the Ann Arbor area. We are looking at the surrounding communities like Chelsea or Dexter. Any suggestions?

Thanks for the help!
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Old 03-05-2011, 04:19 AM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
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Chelsea is generally nicer. I think that they have better schools too, but I would check out both school yourseof if you ahve kids.

However I really like Detxer. It is still a small small town. It is less popular and therefore lesss yuppified. I think that you pretty much cannot go wrong with either one.
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Old 03-05-2011, 04:47 AM
 
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Both are great, family-friendly communities. I personally prefer Chelsea because it has a better downtown and is a bit bigger, but they are both nice, safe places to raise kids.

Another town you might consider that is even closer to AA is Saline, which is equally quaint, safe, and family-oriented and is only a couple of minutes from work and activities in AA.
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Old 03-05-2011, 05:26 AM
 
Location: On the brink of WWIII
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Our niece lived in Dexter and we found it to be very nice because of its smaller size. Her daughter and son graduated from Dexter schools and daughter had a 4.0 and graduated Grand Valley with similiar with a degree in PT. Son also had good GPA (3.8) and attending MSU education program.
Our niece was walking distance from downtown and it was a nice stroll to the corner for ice cream in the summer.

But Chelsea does have Jeff Daniels and the Purple Rose Theater...if you can afford it...
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Old 03-05-2011, 04:14 PM
 
22 posts, read 63,693 times
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Thank you for the info. Based on the responses here and on other threads, it appears that Chelsea is slightly favored over Dexter.

We have a young family and enjoy the outdoors tremendously. Any thoughts on parks, lakes, walking/biking trails, etc.? I will be teaching and will have summers off, so we are looking for a place that offers abundant recreational activities.

We are from Ohio. Will my kids be ridiculed in the small town setting, or are the town folks generally accepting of new families in the area? I just don't want my kids to struggle with the whole OSU vs. UM thing on a daily basis.

What about amenities for a young family? Which one is closer to malls, target, grocery, etc.?
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Old 03-05-2011, 05:01 PM
 
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Dexter is a closer to Ann Arbor where the mall, Target, etc. are. Chelsea is about 20 min. west of those places.

The whole OSU vs. U of M thing isn't that big of a deal, certainly not enough of a big deal to keep your kids from making friends and fitting in unless they were to wear OSU shirts everyday and rub it in about how much better OSU is all the time, which I'm sure they wouldn't. There are quite a few OSU fans up here, and it's generally a good natured ribbing kind of thing that goes on between fans of the two teams, not anything hostile.

A couple of places that come to mind for outdoors activities are Hidden Lake Gardens on M-50 just west of Tecumseh, and Pinckney State Recreation Area just north of Chelsea and Dexter. Here are links to those places:

Pinckney Recreation Area Detail

Hidden Lake Gardens

Ann Arbor is also supposed to have a very nice metropark system, although I don't know much about it.
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Old 06-29-2017, 11:24 AM
 
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Where did you end up moving? We are moving this summer to Ann Arbor or close by and we are trying to decide if Chelsea and or Dexter might be good fits for our family.
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Old 06-29-2017, 12:15 PM
 
Location: Chicago
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My experience is generally that the OSU vs UM thing is a much bigger deal in Ohio than it is in Michigan... certainly there are fewer OSU fans around than there are UM fans in most of Ohio, so things never really get heated. Michigan football is also, frankly, not the massive cultural force in Michigan that Ohio State football is in Ohio.

Your kids might get into little spats with other kids, especially in the leadup to the game itself. But there won't be any kind of bullying.
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Old 06-29-2017, 02:22 PM
 
Location: Ann Arbor MI
2,222 posts, read 2,251,344 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by florcova View Post
Where did you end up moving? We are moving this summer to Ann Arbor or close by and we are trying to decide if Chelsea and or Dexter might be good fits for our family.
The original thread is 6 plus years old and the OP hasn't been back here in 6 years so its almost a start from scratch thing.
Will you be working in Ann Arbor?
How much time do you want or are willing to spend commuting?

Last edited by craig11152; 06-29-2017 at 02:36 PM..
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Old 07-04-2017, 12:13 AM
 
46 posts, read 60,746 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by florcova View Post
Where did you end up moving? We are moving this summer to Ann Arbor or close by and we are trying to decide if Chelsea and or Dexter might be good fits for our family.
Well, there's Saline too. Probably closest to Ann Arbor (particularly if you work on the south side) and the schools are great. Dexter downtown is cooler than Saline's (US12 running through the middle of it kind of sucks), but then Saline has an Emagine Theatre to make up for it.
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