[JGatti]

I seen a post in the Arizona forum and I thought it was a great idea. Everyone takes the city they live in or a city you lived in or are very knowledgeable of and posts responses to common points of interest. I live in Highland but Huron Valley is the entire area so I will include some surrounding area's as well. So now is your chance to brag about what's great about your town/city.

Highland Michigan

Weather: Pretty much like all of Michigan. Our winters have given us more snowfall over the last 3 years but we've had some pretty mild ones prior to that. We have all 4 great seasons.

Schools: Our school district as a whole I think is pretty good. The schools my kids go too are great schools in my opinion. Huron Valley is school of choice but you must provide transportation to your school if you choose one over your area's school. Highland High School students attend Milford High School.

Commute: M-59 ( or Highland rd) runs right through Highland. It's a 4 lane divided highway that run east to west. If your commute lies along this route the traffic flows pretty good in surrounding area's. Get's a bit congested in Pontiac but heading West is a breeze. If you need to get on a major freeway it is a bit of a pain no matter where you live. 5 miles or so down to U.S 23 or 9-10 miles south to I-96/696. There is also M-5 but because it does not run all the way to M-59 I don't use it much. If it did it would make the area much much better.

Shopping: The city of Highland itself is not much for shopping as far as retail. They do have a few specialty shop's like for horses ( big equestrian area). Several small party stores, blockbuster, hardware's anything you could really need in a pinch can be found. But if you want a bigger grocery store you have to dive to Milford or Hartland or next door to white lake. All are easy, fast commutes. White lake now has a Marshalls and a JC Penny. But if you want a mall Novi is the way to head, but Howell does have the outlet mall and I can't leave out Brighton as a close place to shop.

Air quality: Air quality is much better the cities closer to Detroit. We are still kind of like the boonies. Lot's of horses, farms and open land but developed homes and sub's at the same time.

Economy: There are not a lot of places here that offer employment to a lot of people at one place, like plants etc. There was one place that did move out of the area, did not close but moved. There is now a green company moving into their building. But all in all I don't think the economy has hurt business too bad here. Lot of people lost their homes due to the big 3 slide though.

Crime: Crime I'd think is below average. There is very little violent crime in the area. In the 10 years I have been here I can only recall 2 murders and 1 rape. Most of the stuff you here about is kids breaking into cars, but no major crime.

Housing prices: Hell right now house prices are great in our area. You can get homes that were 300k for almost 1/2. Bad for sellers, great for buyers.

Culture: I'm not sure if we really have anything I'd consider culture. It's just a small town with nothing I'd consider culture.

Recreation: If you like water there is plenty in Highland and the area's around it. There are plenty of mountain bike trails, area's to hunt as well as parks. Milford is home to one of the nicest metro parks, Kensington. Highland has the Highland State recreational park. People also ride snowmobiles in the area in the winter as well. There are also horse riding trails throughout the area.

Overall: I've been in Highland for 10 years, for the most part there is not much I can complain about other than it could use it's own identity as well as more things for the kids to do that don't involve driving. Anything you want is not a far drive but it would be nice if the kids could ride their bikes to places of interest. My son is a skateboarder and there really is no place close for him to do it. Milford is very strict on their rules yet nobody provides a place for the kids to go. I've always wanted to live in Northern Michigan, Highland is the kind of town that pacifies that desire but is NOT northern Mi. We're pretty happy here, but often talk about moving on in a couple years.

[Cliffie]

Livingston County (Brighton, Howell, and scenic Hell):

Weather: Chaotic, unpredictable and extreme. Typical Michigan.

Schools: Brighton's very stuck-up; every kid owns a massive, gleaming, brand-new truck, SUV or Hummer, never a "beater," and the kids have waaaaay too much money. In Howell schools, where there is more of a reasonable income range, they have a special lunch table for the gay and bisexual kids and also 5 different youth gangs you can join. A nurse there told me 75% of the kids in Howell schools are in special ed to some degree. The only college here is Cleary, a business school, but you are half an hour from the UofM, EMU, and MSU. There are branch offices here of Washtenaw and Lansing Community Colleges as well as EMU and Madonna College.

Commute: You have to commute to nearly everything from here. It's a bedroom community for Big Three employees, govt employees operating out of Lansing, and the employees of the nearby colleges and universities. Watch out for the double roundabout at the Brighton exit of US-23 -- also known as the Crazy Eight of Death! The roads are in the usual appalling condition for this state.

Shopping: Dead average. There is a big outlet shopping mall, a bunch of smaller strip malls, Meijer's, Wal-Mart, and grocery stores ranging from discount/dollar stores to mom 'n' pop outfits to breathtakingly expensive gourmet places, with Kroger's and VG's in the middle of the range. We also have a great big Costco. There's a Home Depot as well as family-owned, vest-pocket hardware stores. There are still some glitzy little art gallery and fine-home-fashions type of places open for business.

Air & Water Quality: The air is fine despite the highways cutting through everything. There are not many factories. The water is generally agreed to be terrible -- Brighton water is so hard it clanks when you pour it in the sink, and Howell, while softer, is heavily chlorinated.

Economy: Not bad -- for Michigan. The area south of Brighton is still the fastest growing area of the state, which I know is not saying much lately. A lot of the foofy little art galleries and antiques shops have closed, but other stores are expanding into larger spaces, and more strip malls continue to be built and filled.

Crime: Low, mostly petty-crime stuff like kids getting into unlocked cars to steal the CDs. There have been a few spectacular and horrific crimes -- Google for the recent dog attacks in the area, that killed 2 people and a horse, or "Roland Bailey" for examples -- but except for the usual domestic violence and date rapes enabled by underage drinking and so on, very little violence. We have had a LOT of white-collar crime, on the other hand -- an incredible cavalcade of embezzlement cases in the past few years. The schools, especially Hartland and Whitmore Lake, are atrocious drug pits with the home-schooling movement growing by leaps and bounds as a result.

Housing costs: Ranging from $500,000 absurdities to fire-sale prices on the local foreclosure lists. There have been something like 1500 foreclosures here in the last few years. Come and get it.

Culture/Recreation: Changing. This is one of the most Pentecostal and fundamentalist corners of the state as near as I can tell. The population is still overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly blue-collar affluent, and this county even used to be the Michigan seat of the KKK, but there are now definite pockets of Hispanic, African-American and Asian people doing very well, thank you. There is even an all-white church congregation with a Black minister. Most of the po' folks live in the Livingston half of Whitmore Lake and near Howell/Fowlerville, where all the county services and cheap rental housing are. There are university employees here as well as students but they all seem to go to Ann Arbor/Ypsi or Lansing to spend their free time; here it's much more tailgaiting, backyard bonfires, hunting, and boating type of activities. And drinking and drugs for the kids. These are often the same kids who go to church 3x/week with their drug-addled families. We finally have several good-sized bookstores although Border's drove the Little Professor out of business. Wendy's Paperbacks in Howell has also gone under. The only non-chain bookstores in Brighton are Unicorn One, a used-paperbacks place, and His Bible And Book House, but they now also have Border's and a Barnes & Noble tucked behind the Crazy Eight of Death (see above). Howell has a small independent bookstore called Ariel or Aria Books, another indie called Bargain Books, and (strangely) a Wiccan bookstore called Wisdom of the Ages which is also a beauty shop. There's a huge-a$$ multiplex cinema in Brighton, the old-fashioned Howell Theater, and the Howell Opera House as well as a gazebo at the Brighton Millpond where they have live music all summmer, ranging from gospel and classic rock to military (on Memorial Day). We have summer sidewalk sales, a Farmer's Market in both Brighton and Howell, the Brighton Art Fair, and Art In The Park in Pinckney. The largest cultural construct in the county is scenic Hell, MI, which has been converted into a kind of year-long Halloween theme park and is a favorite spot for Goth weddings. Long before this change occurred it was already the home of the spring Vulture Festival, "when the buzzards return to Hell," and the Hell Music Festival. There is not enough for kids to do here, but there is a roller rink, a couple of bowling alleys and all manner of sports and other competitive activities like dancing and horseback riding.

Overall: A little dull and not brainy enough for me sometimes, but not bad place.

[YAZ]

I lived in Brighton for 20+ years...up until 2004.

It's changed a lot since 1981...

While not "world class", Mt. Brighton is decent ifya like to ski. Closer to JGatti's house there's a couple more downhill ski areas. Of course, cross country skiing is available at most parks.

There's a great place for hockey on the east side of town...Green Oak Township.

Mega churches are the rage, it seems. One was built a mile down the road from where I "grew up". The main reason my parents sold their house at retirement age. The road became a hazard on Sundays.....


It was sad to see all of the mom & pop stores close as the big box stores moved in. Brighton has become one big strip mall too.

Golf is big business there, with plenty of links for your enjoyment. Some have closed in recent years and have become subdivisions. Anywhere from $20 - $200 to walk the links.

Lots of places to go camping in Livingston County. The Brighton State Recreation Area is a good one. Something for everyone there...electrical hookups for RV's with "real" showers & restrooms at Bishop Lake, a semi-rustic campground at Appleton Lake with full access to the Bishop Lake amenities, and my favorite, the rustic Murray Lake. Bring toilet paper.

I s'pose the high school has changed a lot. I graduated long before the "Performing Arts Center" was constructed.

Downtown Brighton still remains charming. The centerpiece is the Mill Pond. A "tridge", playground, and free concerts on Sundays. Someone does a heckuva job at Christmastime decorating. Don't do anything "dumb" while you're down there....security cameras all over the place.

Teenagers smoking reefer seems to be the number one crime caught on tape.

[michiganmom72]

I like this post. Any more input on other cities?