<p>Hi, Im a foreign student considdering applying to UMichigan--Ann Arbor for graduate studies. I would love to live in Detroit. I was wondering if anyone manages to live in Detroit and commute in for lectures etc? Google maps says its a 45min drive from, eg, woodbridge. Is this the case in reality? Thanks. J</p>
<p>I don’t imagine this could really be a feasible or desirable option. Detroit-Ann Arbor is not an easy drive and not one that would be desirable to make on a near daily-basis. That being said, I’m not sure exactly where graduate students tend to live, so maybe some of them do make this commute. In my experience, though, Detroit to Ann Arbor takes much longer than 45 minutes and is a hassle.</p>
<p>Most grad students live in Ann Arbor. Very few students commute from Detroit. I’ve known a few to commute from the western suburbs (e.g., Plymouth, which can be a 20- 25-minute shot on M-14 if traffic is OK), but to commute from Detroit you’d need to commit 2+ hours/day round-trip to driving; public transit options are virtually non-existent. It just doesn’t make sense to eat up that much of your day commuting when you’re a student.</p>
<p>This is a very bad idea. I don’t know why you don’t want to live in Ann Arbor/want to live in Detroit, but there are many far better options.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of anyone commuting from Detroit. Most grad students live in Ann Arbor or very close to Ann Arbor.</p>
<p>There’s an airbus or something that goes to the airport but i mean, Detroit is a craphole. Ann Arbor is far and away a more desirable place to live. The only way I’d recommend this is if you lived with parents in Detroit or something, so you’d be saving on room costs. Even then, the time commitment is considerable. Since you’ll have to pay rent no matter what, it really makes no sense to do this.</p>
<p>Don’t listen to these people. They’re probably either A) young B) lived in the suburbs their entire lives or C) both. </p>
<p>I commute daily from ann arbor to detroit for work, and I can frequently make it there in about 30 minutes or less. Furthermore, there is far more “real” culture in Detroit than Ann Arbor. Much of the supposed “culture” in Ann Arbor is primarily synthetic and cerebral.</p>
<p>To be fair, though, I’m not so sure I would still make the commute if it weren’t for the fact that I’m only doing it to maintain a job that has an attractive hourly wage.</p>
<p>I commuted for grad school - from Waterford which was an hour drive. It wasn’t ideal but I was married with kids and a working husband. The only problems I had were the late night group projects or study group meetings. It would have been so much better to be in Ann Arbor… especially in the winter when it snowed and the roads were bad!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I find this improbable. From the University of Michigan central campus to downtown Detroit is 40 miles. To make it in 30 minutes, you’d need to average 80 miles per hour, and that includes the time spent on surface streets, at stoplights, etc. on either end.</p>
<p>There definitely are some people who live in Ann Arbor and commute to Detroit, but they’re generally not students, and many find it pretty grueling.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if I absolutely had to live in Detroit and commute to Ann Arbor, I suppose I’d try to live within walking distance of the Amtrak train station in the New Center area of Detroit. There’s a train that leaves Detroit daily at 6:28 am and arrives in Ann Arbor at 7:26 am. In the evening there’s a return train that leaves Ann Arbor at 6:16 pm and arrives in Detroit at 7:13 pm, and a later one leaving Ann Arbor at 11:20 pm, arriving Detroit 12:18 am. But it costs $24/day r/t (perhaps a bit lower with discounts), which adds up pretty quickly, And it cuts you off from a lot of campus life. Also, Amtrak is pretty unreliable; the trains are often late.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why you’d want to do that. I’m not anti-Detroit; I still get back there occasionally, and there are some things I really like about the city. But I think as a student in Ann Arbor you’d have opportunities to explore Detroit on weekends and during breaks between semesters. All that commuting time is a killer. </p>
<p>And no, I’m a) not young, b) nor have I ever lived in the suburbs, ever, anywhere.</p>
<p>Don’t live in Detroit. Don’t do it. One more time…don’t live in Detroit. Ann Arbor is a much better place to live, its got way more educated people and internationals, Detroit is deserted in many parts and economically depressed, etc. Don’t live in Detroit.</p>
<p>Not to mention the roads can get really nasty in the winter…which lengthens the commute if you were to get a car and drive back and forth.</p>
<p>As a couple of people have alluded to already, I believe your biggest mistaken thought is not that you’re wondering if you can make that commute for school, but just the pure fact that you express desire to live in Detroit rather than Ann Arbor.</p>
<p>There are people who commute from Detroit to Ann Arbor but they are mostly people who already live there and are commuting to save money. If you are applying from overseas this does not seem to make a lot of sense. You will need a car. Other forms of transportation are not sufficiently reliable and I would think you would need to allow an hour each way because there can be traffic and because parking in Ann Arbor sucks and you will probably need to park by the arena and take a bus to campus.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why you are interested in living in Detroit but if that is the case I would consider applying to Wayne State University. While it does not have the prestige of U-M, it has some good graduate programs and is in the heart of the cultural area of the Detroit.</p>
<p>Detroit is not a horrible place to live; in fact, Midtown and Downtown are beautiful and up-and-coming areas with lots of shops, restaurants, businesses and great apartments and condos. But I agree that Ann Arbor is the place to live if you’re going to be a UMich student. Detroit to Ann Arbor isn’t a horrible commute but not one I’d like to make that often, and winters would be awful.</p>
<p>I would recommend living in Ann Arbor to be closer to classes and the libraries which are very helpful. Detroit is wonderful, but if you have the opportunity to live in Ann Arbor it will make studying and meeting up with people in your classes a lot easier. You could always take the train to visit Detroit if it interests you.</p>
<p>~Do not live in Detroit!! It IS a beautiful place, but unless you have tons of cash willing to spend it on a nice hotel, do not live there! (Anywhere else that’s cheap will most likely be crime-infested.)
~As for the logistics of it, that’s not smart either. My sister is a current freshmen there and commutes every day (we live in the suburbs of the metropolitan Detroit area, so it’s a 30-45 minute drive depending on traffic, highways, etc.). And it has been absolutely HORRIBLE. She has to leave the house 1+ hours before her classes start just in case of traffic, she can’t make it to study groups because they’re usually at night, nor can she attend meetings for the ONE club she joined. And all this has only been during this past Fall term. Factor in the snow of the coming Winter term…yea, she’s dorming next semester.
~So yea, just like (most) everyone has said, bad bad idea!</p>
<p>The person who posted the original question is a foreign student so he does not know about big cities in America. In big cities there are many crime-infested areas and you have to know to stay away from them especially when you are by yourself, at night, does not know the language or how to handle difficult situations well. When there is a safer town closer to campus like Ann Arbor, there is no reason for a foreign student to live in Detroit.</p>
<p>jonadam, are you asking about commuting from Ann Arbor to Detroit because you are under the impression that Ann Arbor is a small residential suburb and Detroit has a vibrant downtown area? If that is the case, do not worry. Ann Arbor is a self-sustaining city with over 100,000 people. It is very liveable for both undergraduate and graduate students. As most have already suggested, commuting from Ann Arbor to Detroit makes no sense. Heck, there are more people who commute the other way (work in Detroit and live in Ann Arbor) because Ann Arbor is such a nice and lively place to live.</p>