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Metro Detroit

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Metro Detroit
Map
Population
4,488,335[1]
A simulated-color satellite image of Metro Detroit, with Windsor across the river, taken on NASA's Landsat 7 satellite.

Metro Detroit is the metropolitan area centered on the American city of Detroit, Michigan. As the home of the "Big Three" American automakers (General Motors, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler), it is the nation's automotive center and a key pillar of the US economy

The precise size of Metro Detroit varies by definition. The United States Office of Management and Budget defines the Detroit–Warren–Livonia Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as the six counties of Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Oakland, St. Clair, and Wayne, and the United States Census Bureau ranks the MSA as the tenth largest in the country with a population of about 4.5 million.

Based on commuting patterns, the adjacent metropolitan areas of Flint, Ann Arbor, and Monroe, are also grouped together by the U.S. Census Bureau with Detroit-Warren-Livonia MSA in a wider nine county labor market region designated the Detroit–Warren–Flint Combined Statistical Area (CSA) with a population of 5,428,000. Residents beyond the nine county area would consider themselves as part of the larger Southeastern Michigan area. An estimated 46 million people live within a 300 mile (480 km) radius of Metro Detroit.

Unofficially, the Canadian city of Windsor may sometimes be considered part of Metro Detroit, but no government formally defines Windsor and Detroit as constituting a single metropolitan area in the legal sense of the term. The cities are more correctly characterized as the Windsor-Detroit urban agglomeration, consisting of two distinct metropolitan areas that share some economic, social and cultural interrelationships.

Economy

See also: List of companies based in Michigan

Metro Detroit is an economic powerhouse and has made Michigan's economy a leader in information technology, life sciences, and advanced manufacturing. Michigan ranks 4th nationally in high tech employment with 568,000 high tech workers, including 70,000 in the automotive industry.[2] Michigan typically ranks 2nd or 3rd in overall Research & Development investment expenditures in the U.S.[3] The domestic Auto Industry accounts directly and indirectly for one of every ten jobs in the U.S.[4]

The RenCen, home of GM's world headquarters, decorated for Super Bowl XL

Metro Detroit shared in the economic difficulites brought on by the severe stock market decline following the September 11, 2001 attacks which had caused a pension and benefit fund crisis for American companies including General Motors, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler. The American auto companies are proving to be more resilient than other affected industries as each implements its respective turnaround plan.

Metro Detroit serves as the headquarters for the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, known as TACOM, with Selfridge Air National Guard Base. Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW) is one of America's largest and most recently modernized facilities, with six major runways, Boeing 747 maintenance facilities, and an attached Westin Hotel and Conference Center.

Detroit's extensive freeway system and major port status make it an ideal location as a global business center. A 2004 Border Transportation Partnership study showed that 150,000 jobs in the Detroit-Windsor region and $13 billion in annual production depend on Detroit's international border crossing. [5] A source of top talent, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is one of the world's leading research institutions, including the world's largest medical school.

In 2004, led by Metro Detroit, Michigan ranked 2nd nationally in new corporate facilities and expansions. From 1997 to 2004, Michigan was the only state to top the 10,000 mark for the number of major new developments. [6] Metro Detroit is a leading corporate location with major office complexes such as the Renaissance Center, the Southfield Town Center, and the Cadillac Place with the Fisher Building in the historic New Center area. Both Borg Warner and TRW chose Metro Detroit for their new headquarters. Quicken Loans, National City Bank, Ernst & Young, GMAC, Visteon, and ONSTAR are sources of growth. Pfizer is a leading employer in Ann Arbor and invests heavily in the area. Electronic Data Systems (EDS) makes Metro Detroit its regional headquarters. The area is home to Rofin-Sinar Technologies, a leading maker of lasers. The metropolitan Detroit area has one of the nation's largest office markets with 147,082,003 sq ft.[7] Virtually every major U.S company and many from around the globe have a presence in Metro Detroit. DaimlerChrysler's largest corporate facility is its U.S. headquarters and technology center in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills. In 2006, Google announced it will build a major facility in Ann Arbor bringing 1000 new jobs. Downtown Detroit reported $1.3 billion in restorations and new developments for 2006. [8]

Tourism

Main articles: Culture of Detroit, Michigan; Architecture of metropolitan Detroit; and Detroit celebrities

Tourism is a driving force for the economy. The area has some of the nation's finest hotels, casinos, performance centers, stadiums, convention centers, theaters, museums, libraries, schools, parks, beaches, and infrastructure to support economic growth. Detroit is the largest city or metro area to offer major casino hotels (MGM Grand Detroit, MotorCity Casino, Greektown Casino, and nearby Casino Windsor). Metro Detroit is a leading tourist destination easily accommodating super sized crowds to events such as the North American International Auto Show, the Windsor-Detroit International Freedom Festival, Tastefest, and Super Bowl XL. In 2006, the Motown Winter Blast drew a cold weather crowd of 1.2 million people to the downtown. Detroit's metroparks include fresh water beaches such as Metropolitan Beach, Kensington Beach, and Stony Creek Beach. Metro Detroit offers canoeing through the Huron-Clinton Metroparks as well as downhill and cross-county skiing at Alpine Valley Ski Resort, Mt. Brighton, Mt Holly, and Pine Knob Ski Resort.

File:Somerst main.jpg
Somerset Collection Mall

Metro Detroit supports some large high quality malls, namely the upscale Somerset Collection in Troy and the Great Lakes Crossing outlet mall in Auburn Hills, both major draws for tourists.

The Detroit suburb of Dearborn is home to the The Henry Ford, the nation's largest indoor-outdoor American History museum complex. The recent renovation of the Renaissance Center, a state of the art cruise ship dock, new stadiums, and a new Riverwalk have spurred economic development. Nearby Windsor has a 19 year old drinking age with myriad of entertainment to complement Detroit's Greektown district. Tourism planners have yet to tap the potential economic impact of the estimated 46 million people that live within a 300 mile radius of Detroit, a natural advantage to a potential host city for the Olympic Games or a city courting a new Disney theme park.

Sports

See also: Sports in Detroit, Michigan

Sports is a defining aspect of life in Metro Detroit. The area is home to many sports teams, including six professional teams in four major American sports. The area's several universities have teams in various sports that draw crowds to such venues as Michigan Stadium, the largest American football stadium in the world. Metro Detroit holds a wide range of sporting events including auto and hydroplane racing. Metro Detroit has hosted major sporting events including Super Bowl XVI, Super Bowl XL, the 2005 All-Star Baseball game, and the 2006 World Series. The Pontiac Silverdome serves as a practice field for visiting teams.

Club Sport League Venue Location
Detroit Lions Football NFL (National Football Conference) Ford Field Detroit
Detroit Red Wings Ice Hockey NHL (Western Conference) Joe Louis Arena Detroit
Detroit Pistons Basketball NBA (Eastern Conference) Palace of Auburn Hills Auburn Hills
Detroit Tigers Baseball MLB (American League) Comerica Park Detroit
Detroit Shock Basketball WNBA Palace of Auburn Hills Auburn Hills
Oakland University Golden Grizzlies various NCAA (Mid-Continent Conference) various Rochester
University of Detroit Mercy Titans various NCAA (Horizon League) various, including Calihan Hall Detroit
University of Michigan Wolverines various NCAA (Big Ten Conference, Central Collegiate Hockey Association) various, including Michigan Stadium Ann Arbor
Wayne State University Warriors various NCAA (Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, College Hockey America) various Detroit
various Auto racing NASCAR, IRL, ARCA Michigan International Speedway Brooklyn
Detroit APBA Gold Cup Hydroplane racing APBA Detroit River Detroit
Detroit Ignition Soccer Major Indoor Soccer League Compuware Sports Arena Plymouth Township

Demography

Metro Detroit's population was originally mainly French, a reminder of which survives today in the names of many area cities (ex. Detroit, Grosse Pointe, Grosse Ile) and streets (ex. Gratiot, Beaubien, St. Antoine). Later, there was an influx of persons of British and German descent, followed later by Polish, Irish, Italians, Jews, Greeks and Belgian immigrants who made their way to the city during the early 20th century and during World War II. There was also a large migration into the city of African-Americans from the rural South following World War I. As in most large cities, there were distinct neighborhoods and even cities (Hamtramck was predominantly Polish, for example) occupied by the various ethnic groups.

Today, the Detroit suburbs in Oakland County and Macomb County are primarily white. Oakland County is among the most affluent counties in the United States. In Wayne County, the city of Dearborn has the country's largest concentration of Arab Americans, mainly Lebanese, but also Yemenis, Iraqis, and Palestinians. Recently, the area has witnessed some growth in Asian American and Hispanic populations. The southwest side of the city contains a large Chicano community, while significant populations of Chinese, Indian, Korean, and Filipino ancestry are found in Oakland, Washtenaw, and western Wayne Counties.

Altogether, more than a million African-Americans live in the area. About three-fourths of them live within the Detroit city limits. Other communities with large black populations include Inkster, Highland Park, Ecorse, River Rouge, Southfield, Pontiac and Oak Park. The Michigan Chronicle, the state's largest black-owned newspaper, is based in Detroit. The Michigan Citizen is another paper which targets African American readers.

Counties

Principal cities

Windsor

The Windsor-Detroit International Freedom festival fireworks display in late June is one of the world's largest

Windsor, Ontario, Canada, lies across the Detroit River, slightly south of Detroit. Windsor and the neighbouring counties in Southwestern Ontario (up to London, Ontario), Southeastern Michigan and Greater Toledo may be considered as a continuous urban area, though this area is not recognized by either the U.S. Census Bureau or Census Canada as a single metropolitan area. While there is considerable cross border commerce and interraction, the two areas function as two distinct metropolitan areas; Windsor's metropolitan area includes the neighbouring communities of Tecumseh, Amherstburg, LaSalle and Lakeshore.

Nevertheless, Detroit and Windsor are often grouped together for business and social events, and the two cities have considered a joint bid for the Olympic Games. (See also Windsor-Detroit.)

As of 2005, the population of the Windsor CMA is 323,300[9]. The wider Detroit-Windsor region has a population of about 5.9 million.

Area codes

Metro Detroit is served by eight telephone area codes (nine if Windsor is included). The 313 area code, which used to encompass all of Southeast Michigan, has been narrowed to the city of Detroit and a few close suburbs. 313 has assumed special status as many Detroiters say that they are from "The 3-1-3" or the "three-one-third" to assert that they are "truly" from Detroit. The 248 area code along with the newer 947 area code overlay mostly serve Oakland County. Macomb County is largely served by 586. St. Clair and Genesee are covered by 810, while Washtenaw, Monroe, and western Wayne are in the 734 area.

Transportation

Major airports

Major highways

The Metro Detroit area is criss-crossed by several major interstate highways and freeways.

  • I-75 (Chrysler and Fisher Freeways) is the region's main north-south route, serving Flint, Pontiac, Troy, and Detroit, before continuing south (as the Fisher Freeway) to serve many of the communities along the shore of Lake Erie.
  • I-94 (Ford Freeway) runs east-west through Detroit and serves Ann Arbor to the west (where it continues to Chicago) and Port Huron to the northeast. The stretch of the current I-94 freeway from Ypsilanti to Detroit was one of the first American limited-access freeways, originally built to link the factories at Willow Run and Dearborn during World War II and was then known as the Detroit Industrial Freeway.
  • I-96 runs northwest-southeast through Livingston County and (as the Jeffries Freeway) has its eastern terminus in downtown Detroit.
  • I-275 runs north-south from I-75 in the south to the junction of I-96 and I-696 in the north, providing a bypass through the western suburbs of Detroit.
  • I-696 (Walter Reuther Freeway) runs east-west from the junction of I-96 and I-275, providing a route through the northern suburbs of Detroit. Taken together, I-275 and I-696 form a semi-circle around Detroit.
  • I-375 is a short spur route in downtown Detroit, an extension of the Chrysler Freeway.
  • I-475 runs north-south through downtown Flint for several miles before rejoining I-75.
  • I-69, although a north-south route for most of its length, runs east-west across St. Clair, Lapeer, and Genesee counties, serving Flint, Lapeer, and Port Huron.
  • M-10 (The Lodge Freeway) runs largely parallel to I-75 from Southfield to downtown, and connects with I-75 via Jefferson Avenue.
  • M-14 runs east-west from I-275 in Livonia to Ann Arbor.
  • M-39 (The Southfield Freeway) runs north-south from Southfield to Allen Park via I-94. North of 10 Mile, the freeway ends and continues as Southfield Road into Birmingham.
  • M-53 (Christopher Columbus Freeway from Sterling Heights to Washington), more commonly known as the Van Dyke Expressway or Van Dyke Freeway. Continues as Van Dyke Road or Van Dyke Avenue north to Port Austin and south through Warren to Gratiot Avenue in Detroit.
  • M-59 (Veterans Memorial Freeway from Utica to Pontiac), continues east as Hall Road to Clinton Township and west as various surface roads to I-96 near Howell
  • M-8 (Davison Freeway), the first modern limited-access urban freeway in America, opened in 1942.

Traditionally, Detroiters referred to their freeways by name rather than route number. Today, the Davison, Lodge, and Southfield Freeways are almost always referred to by name rather than route number. True Detroiters precede each freeway name with the word 'the' as in The Lodge, The Southfield, and The Davison. This was also once true for the Chrysler, Fisher, and Ford Freeways (and to a lesser extent the Jeffries and Reuther Freeways) before the Department of Transportation mandated deemphasization of the use of proper names on guide signs for Interstates. Other freeways are referred to only by number (I-275, M-59, I-69 and I-475); their names, if any, were never in common everyday usage.

Other major roads

  • 8 Mile Road, known by many due to the film 8 Mile, forms the dividing line between Detroit on the south and the suburbs of Macomb and Oakland counties on the north. It is also known as Baseline Road outside of Detroit, because it coincides with the baseline used in surveying Michigan; that baseline is also the boundary for a number of Michigan counties as well as the boundary for Illinois and Wisconsin. Designated as M-102 for much of its length in Wayne County.
  • Gratiot Avenue (M-3) is a major road that runs from Port Huron to downtown Detroit.
  • Jefferson Avenue is a scenic highway that runs parallel to the shore of the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair. It is also the principal thoroughfare for the Grosse Pointes, where it is called Lake Shore Drive. Another important dividing line between Detroit and the city of Grosse Pointe Park is Alter Road, where portions of some intersecting streets have been reconfigured or walled-off in order to thwart vehicular and pedestrian movement from Detroit into Grosse Pointe Park.
  • Michigan Avenue/US 12 runs from downtown Detroit through the western suburbs toward Ypsilanti, passes south of Ann Arbor, and eventually reaches Chicago, Illinois.
  • Woodward Avenue (M-1) is considered the Detroit area's main thoroughfare. It is the dividing line between the East Side and the West Side. Woodward stretches from downtown Pontiac to the Detroit River near Hart Plaza. In Downtown Detroit, the Fox Theatre and Detroit Institute of Arts are located on Woodward as well as the Detroit Zoo just outside of the city. The Woodward Dream Cruise, a classic car cruise from Pontiac to Ferndale is held in August and is the largest single day classic car cruise in America.
  • Telegraph Road (US 24) is a major north-south road extending from Toledo, Ohio through Monroe, Wayne, and Oakland Counties to Pontiac. It has gained notoriety in a song (Telegraph Road) by the group Dire Straits.

Mile roads

Surface street navigation in Metro Detroit is commonly anchored by "mile roads," major east-west surface streets that are spaced at one-mile intervals and increment as one travels north and away from the city center. Mile roads sometimes have two names, the numeric name (ex. 15 Mile Road) and a local name (ex. Maple Road).

Main article: Mile Road System (Detroit)

Shopping

Education

Notable High Schools

All cities, villages, townships, and communities (excluding Canada)

Notes and references

  1. ^ July 1, 2005 est. by Census Bureau
  2. ^ MEDC (2006).Michigan: High Technology Focus State of Michigan
  3. ^ NSF 01-320 (2001).R&D Spending is Highly Concentrated in a Small Number of StatesNational Science Foundation
  4. ^ Alliance of Automobile Manufaturers (2006). From the 2003 Study "Contributions of the Automotive Industry to the U.S. Economy" University of Michigan and the Center for Autotive Reseach Autoalliance.com
  5. ^ Detroit Regional Chamber (2006) Detroit/Windsor Border Update: Part I-Detroit River International Crossing Study
  6. ^ MEDC (2005) Michigan #2 in the Nation for New Corporate Facilities and Expansions in 2004 Globeinvestor.com PR NEWS WIRE
  7. ^ Colliers International Market report, 2006
  8. ^ See the Change (2006) TheWorldisComing.com City of Detroit Partnership
  9. ^ http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo05a.htm Statistics Canada population table

See also

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