The Exurbanites

Photo by Max Ortiz / The Detroit News. Sarah Rogers, 18, heads to the Shell gas station, which is a popular hangout among teenagers in Hartland Township.

A week ago, I wrote a blog entry about an article in the Detroit News featuring the results of a survey about attitudes toward the City of Detroit. Separate surveys of City and suburban residents were conducted. Surprisingly, Metro residents had positive attitudes toward the city, although this tracked with prior residency in the city. The blog entry was titled "Interesting City attitude-Suburban attitude survey in Metro Detroit."

Yesterday's News has a follow-up article, entitled "Beyond the suburbs: Paradise found beyond sprawl--City-centered lifestyles become a thing of the past as suburbanites move farther away," about that increasing segment of the population that continues to move farther and farther away from the center city. Also see "Beyond The Suburbs: Detroit: Out of sight, mind."





Howard Glazer and his wife Lisa have built a beautiful home and land for their horse in Hartland. (Max Ortiz/The Detroit News) 2005

From the first article:

This is exurbia, a place defined by its lack of definition. Not small town and not suburb, these postmodern outposts are the latest stopping-off point for families fleeing the tone and traffic of suburbia. Yet as the land moves from soybeans to subdivisions in one generation, residents are discovering that they are leaving more than rush hour behind.

In this middle-class borderland, the tenuous connections to Detroit have snapped. Residents have few economic, social or emotional connections to the city or to Detroit's traditional suburbs. They've crossed an invisible threshold past which these affluent Metro Detroiters cease to be Metro Detroiters at all. It's more than an academic distinction. As more people leave the gravitational pull of the city, they are creating a new way of life, a suburb of nowhere in particular with no social or economic center. It is a lifestyle more and more Americans will lead, as the city-centered pattern of past generations fades away.

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It makes sense in the land of the car (Michigan) that gas stations are the place to hang out...


Max Ortiz /The Detroit News. Construction barrels are up along M-59, in the area where a new Target store will be built. The arrival of stores and chain restaurants worries residents who moved to the area to escape overdevelopment.

But what happens when we run out of oil? Of course, the Glazers have a big enough expanse to grow food.