Posted Mar 12, 2024, 6:52 PM
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Registered Ugly
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Portland
Posts: 3,644
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I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but I lived in Lansing and worked for the state for about a decade. Very familiar with this town. Lansing is fairly livable overall, but its biggest issues in my mind are as follows:
- Most state workers want nothing to do with living in Lansing. Nearly everyone I know who still lives there are in either Grand Ledge, Portland, DeWitt, East Lansing, Okemos, or Williamston. Like with other urban areas, the primary issue is the schools. Of the people I knew who do/did live in the city itself, they were either young professionals without kids, empty nesters, or Catholics who sent their kids to private schools (Catholic Central). East Lansing and Okemos are both near the top in term of rankings. Larry Page graduated from ELHS.
- Lansing is too quick to tear down its history in the name of "progress". I still cannot even believe some of the demolitions that have occurred in that town. They tore down the Michigan Theater, leaving the city with no downtown venues for movies or live music. They tore down two whole blocks of historic commercial buildings along Michigan Avenue as recently as the last 5-7 years. The first was for the Stadium District, the second was for apartments on Michigan Avenue where Emil's used to be across from Green Door. They tore down the historic Lansing City Market. All of these except the theater were torn down for shoddy apartment complexes by Pat Gillespie. It's criminal.
- They do not attract nationally touring music acts of any small to medium size since the only real venue they have is Wharton Center on the MSU campus. I was constantly driving to Grand Rapids or Detroit for live music. It is a major quality of life issue and actually shocking given that they have a campus of 45,000 college students.
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