Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
For example, Pontiac Trail is the main artery from Ann Arbor to the Metro Detroit favored quarter.
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maybe back in the olden days, but the main artery from ann arbor to NW metro detroit these days is M-14, to I-275, to I-696.
ann arbor to pontiac via pontiac trail: 1:17
ann arbor to pontiac via expressways: 0:54
nobody is driving those extra 23 minutes if they don't have to.
here's the tweener space along M-14 between ann arbor's NE sprawl edge (lower left) and plymouth on metro detroits' western sprawl edge (upper right):
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3422.../data=!3m1!1e3
there's about 5 miles of "country" there along M-14, but when you zoom in, there's still a fair bit of ultra-low density "country sprawl" in there (ie. large suburban houses in the woods on multi-acre lots and that sort of thing).
with the greenbelt in place, it will hopefully stay like that, but ann arbor simply isn't as developmentally detached from metro detroit in the same way that port huron, flint, and toledo are.
it's in a gray area, and it may very well be absorbed into the detroit UA in the not too distant future.