Comments on: Mourning Michigan: Part II

By: Garna Lee Parsley

Garna Lee Parsley — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:15:36 +0000

AG – I’m constantly combing the web regarding the current state of affairs in Michigan. This post is 6 months after the latest post…and I don’t have any positive news to add. My family and I permanently left Michigan Aug. 5, 2007. Since then, we have not returned. We were unable to sell our home so we rented it to indirect family. This proved to be a disaster as they had to be recently evicted. They were unable to pay the rent on-time, if at all, due to too many hardships in Michigan that every other Michiganian must endure. My mother in-law tells me stories of where there has been rioting for food, vouchers for housing assistance, job applications being taken. I don’t think it is very easy for any of the current Michigan residents to leave now. The decision for my family and myself to leave Michigan was heartbreaking and took nerves of steel. We still miss Michigan very much but will not go back to a state that is bankrupt. Unless things change up there drasticly…my family and I are alive and well in North Carolina. As to our home,…my mother is trying to take it over. We will see if this works…or it just might end up in foreclosure like everyone else.

By: Bender

Bender — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 14:34:26 +0000

AG — real Michiganders want nothing to do with the “big city.” That’s not the reason they leave, so they can go live in New York City or Chicago. They leave because they can see a dying state, soon to be a rotting corpse, when they see one, notwithstanding the claims of some in Ann Arbor that they are the center of the universe and therefore in a paradise.

As the story notes, even the retirees are leaving — the auto worker retirees. And far from not crippling the state with their departure, they actually harm the state even more when GM, Ford, and Chrysler send Michigan dollars to retirees living in Florida, thereby enriching Florida and making Michigan all that much poorer.

TO ANY FOOL STILL LIVING IN MICHIGAN — Get out! Get the hell out NOW, while there is still time, while you still may be able to get a decent price for the sale of your home. Get out NOW, you are like New Orleans and Katrina is coming! Save yourselves!

Thank God, come this August, I will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of my exodus from that hell-hole.

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:25:12 +0000

Pretty sad that so many people have to leave a state with such a beautiful vista and terrific people. We spent some of our “second” honeymoon traveling and camping in Michigan. It was a wonderful experience.

By: AG

AG — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:28:24 +0000

I’m going to be blunt. Michigan, while wonderful in the summertime, is not a very desirable place for young people to live. Our only major city is Detroit, and its been dead for years. The next biggest city is Grand Rapids, and Detroit for all its collapse is still 4 times bigger. So naturally young college grads are going to want to leave. This tendency is exacerbated by the fact that Michigan and Michigan State bring in so many out of state students that its inevitable kids are going to make friends with out of state students and when they all graduate, bolt for the nearest major city together.

By: Paul Gordon

Paul Gordon — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:48:14 +0000

This has been going on for over a generation.

Here in Houston, in the mid ’70s, the blue license plates with white lettering (Michigan) seemed to outnumber the local plates. A PBS documentary about that period noted that a MILLION people poured into Houston, looking for jobs, AND FOUND THEM.

Instead of resenting it, I and many others here respected them because, instead of whining about their lot, they DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT by coming down here to where the jobs were.

Pulling up stakes and leaving what you know, to start anew 1300 miles away, is damned difficult for many. Wimps don’t do that.

Their coming here was our gain.