Oakland County, Michigan -- 1993
Chapter Four
The Livability Factor
You can kick the phrase "quality of life" all over the playing field. Its something just about everybody anywhere claims is theirs ... and they're no doubt right. Like beauty, quality of life exists in the eye of the beholder.
Little wonder, then, when the conversation turns to quality of life around Oakland County, a certain degree of cynicism always crops up. Relative to what? In whose opinion? As measured by aggragate number of museums or parking spaces at shopping malls?
Yes, quality of life is an illusive concept. To attach the phrase to Oakland County, to delve suddenly into the ever pensive "Livability Factor," you first must overcome the rhetoric and get right down to the nitty-gritty. Once you do that, in the case of Oakland County, you find yourself face-to-face with the following truth: the "Livability Factor" is actually very exceptional, thank you. And the quality of life is -- excuse us cynics everywhere -- just about out of this world.
It doesn't matter where you enter Oakland's 912-square-mile boundaries, you're bound to be impressed with what you see ... what you feel ... what you sense from this rolling land of lakes, streams, well maintained subdivisions, small villages, quaint cities, modern day workplaces, freeways, forests, golf courses, fabulous public institutions, schools, hospitals, malls, office clusters, parks, party stores and nature trails.
Come in north of Holly, in the northwest exterior, and you'll encounter open land, Groveland Road, campgrounds, lakes, fabulous country homes and personable towns like Holly, Fenton, Davisburg and Ortonville. This is a bonafide 1993 version of reality, Oakland County-style. The accent here bears a country motif. The land is generous, the land rambles. It is open and amicable. Major highways like U.S. 23, Interstate 75 and U.S. 10 (Dixie Highway) link this quasi-frontier to mainstream Oakland County and the world beyond. Traditional east-west travel is relegated to basic county roads, which, some are happy to note, keeps the proverbial "riff raff" away.
On the northeast flank, the small, virtually changeless Village of Leonard is Oakland County's last outpost before the land gives way to Lapeer County to the north and Macomb County to the east. Flanked by Lakeville Lake and the unspoiled tranquility of Addison Township, Leonard is a quiet spot on the map but a magical place in time, given the majesty of its lakes, forests, splendidly cascading landscape. Oxford and Lake Orion experience their own grandeur, as part of this northern mosiac of townships, small towns, light industry, excellent homes and country ambiance.
The heart of Oakland County along its eastern flank is the Greater Rochester area, surrounded by gentile Oakland Township to the north and by the fast-growing City of Rochester Hills and City of Auburn Hills to the west. One of the Detroit area's most desirable residential locations, Rochester and environs feature excellent shopping, some of the finest homes anywhere in the midwest, great regional access and an increasing presence of businesses. By 1990, the City of Rochester Hills had 23,535 dwelling units and city officials said it had only 20 percent of its remaining land to build on. Rochester, effectively, is the northern gateway to the teaming business and residential citadels to the south, namely Troy, Birmingham, Blomfield Township, Bloomfield Hills and Clawson.
To a large degree, the patterns of work and life and leisure evident in this section of Oakland speak largely to the area's broader identity. Sub-trends exist within trends. To wit: One-half of Auburn Hills' residents live in apartments; homes in Bloomfield Hills had an average value of $400,000; the county's oldest residents tend to reside in Pontiac, Bloomfield Township, West Bloomfield Township.
Executive housing is abundant throughout this region with some of the state's most impressive homes located in Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham and certainly throughout the entire vicinity. Schools, hospitals, cultural institutions, up-beat downtown shopping areas, superb malls and other amenities also permeate the landscape, substantiating any inclination to categorize the area as wonderful.
South of Troy, along what has become the intensely developed Interstate 75 Corridor, Oakland County is defined by a mature cluster of municipalities -- Madison Heights, Hazel Park, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Ferndale, Royal Oak, Berkley and Oak Park. Life in this fully-developed corner of Oakland County offers many virtues. Start with a well established infrastructure, including excellent homes, a tremendous network of highways, shopping, light industry and manufacturing.
Add municipal services noted for their user-friendly adherence to people's interests and needs -- a well known feature of each of these communities. Throw in access at its best, to Detroit, Windsor, Ontario, Lake St. Clair and to the northern lake country of Oakland County.
South-central Oakland is home also to a number of progressive and notably successful communities, including Southfield, Farmington Hills, Novi and the northern fringes of Northville. Embracing Livingston County to the west and Wayne County to the south, this section of Oakland County is favored by those who opt for close proximity to the Detroit-Lansing Corridor, Detroit's Metropolitan Airport and to the industrial concentration of Dearborn, Detroit and the greater urban expanse beyond.
Southwest Oakland is also the residential choice of thousands of discriminating homeowners and apartment dwellers. As in the case across south Oakland, residents in these communities expect -- and receive -- quality municipal services.
In terms of entering Oakland County, we've started to run out of places to enter. The entire western flank of the county, from the border of Livingston County in the south to the border of Genesee County in the north, traverses what remains essential farmland, although subdivisions have begun to appear along the eastern fringes of Howell in Livingston County. Throughout Milford, Lyon, Highland and White Lake townships, the signature elements of life are charm, antiquity and country taste.
To the east, the concentration of lakes builds up through Commerce Township and in through Waterford, West Bloomfield Township, the City of Orchard Lake Village, Keego Harbor, Pontiac and Lake Angelus. To capture the definition of this immaculate stretch of lake country, forest, subdivisions, farms and city you need to paint a broad picture of leisure and work activity interwoven. The primary east-west transportation link through this section of Oakland County is M-59, a four-lane highway that links Highland Township and Rochester Hills, with Waterford Township and the City of Pontiac at its mid-point.
In downtown Pontiac, a robust entertainment district has emerged, with high-profile nightclubs, trendy restaurants, outdoor entertainment events under the stars on the upper level of the Phoenix Center and a professional theatre site. Much of the positive development within Pontiac has been spearheaded by the efforts of the Pontiac Growth Group, a service organization that in association with the City of Pontiac is seeking to improve the quality of life in the community by facilitating the return of business and retail development to the downtown area.
Traced from one corner to the other, from established communities to tranquil farm country, from industrial application to recreational expanse, from white collar to no collar at all, Oakland County is all things to all people, an exciting mosiac of virtually all modern day embodiements, with great neighborhoods, a tremendous number of solid employment opportunities, cherishable open country and all the other components typically associated with "the good life." It's here, it's clear. And it's definitely dear to all who live the life, Oakland-style.
When you consider there are more than one million people living in Oakland County, (almost 11 percent of the state's population) "the life" comes down to finally to housing ... and quality housing is what Oakland County has come to exemplify. From its traditional core in cities like Birmingham, Royal Oak and the Bloomfields, out through Clarkston to the various outer edges of the county, Oakland is rich in outstanding housing stock. From working class neighborhoods to executive row, its all here and it's nearly unanimously desirable.
Boiled down to its purest essence, the bottom-line appraisal of Oakland County among those who live in one of the county's 61 communities is basically as follows: This is a good place to live, make a decent living and own a reasonably nice home for a fundamentally affordable price. It sounds suspiciously homespun but it's true.
Oakland, ultimately, is a place where a lot of people have discovered they can reasonably access a satisfying blend of what in its most general sense could be called the American Dream. A good job, a nice house in a pleasant place to live is about all reasonable people aspire to ... and those aspirations find widespread fulfillment in Oakland County.
In all, some 163,000 acres of land in Oakland County are in residential use, accounting for 28 percent of the county's land. (Interestingly, only 9.1 percent of county land was being used in 1993 for institutional, commercial or industrial purposes.) County officials contend more than one-half of its land remains available for development.
With steady population growth projected for the county into the twenty-first century, it is likely much of that remaining land will give way to development of some form. Demographically, younger families appear to continue their quest of a life on the outer parameters of the Detroit Metropolitan Area, and this means areas in the northcentral to northwest stretches of the county will continue to see new residential -- and eventually commercial -- development across their rolling hills.
The growth, as has been noted, is built on an attitude, one that finds its basis in the ethos of success. Success, area slogan makers insist, is a way of life in Oakland County. County officials have even coined the phrase to promote the area. The best slogans, of course, find their root in reality, and tieing success to Oakland County has been a straightforward rhetorical exercise. Quite simply, it works.
Observers contend success manifests from a character trait dominant in Oakland County inhabitants dating back to the days of the early settlers, in the years immediately following the War of 1812. Among those first attracted to the area and those who would follow, extending through the intervening years, that character trait has come to embrace tenacity, perseverence, enterprise and an abiding commitment to the virtues of education. Success, the feeling goes, is linked pivotally to education.
Within the county's 28 school districts, an attitude persists. It combines dedication to excellence with person-to-person responsibility. Teachers are commited and so are students, parents, administrators and people from throughout the various communities where public education is a dominant public priority. Oakland's districts consistently rank near the top in annual statewide testing of math and reading proficiency.
In addition to top flight public school districts, Oakland is home to 73 private and parochial schools, including many of the midwest's finest schools, from the internationally-known institutions at Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, to the Roeper School in Birmingham and Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills. There are also 14 institutions of higher education in the county, including three universities and colleges especially strong in engineering and advanced technology programs. They are Oakland University, Oakland Community College and Lawrence Institute of Technology.
Central Michigan University, Wayne State University and Michigan State University have graduate studies and programs in the county and a number of prominent business schools promulgate programs that are well received by the entire community, from students to participating business concerns. Diversity is also the order of the day, from the Japanese School of Detroit -- Hoshuko -- located at the Kensington Academy in Bloomfield Hills to a Chinese School situated within the Kingswood School at Cranbrook. Lycee International, located in Southfield, provides a curriculum that conforms to the official programs established by the French Ministry of Education.
Four vocational training centers, 34 public libraries, the Michigan State University Management Education Center and the cultural institutions associated with Meadowbrook Hall and Oakland University are other launching points from which Oakland County is able to promote not only the arts, the sciences and all the finer points of life but also the interests of Oakland's diverse communities.
On an equally important front, Oakland's world class "Livability Factor" is enhanced by the presence of several highly respected medical centers, from Crittenton Hospital in Rochester to Pontiac's revered St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital and Pontiac General Hospital to Highland ----- to William Beaumont Hospital in Troy and in Royal Oak to Southfield's esteemed Providence Hospital. All purpose in general yet specialized in each case, Oakland County's hospitals offer state-of-the-art technologies and warm, midwestern concern as they promote the healing arts in this busy hub of residential and business existence.
Specialists representing hundreds of medical disciplines work throughout the network of hospitals and medical centers in Oakland. Practices are concentrated in the Rochester area, around Pontiac, along the length of the Woodward Avenue Corridor, in Farmington Hills, Southfield and Troy. With the combined strength of excellent medical teaching communities in nearby Detroit, Ann Arbor and Flint, Oakland County is positioned very well, thank you, in the all-important medical arena.
Any assessment of any area's "Livability Factor" would be dangerously incomplete without some passing reference to the shopping and dining dimension. And, with so much positive to talk about within Oakland County, this would be double jeopardy, indeed. Shopping and dining in Oakland County is such a broad edged topic, in fact, you could spend a lifetime doing it (some do) and at least a New York City telephone directory on describing it.
"It." A fabulous chorus of great towns to shop in, thousands (count 'em) of oftentimes intriguing small little suburban "strip malls," larger malls of great magnificence, from the grand-daddy of all Detroit suburban malls, the Northland Mall in Southfield, to the Oakland Mall and Somerset Mall in Troy, Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi, Summit Place Mall in Waterford Township, Meadowbrook Village Mall in Rochester Hills to ... literally hundreds of commercial strips throughout the county.
It's not fair to focus on the malls. Not in a county with perfectly vital and infinitely fascinating downtowns like Birmingham, Rochester, Clarkston, Royal Oak and Milford. Shopping, ultimately, can take place in any number of hundreds of excellent locations in Oakland County -- a place in the history of America's consumer movement where looking for and buying things is appreciated as it should be, and probably even more. And finding a restaurant you'll like is probably easier than it should be, given modern-day dietary concerns. If good food is sinful than eternal pity is appropriate in this county devoted to the nourishment of man ... and woman.
With literally hundreds of excellent restaurants to choose from -- from AAAAA to no a's at all -- Oakland County is a verifiable No. One Recommended County for fine dining, if there ever was one. Foreign cuisine has arrived ala carte in this land of heartland affection. Needing to munch on Mexican fare? No problemo. Chinese you seek? Chinese here, in abundance. Indian? YES! Everything else? YES! Italian food? You want Italian food? (See cartoon of workers buckled over in laughter.) Yes, Oakland County is a fine place for dining, an area where "going out to eat" has always been and remains a tradition for traditionalists and non-traditionalists alike. When you can't go wrong, you always seem to ... go right.
In Oakland County, going right to the right restaurant is constant fait accompli, non smoking, please.
Even though you can't attach value to what it means to be within easy driving distance of some of the best shopping, restaurant and general services anywhere in North America, these amenities certainly define life in Oakland County, circa 1993.
