On Sep 4, 2004, at 9:06 PM, graywolf wrote:
Golly, I had forgotten Bloomfield Hills. Do they still have security guards at the streets gates into town? A whole city that seems like one of those gated communities. Parking meters that take $100 bills. If there is a Lexus in the driveway, it belongs to the maid. The auto execs moved out to St Clair Shores because they would not let them in Bloomfield Hills. Not the kind of place people think of when they hear Detroit mentioned. (Ya, I exaggerate, but that is the kind of impression I used to get driving through Bloomfield Hills.)
Gosh. Now I'm afraid to admit that I live in Bloomfield Hills. But I will just to set the record straight. To the best of my knowledge none of this was ever the case. There are some gated communities within the confines of Bloomfield Hils, but those are the exception rather than the rule. It's a nice, somewhat rural enclave in a big busy town. And it's full of auto executives, and middle east folks, and asians, and blacks, and every other ethnic group in the world. Bloomfield Hills Lahser High School was 99% white in 1975. Now it's 60% white. The rest of the student body is Asian and black. The foreign languages taught at Lahser used to be Latin, Spanish, and French. Now it's German, Japanese, French, Arabic, and Latin. (Latin is still considered an academic discipline.) And many of the white students are non-English-speaking German or Middle Eastern. But they learn fast. The top ranked high school in the United States is in Bloomfield Hills. It's called International Academy, and a large percentage of entering students are not American born. All the schools are very, very good. That's why I dug deep to live here. It was invaluable in terms of what it did for my kids.
The car business in Detroit is now an international business. My next door neighbors are Germans who work for DaimlerChrysler. The guy across the street is Japanese, and he works for Mazda. At our block parties you hear several languages spoken. The old days of Old Detroit are gone forever. Bloomfield Hills is no longer a snotty, exclusive neighborhood. It's expensive, but it's open to all. This once lily-white community is now a microcosm of the world.
