Detroit is an actual city with deep history. It may be in decline, but it still seems like to have more going on, or at least the potential to have more going on, than small towns. There's likely a lot of other second- or even third-tier cities that are overlooked, but are still more interesting to live in than a town in "Northeast Ohio."
Austin, Portland, Boulder are becoming the new NY/SF because of the process of saturation. We just need to find the next Austins and Portlands.
Though primarily my Detroit friends are entrepreneurs or engineers working for them I've noticed that there has been a wholesale movement of artists to the city.
Though in the last five years it's gotten kind of pricey in the downtown area I keep discovering clusters of artists out in the neighborhoods in my travels in the city.
Buildings are really cheap though you've got to restore them yourself. Tax valuations though are set at pre-recession values. But if you get a lawyer they can be lowered sometimes up to 75%.
I'm starting to see others following the clusters of artists and slowly these neighborhoods are in the beginning stages of gentrification.
downtown Detroit is in a weird state right now where it's bounced back enough and gotten enough hype that it's gentrifying, but the development efforts haven't quite finished fast enough to catch up to demand.
My rent from 2013-2015 went up 35% and I eventually moved to a suburb. I tried to buy a place and even when I convinced myself to overpay would be beat out by a better all-cash offer within 24 hours of a place going on sale. It's nuts here right now.
3 years ago it was a great place to move in cheapish and be around a burgeoning scene, right now it's expensive as hell, and in 2 years will probably be back to being able to support that student/new grad/bootstrapping entrepreneur scene. We need more housing to come online, and it's being built, just not done yet.
Two of those are not like the other. Frankly, Portland has a pretty anemic economy and the colleges here are mediocre too. Boulder is a little better. Can't say Northeast Ohio is that bad, Cleveland is on par with Boulder and Portland.
Austin, OTOH has one of the best universities in the world and a host of large and important tech and software companies.
She basically lives in Cleveland. Cleveland, like many rust belt cities, is very old and its borders surround a small percentage of the area. But that's an entirely arbitrary line. In practice, she lives in "Cleveland."
Austin, Portland, Boulder are becoming the new NY/SF because of the process of saturation. We just need to find the next Austins and Portlands.