What makes the “best of Detroit” for someone is always a personal thing.
Like the best relationships, my relationshipwith my city has grown and changed over the
years. I love it. I hate it. I openly lament it, but when someone from out of town does the
same, I defend it.
This is about my love affair with the city, and it’s a testament to loving something so much even as it changes, backtracks, flips over, stumbles, hurts you, and still manages
to impress you every single day.
I’d mark it as “it’s complicated” on social media, but it’s still the best city to me. And there’s no shock that music is a common theme for me. Talk about a relationship that’s built to last to the final note.
When I was a kid, Detroit was a shadowy skyline I could only see on a clear day from atop a hill at Stony Creek Metropark (basically my backyard as a kid). A distant yet intriguing crush.
We were a prototypical “family from the suburbs.” We drove down for the fireworks, for the Thanksgiving parade. My mom took me to a Red Wings game once and rushed me back to the car, reminding me that “you have to keep your head on a swivel in parking lots in Detroit.”
My sister would stay out all night at raves in Detroit, sneaking back in at dawn before heading off to high school. I would obsess over the flyers she’d bring home, learning about rave culture through names like house music legend Terrence Parker. He caught my eye for using a telephone instead of headphones when he spun records.
Soon, it was my turn to sneak out into the city — but it was punk music that was calling my name, not techno and house. The off-the-grid venues in the Cass Corridor, such as old Victorian mansions turned music venues, gave me a sense of purpose and belonging. They were loud, brash spaces — the sound of growing up and figuring out your boundaries. Sneaking into venues underage or washing off the X’s on your hands so you seemed old enough to drink was a rite of passage.
A lot of those spaces are gone today, and I’m not always nostalgic for the memories attached to them. Sometimes, you grow up and look back and cringe at how dangerous or dumb it all really was. But it was the “best of” my youth — running from the suburbs into the city and finding a home filled with lifelong friends.
Now, when I see the next generation of young adults having those experiences — whether they grew up within city limits or ventured in from the suburbs — it’s really easy to feel old.
The spaces and experiences aren’t mine. I couldn’t even tell you where the kids are going most of the time. Some of the music is great; some of it isn’t for me. I give it a chance
either way.
Because there’s nothing that’ll age you faster than judging their experiences against your own and pondering whether they’re doing it “the right way,” whether the music they’re listening to is worse than what you grew up with.
That’s their own personal love affair with Detroit. It ain’t for us to judge. But I can bet their experiences are the “best of” their days spent being young in one of the best cities on the planet.
Ryan Patrick Hooper is the host of In the Groove on 101.9 WDET, Detroit’s NPR station (weekdays from noon to 3 p.m.).
This story originally appeared in the June 2025 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition.
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