ow-

Lynn Isenberg, 37, has kind of been
She headed to San Francisco,
living schizophrenically — college at U-
dreaming of a career in publishing,
M,. a year in Los Angeles, then Paris and
but "fell into high-tech," working for
Prague, back to L.A. for a decade, then
a multimedia publisher; Schey now
Michigan for two years and now, L.A.
works in high-tech PR.
For the first 10 years she lived
"One of the biggest things I miss
there, Isenberg hated L.A. "I wasn't
about Detroit is the sense of commu-
used to the terrain, -metaphorically and
nity, particularly the Jewish communi-
literally. I terribly missed the change
ty, the way it's centered around the
of seasons, the green vegetation in
northwest suburbs and the way every-
Michigan, the humidity. I still do. I
one grows up together, knows each
missed being able to swim in a lake.
other. Here, it's spread out, there is no
And I missed family."
center of Jewish life. It's a trade-off."
Isenberg also misses Detroit's sense
It never occurred to Jessica Rapp,
of community and root-
edness.
"In L.A. you can
depend on the weather,
but not necessarily the
people. And in
Michigan, you can't
depend on the weather,
but you can depend on
the people," she says.
So why is she in L.A.?
"I didn't know what else
to do. If more opportu-
nities [in the arts] are
made known to students
coming out of college,
then more people would
stay."
Still, Los Angeles has
a couple of things that
Detroit does not. Like "a
plethora of blatant cre-
ativity. You walk out
tc3,017 %::,
your door in L.A., and
Above: Rachel Schey:
nine out of 10 people ...
From the Motor City to
are in the creative arts.
the City by the Bay.
Writers, producers,
directors, actors, dancers.
Top right: Jessica Rapp
I'm not saying it doesn't
in her Beantown
exist in Michigan; it's
apartment.
just harder to find."
Rachel Schey, 27, not
.Right: Lisa Applebaum
only had to adjust to a
Jacobson chose
new home, but one in
New York for its
access to art.
which the people spoke a
foreign language. After
graduating from
Michigan State
University, Schey lived in France and
28, to leave Michigan. An MSU grad,
worked at EuroDisney. Now she calls
she went to Simmons College for
San Francisco home.
graduate school in library science, and
"I think I did always want to live
stayed.
elsewhere because when I was growing
"Boston sounded cool; I had never
up in Detroit, I really wanted to have
been there before. I didn't know any-
an urban lifestyle," she says. "My par-
body or the area," says Rapp. Now, she's
ents grew up in Detroit 30 years ago
a research librarian for the Reed
Consulting Group in Burlington, Mass.
and because everybody shifted out to
the suburbs, my dad was always say-
"I just fell in love with Boston. It's
ing, 'When you're a young profession-
neat having public transportation. I
al, you want to be in a vibrant city,
found a really nice group of friends,
because you have access to culture and
[through a group called] Jewish
opportunities, diverse people.'"
Interaction."

One of the things no one tells you
when you move away, is that it takes
time — sometimes as long as six
months or a year — to establish a reg-
ular social circle.
Rapp admits that she "had to really
work at [it] because I didn't know any-
body. I met people who went to
school in the area and I met their
friends. In any city it's really difficult
meeting people."
For Matt Berman, 26, it also start-
ed as graduate school (law school at
UCLA), then a couple of moves later

It didn't take Andy Tobias, 26, long
to find a new home in Chicago.
"I totally wanted to leave; it was an
intentional move," says the attorney
from Farmington Hills. "I wanted to
live somewhere else, see what it was
like. I really wanted a city life, to have
immediate access to things. If Detroit
had what Chicago has, I'd live in
Detroit."
Steve Hutton, 30, also calls the
Windy City home. An attorney, he
works as a producer and manager of
recording artists.
"I just enjoy living in
Chicago," he says.
Unlike Detroit, I don't
go to a bar and know
I every person in there,
and if I meet a girl, I
don't know in one phone
t call every guy she's
dated."
But it's more than
that. Many of the young
adults who move away
cherish the abundance of
options that they find
right outside their
doorstep in other cities.
"I like the fact that
within 15 minutes of
where I live, I can go to
about 30 different live
•E music venues," Hutton
If says. "It's very easy to get
§ around — in Detroit you
t have to drive everywhere
you go.
Of course, the moving
away thing is much more
prevalent in young adults
than in young marrieds
or older single adults.
Call it the thrill of
adventure, a challenge,
whatever — when young
adults are looking to find
themselves, they often
look in new places, per-
haps to find a part of
themselves they didn't
know existed back home.
While it's "much more common
for someone right out of college to
move away," Hutton says, "a lot of
people end up coming back. "Yeah,"
he says, "there's a strong possibility"
of moving back — to settle down,
raise a family."
Hundreds of young Detroiters leave
the Motor City, get the feeling of
wanting new experiences out of their
system, and come back to Michigan to
start a life. A rooted life. And so the
story goes.

o

"

— Detroit for a year, working for
Deloitte & Touche, now in New York,
completing a master's in law at New
York University — he's got a job wait-
ing for him in L.A.
"You go somewhere for a reason,
end up meeting people, and then you
just get into the lifestyle there," he
says.
"Since I . was out in L.A., I've lived
in two other places, and that really
helps because then I know that's where
I really want to live; it's more of an
informed decision."

❑

1/2
1998

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