You may have seen this recent article that claims Northville to be the “snobbiest” city in Michigan. It ranks Michigan’s “10 Snobbiest Places in Michigan,” with Northville right there in the top spot. Well, having been The Northville Realtor for years now, I’ve met a lot of Northville residents from many different walks of life and I just cannot agree with the author’s findings. Actually, I thought the article sounded a little more like click-bait than actual science so I looked into it a little more.

As it turns out, the “study” (if that’s what you want to call it) isn’t based on attitudes or people’s perceptions of attitude as you might think. No surveys were done asking people if they thought residents of Northville were snobby or not. No, the ranking is actually based on demographic and population data like:

• Median home price
• Median household income
• Percent of the population with a college degree
• The number of private schools per resident
• The number of theaters per resident
• The number of art galleries per resident

I don’t think these things make a person snobby. I think saying they do sounds a little prejudge-y to me. And by the way, they’re looking at only the City of Northville and not Northville Township. The City of Northville has a relatively small population (less than 6,000) in it’s roughly 2 square miles and this is where many private schools, theaters and art galleries that serve both Northville City and Northville Township, are located. So I believe there’s a bit of skewing in those last few pieces of data. I’m sure if you factor in the nearly 30,000 who live in Northville Township you’d get very different results.

So as a rebuttal to the “Snobbiest Cities in Michigan” article, I submit the following “study” based on my own observations from meeting and interacting with hundreds (maybe thousands) of Northville residents in my day.

Thesis of my study: Northville is home to hard working, fun-loving and friendly people.

My findings are based on these facts:

• Practically everybody in Northville owns a dog. On a nice day, you can’t go more than a
  

  Random block party in the city of Northville. No snobs here either.

  block without seeing somebody walking a dog. Surely snobby people are incapable of loving animals, let alone taking them out for daily exercise.

• Passers by on the street always wave and say hello even when you feel like garbage and try to avoid eye contact. Snobby people would be happily obliged to treat you like garbage and pretend you don’t exist.
• Community giving is common in Northville, with organizations like the Northville Civic Concern  and other civic organizations continuously providing help to those in need. Snobby people can’t possibly spare their precious time thinking about someone who can’t afford a payment on a BMW.
• Churches are packed to capacity every week. That many church-going people can’t possibly all be snobby.
• Neighbors are always getting together to have a good time whether it be for one of the many events in Downtown Northville or a random block party. Snobby people are too busy smoking cigars in country clubs to associate with the likes of random people.

In conclusion, the 10 Snobbiest Cities in Michigan list is clearly flawed because Northville just isn’t snobby. However, the article did a great job getting some free media attention for its authors.

So what do you think? Is Northville really the snobbiest city in Michigan?