I feel the same way. My wife and I work downtown and walked down to the Transformers filming at lunch. It's so odd to have outsiders look at Detroit. It's both embarrassing and cathartic.
I'm in AA too. Lived in MI most my life, but moved to AA last year. Any HN meetups? We are looking for another tech-cofounder, applying to YC this month.
There are not any HN meetups that I am aware of; based on the periodic "where are you" posts here I'm not sure HN density is high enoungh. But there is an active startup hub here, see http://www.techbrewery.org/ . In the community section, I think a2geeks.org is probably the most active site. There's definitely enough startup activity to get you going. Either show up for the "beer thirty" mentioned on the techbrewery's sidebar, or just stroll in and start chatting. Make sure you meet Dug Song.
I live here in A2 as well (have for a few years now). My office is just across the hall (in the same building) as the Techbrewery, and we very much participate in Beer:30 every Friday.
I've actually met up with a few people here on HN, and I know many many more who are HN readers, but not really commenters. If anyone is interested in having a cozy HN meetup in A2, contact me via email and I'd be happy to set it up.
Yes, we have a lot of casual HN readers who live in A2. We have a lot of good events here, mainly aimed at startups, but many focus on hacking as well.
We have the monthly A2NewTech, which jerf mentioned below. This one is really good. We also have events such as Coffeehouse Coders every wednesday downtown, Mobile Mondays once a month, LA2M (Lunch Ann Arbor Marketing) weekly, and lots of events held by SPARK and NEF (see http://www.annarborusa.org/ for info about most of the events).
I live and work in Grosse Pointe. There are at least 2 of us here on the East Side that consider ourselves hackers. We have informal meetings at the local coffee shops. We're both working on various projects. Most of the tech scene is concentrated more in the AA area, but if there are any more metro-Detroiters, let's meetup and start something.
I'm in AA too. Lived in MI most my life, but moved to AA last year. Any HN meetups? We are looking for another tech-cofounder, applying to YC this month.