East Grand Rapids was first settled in the early 1830s and remained a tiny settlement for many decades. This began to change with the opening of Reeds Lake amusement park which began attracting visitors as early as the 1870s. By the 1890s Electric streetcars came into use and the settlement became a village in 1891 and reached 500 residents by 1900. Growth continued modestly in East Grand Rapids allowing it to become an home rule city in 1926 reaching 1,300 residents. The City rapidly grew in the 1930s quadrupling its population in 5 years. This is when the City’s business district along Wealthy St came into its own. East Grand Rapid continued growing steadily until 1970 when its population maxed out at 12K. The 1970s was a bad decade for the City like many urban districts but after this the City’s more or less stabilized bottoming out at 10,500 residents in 2010. Since then East Grand Rapids reversed course adding 700 residents.

East Grand Rapids is your standard successful historic inner ring suburb having high quality of life amenities (parks, schools, safety) with an in-tact business district but with sub par public transit and bike infrastructure largely due to its more suburban level density and a lack of rental housing. For East Grand Rapids to become a premiere urban district it needs to greatly increase its density, especially in the dwtn area around Wealthy Street. This suburb also reeks of exclusivity as its racial make up is 90% White and median household income at 170K. Very few working class households live here.

Click here to view my East Grand Rapids Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Sidewalks are consistent but ADA standard curbs cover about 60% of all intersections.
* Great access to Dwtn being only a 13 min drive and 20-25 min bus ride.
* About as safe of a community as you will find in America.
*  Well rated walkable public schools located in the urban park of the City. Only one private school however.
Rentals are very limited.
* Good range of for sale options. Handful of 1-bed condos that sell in the 200Ks. 2-beds range btwn 200K-400K with a mix of townhouses, condos, & SF homes, and broad range options with 3 & 4 beds selling anywhere btwn 250K-2M.
* With its decent walkability and high level of services, this is a very in demand suburb.
* Great tree cover throughout the suburb.
* Excellent lakefront park and recreational trail just limited parks outside of here.
*  Bump outs and wide sidewalks installed along Wealthy Ave main street.
* Pretty good urban form along Wealthy but a good amount of surface parking.
* Excellent array of historic homes through this urban section of East Grand Rapids.
* Limited residential urban in-fill but a good amount of decent quality commercial in-fill along Wealthy St.
* Decent cultural amenities including several restaurants, a local coffee shop, a local history museum, a high quality performing arts center and walkable access to all the cultural amenities in neighboring Eastown.
* Solid Retail amenities include a supermarket & a couple pharmacies, a couple banks, several boutiques, gift shops, and home good stores, a cheese shop, plenty of salons, a handful of dessert shops & gyms, a local public library, and major hospital. Also walkable to the retail amenities in neighboring Eastown.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

• Pretty mediocre public transit access.
• Not great density for an urban district.
• Streets are generally connected by very curvilinear.
• A couple bike segments in East Rapids but not good connectivity to actual destinations.
• Very white and affluent suburb with limited economic and racial diversity.
• Good Pedestrian activity is good along the Wealthy St (dwtn East Grand Rapids) but quiet in the residential areas.
• Rentals are very limited in East Grand Rapids”