Where to Buy Presidential in Michigan

Pure Michigan frames this region around one idea: the comeback. Detroit is the heart of it, and the state's tourism board says so in those words.

The city built the twentieth century — the assembly line, the eight-hour day, the middle class that came with both — then lost most of it, then started building again. What's there now is a working downtown, a riverfront that used to be industrial and isn't, and neighbourhoods that never stopped being neighbourhoods whatever the rest of the country decided about them.

Around Detroit the region runs through Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and out to Ann Arbor, a university town with its own gravity, and the Lake St. Clair shoreline north of the city.

The spread is what makes it a real market: Detroit itself carries the most, then the ring around it: Warren, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Hazel Park, Pontiac, Taylor, Westland, Redford, Center Line, Mount Clemens, New Baltimore, and the downriver communities — River Rouge, Ecorse, Riverview, Inkster, Wayne. Ann Arbor sits west with its own scene.

That's a brand on shelves across an entire metro, not in three high-traffic corridors.

Pure Michigan describes this corner as beaches, amusements and the freshest tastes around. All three are literal.

The Lake Michigan shoreline runs the western edge — Warren Dunes, Silver Beach, the string of harbour towns that fill up every summer and empty every September. Inland, this is fruit country. The region grows tart cherries, blueberries and asparagus. There are more than a hundred and fifty wineries in the state and the Lake Michigan Shore appellation is one of the reasons.

Kalamazoo anchors the region inland, Benton Harbor and St. Joseph on the water, and New Buffalo sits at the state line on the lakeshore.

The pattern is different from Detroit. Southeast Michigan is one dense metro. Southwest is a chain of independent towns strung along a shoreline and a couple of interstates — Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Benton Harbor, Niles, New Buffalo, Coldwater, Constantine, Quincy.

It's also a seasonal part of the state. The shoreline towns fill with summer visitors between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and retail out there moves with it.

Pure Michigan calls this region family-friendly destinations and a bounty of hidden gems.

They're missing the thumb. Saginaw Bay cuts into the state's east side and the land around it is farm country, wetland and small harbour towns. Frankenmuth turned Bavarian heritage into a destination town. Bay City and Saginaw were lumber money before Detroit was car money.

Flint sits at the southern edge, another city that built the auto industry and got left holding the consequences, now doing its own rebuilding.

About one in eight of Michigan's Presidential retailers are here, across Flint, Bay City, Burton, Davison, Mount Morris, Corunna and Mount Pleasant.

Listings here cover a lot of ground, and the towns are further apart than in the southern half of the state. The search at the bottom of this page does more work here than it does in the Detroit metro.