I feel sorry for you MI people. After hearing about these kinds of attitudes here on the Car Free forum I'm glad my family moved out of that hellhole Detroit when I was a kid. The people in Michigan are actually very nice but my dad used to like tell everybody how much he hated it. To be fair I think it probably was because of the lake-effect snows during the winter. And all the bugs flying around during the summer.

edit: I should mention that I sort of work in the auto industry, too. The company I work for designs and custom-builds fluid fill equipment for factory assembly lines and the majority of our customers are the auto makers.