Not insane, I'm in an identical situation.

Right now you're getting screwed by UI. As mentioned by someone, you can switch suppliers and get a cheaper rate (I switched to $0.15 from Constellation when UI announced they were increasing to $0.22).

Before that, it seems your apartment has always been very inefficient. I have a very similar place (2B2B, ~1100sqft) and my baseline daily consumption is around 8-9 kWh which I blame on very old appliances. That, plus poor insulation and crappy A/C and I was paying $600 during summer and $200 even in this very mild winter.

TIL it's a state road. I do agree with the crosswalks being sparse plus once you press the button for the light you have to wait a whole cycle of car lights before it's your turn. Hope they do implement something like that, there's plenty of space.

Whalley's wild, both drivers and pedestrians are very negligent. Drivers are always speeding (I blame the lights being out of sync and therefore taking forever to drive through it at the posted speed limit), and pedestrians just don't give a damn and jaywalk even though it's a five-lane avenue (probably because it takes forever for the pedestrian signal to turn on).

That was me in the other post, it indeed happened again after that comment, twice in the early morning as mentioned above. I don't have issues with roaches or noise from neighbors, though.

To build that infrastructure you first need to reclaim space from cars, so it's a good start. Might be a budget issue not to go all-in with the pedestrian infrastructure.

Pistachio Café on Whalley Ave. closes at 11 Friday and Saturday.

Yeah that's what I thought, East Rock is by no means a low-cost option.

In my building it hasn't happened since they repaired some pipes 3 months ago. However, I have to say you get what you pay for: the front door of my building is broken and I'm pretty sure they won't bother repairing it, A/C units in the apartments are very old so it consumes a lot of electricity and doesn't even cool enough during the summer, maintenance doesn't show up when you put in requests so you have to look for them around the complex and ask them directly to come over.

However, with current rental prices in the area, I think it's still a good option. If you end up renting here I recommend asking to inspect the apartment before your move-in date to make sure everything's working (especially the A/C, I've heard from multiple residents that it wasn't working when they moved in) or you'll be miserable the first couple of months dealing with it.

Mew Haven Cat Cafe on Whalley Ave. You can get there from downtown on bus.

I moved from East Lansing back in June, so IMO:

Pros: Way more hilly than MI, Yale Art Gallery, East Rock Park, you can visit NYC by taking a 2-hour train ($35-40 round trip), delicious pizza.

Cons: No weed (yet), the city has some rough areas, reckless drivers.