My wife and I live in East Lansing. She's been here for 20 years, we've been living here together for 13. We're about a half-mile from the MSU campus but in a very quiet residential area (Wardcliff School area)... so we are less than a mile from downtown E.L., about half a mile to a great bicycle shop, the East Lansing Food Coop, a health food store called Foods For Living, and less than that to the new Whole Foods store, which should open late this summer. We're within biking distance of everything -a great public library system, great restaurants, the MSU campus, great trails. Very bike friendly town. We are both retired now, doing just fine with a car we use about once a week for our bigger shopping runs, and two bikes. As jonsauce mentioned, the River Trail has been expanded and it's a gorgeous ride -you can hope on at the MSU campus, take it to downtown Lansing to Old Town or follow the river trails down to the zoo, some great parks. If you have questions, I'll try to answer them...
Doc