ann arbor is overrated.

“I think it will change the whole feel of downtown … Every little space in this town, people will try to sell liquor,” laments a community member. Is it Joan Lowenstein or one of her crypto-prohibitionist fellow members of Campus Community Conversations? Nope, the concerned citizen is none other than the owner of the Arena, who’s not thrilled about the 800 liquor licenses about to become available in A2. Similarly, we were very upset when we learned that just anyone can go to Wordpress or Typepad and start a blog.

“Whereas in Berkeley two City Council districts contain the majority of the student population, in Ann Arbor students are distributed centrally throughout the city, said Ann Arbor Councilmember Joan Lowenstein,” reports the Daily Californian in a story comparing students’ involvement in local government in the two cities. Isn’t it actually the districts that are distributed throughout the city in order to dilute student influence?

We were going to have this op-ed about University Village in the Daily (under our real name!) but never finished revising it before the end of the semester:

Read the rest of this entry »

Sick of all those best-cities lists that employ laughably faulty methodology? How about one that employs no methodology at all? A2 ranks among the Smithsonian magazine’s top 15 “where to live next” places, a list aimed at retirees from the “culturally-attuned Smithsonian audience.”

Prominently featured among A2’s “compelling strengths and amenities” is “a three-week-long summer festival that features musicians and performers … runs the gamut from popular to classical.” Remember that when the festival’s directors are trying to argue that the event is just a wonderful public service that shouldn’t be held to the same labor standards as other employers. These kinds of events have a direct effect on the wealth of A2 property owners.

Well, it’s not exactly surprising: Council unanimously passed an amendment to the city living wage law to exempt the Ann Arbor Summer Festival. As Chris Easthope argued, “the festival’s seasonal employees — almost all students — are not the kind of workers the wage law was meant to protect.” We’re sure that they aren’t.

You’d think that student journalists might be interested in our local government’s ongoing debate on how they can best change laws to discriminate against students. But the Daily devotes its one story about last night’s Council meeting to some public commenters who don’t want the AAPD participating in immigration enforcement. Perhaps it’s appropriate that today’s opinion page carries a column ruminating about summer internships and whether they really allow one the “time to examine the world and your place in it” that a “gap year” study-abroad program could provide. With these kinds of pressing questions to ponder, one can’t expect them to focus on their classmates who have to spend a summer scraping out trash barrels.

CORRECTION: The quotation above — “the festival’s seasonal employees — almost all students — are not the kind of workers the wage law was meant to protect” — is the characterization of News writer Judy McGovern, not Easthope’s actual words, as we should have noted. Easthope writes, “I appreciate your concerns on this issue and I limited this amendment to a single small event. I have no bias toward students whether in high school or college. I had to pay my own way through college and law school and understand what students, especially college and graduate students face. I was also proud to advocate for and support the living wage law when we passed it on council years ago. If you review the council video you will note that I never mentioned anything about excluding students.”

A skate park seems like an odd cause for Ann Arborites to throw their weight behind. The sport appeals to young people, has a reputation for being dangerous and, most importantly, could result in more people using the park, which is generally not considered a desirable outcome. Of course, these young people are the supporters’ kids, not some out-of-town interlopers.

City Council wants to amend the living wage ordinance to include a loophole that will end up exempting the mostly younger workers that clean out trash cans at Summer Fest, but why stop there? How about adding some explicitly discriminatory language to make extra sure that employers of some high school and college students don’t have to pay them as much as other workers? Here’s an amendment to the amendment proposed by Council member Stephen Kunselman (seconded by Sabra Briere):

5) This Chapter shall not be applicable to the establishment and/or continuation of the following if developed specifically for YOUTH, high school and/or college students: (a) A bona fide training program; (b) A NONPROFIT SUMMER PROGRAM; (c) A NONPROFIT YOUTH EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM; (d) A work-study, volunteer/public service, or internship program.

On a voice vote, the Mayor declared the motion carried.

Internships are some of the biggest scams around. In fields like journalism and publishing, they are not only unpaid but often restricted to college students only, effectively closing them to all but students from the most affluent backgrounds. Inside Higher Ed reports on “the internship racket,” concluding that “American colleges do a fairly good job providing access to students of varying economic means; they should stress the superior value of achievements within school, instead of lending respectability and support to an internship racket that reliably, and inaccurately, presents the well-off as more enterprising.” (Here’s a good blog on the topic.) It’s unclear why the Ann Arbor City Council wants to enshrine the low pay of internships in law.

Okay, it’s totally clear.

The News once again misleadingly ignores the contributions of graduate students to the university’s research output in their story on the GEO work stoppage: “Graduate student instructors teach part time while working on their advanced degrees … The typical instructor teaches 16.5 to 20 hours a week during the eight-month academic year in return for a salary of $15,199, benefits and a full tuition waiver.” Most people are probably not aware that “working on…advanced degrees” often requires the production of research that benefits the university.

By the way, our server has been slow because of spammers. We’re probably going to move servers soon; posting may be light while we work on this.

Murph has a great post about the future of the single-family detached house monoculture in light of recent economic problems. “Quality of life” and “diverse neighborhoods” (in the A2 sense of “low density” and “low density” respectively) have been the norm only for a few decades and may start to disappear as, he writes, “People will be quietly moving in with each other not only for help paying the mortgage, but for help paying the heating bills. Houses everywhere will be ‘over-occupied’, with individuals or families doubling up for the sake of finances.”

It can’t really be said to be a positive thing when people who would rather own and live in single-family detached houses are forced by economic circumstances to rent or live with larger groups. But at least it may bring on the reform of zoning laws and anti-dense development attitudes that penalize renters, students and people in nontraditional living situations.

Observer writer Vivienne Armentrout has announced her candidacy for the 5th Ward, running on a “quality of life” platform. Now, “quality of life,” as it’s used in A2, is what all the hip blogging kids would call a “dogwhistle.” It signals to a certain constituency that you’re willing to speak their language, while appearing innocuous to outsiders. (Paradoxically, local dog park advocates don’t really have any dogwhistles.) The constituency is, of course, the anti-density crowd.

(We should probably add that since “quality of life” has been a political rallying cry for so long in Ann Arbor, its use at this point is probably somewhat reflexive to anyone promoting an anti-density agenda, rather than a dogwhistle in the strict sense of a carefully engineered attempt to hide such an agenda.)

Could this be unintentional? Maybe, but don’t forget that Armentrout was a major Mike Anglin supporter, serving as his official representative on this Arbor Update thread. Anglin’s campaign, if you recall, was pretty much one long human-audible anti-density whistle.

So what constitutes quality of life? “[G]reen spaces and historic buildings … the small local businesses, the active volunteers in every part of community life, the devotion to social equity as well as to the environment and the arts, and the diverse neighborhoods,” Armentrout says. “Diverse neighborhoods,” of course, is usually code for “keeping out development,” as we’ve seen in pretty much every zoning controversy of late.

And these diverse neighborhoods, she says, need to “remain…affordable to young families, people aging in place, and everyone in between.” The neighborhoods are affordable; the only problem is that they need to “remain” that way, at least for young families and older people and everyone in between, which we guess would have to be medium-aged families. Students and singles, apparently, can fend for themselves.