ann arbor is overrated.

For those discovering this site for the first time, I thought I’d pick out the “greatest hits” — posts that were significant in some way, or that I just happen to like. Notice that there’s nothing from the first year and a half of the blog’s existence. That’s not a mistake.

Of course, it was the reader comments that really made this blog what it was, and unfortunately I don’t have enough time to pick out the best of those. I miss all of you, and I even miss A2 once in a while.

1. November 2003: Ann Arbor is selective in its opposition to chains, and we are proud of a particularly groan-inducing pun.
2. December 2003: We disparage the “pampered college student” genre of news stories.
3. January 2004: Not that great of a post, but we can’t leave out the “butternut soup will fool you” meme.
4. September 2004: The world of competitive bird-listing is not for the faint of heart.
5. October 2004: The neighborhood associations are on to us and our sophisticated technology.
6. March 2005: Unfortunately, our Manhattan-inspired Ann Arbor neighborhood sobriquets never caught on.
7. April 2005: Ann Arbor residents are not known for their understated rhetoric.
8. October 2005: It’s hard to believe, but perhaps the October lease-signing frenzy is actually encouraged by landlords after all.
9. January 2006: We suggest a drinking game designed to irk a certain councilmember.
10. May 2006: Prison + needlepoint = Ann Arbor bliss.
11. June 2007: It turns out that some councilmembers are more hip to new media (where “new media” includes anything newer than radio) than others.
12. September 2007: We engage in our favorite pastime of amateur media criticism.
13. February 2008: We bloviate about online free speech.
14. February 2008: Todd Leopold announces (in the thread from the previous post) that he’s closing his Ann-Arbor-institution brewpub after years of being a voice for sanity in A2 politics.
15. March 2008: Delicious irony arises when Ann Arbor’s cultural festivals and progressive labor laws conflict.
16. April 2008: This op-ed is a sort of farewell piece; it deals with a particular development but attempts to incorporate everything we’ve learned about A2 politics and planning.