ann arbor is overrated.

Daily writer Joey Litman exposes Ann Arbor’s “faux diversity” for what it is in this week’s Weekend Magazine. Talking to custodial employees in the Union, he’s surprised that none lives in Ann Arbor. Litman concludes that Ann Arbor’s vaunted heterogeneity is a sham, at least when it comes to economic diversity.

He stumbles only near the end, when he argues that said economic diversity would be a good thing for students to experience, since they are often “kids who have lived comfortably for most of their lives.” But students are just as much victims of Ann Arbor’s overpriced housing and food as anyone else, especially non-parent-supported grad students. What Litman should have said was, real economic diversity would be a good thing for the yuppie landowners who congratulate themselves for living in such a quirky, open-minded town.