ann arbor is overrated.

Goodspeed Update reminds us that it’s time once again to take a look at the Current’s Best of Washtenaw County list. Wait a minute, you’re saying. Washtenaw County? What happened to “Best of Ann Arbor”? Well, they’ve “crossed the city line” this year to encourage people who have obviously never been outside of the closed interval between exit 172 and exit 180 on I-94 to select favorites from a number of towns.

But it seems to make no difference. The “Best Coffeehouse” closes at 10. The “Best Camping Gear Shop” - not that we condone camping in any way - displays belly shirts in its window. And the “Best Student Hangout” is the Diag. That’s right. The best student hangout in Ann Arbor is a concrete walkway.

Besides these, the first-place choices are generally respectable, because Ann Arbor has about one of everything. But it’s eye-opening to see just how much they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with a second-place selection for some of the categories. The second best “Place to See a Local Band” is the Ark, the folkie music theatre with tasteful lighting and comfortable seats. The second best record store is Borders. The second best “Clothing Boutique” is Urban Outfitters.

And the second best “Thing About Ypsilanti” is Ann Arbor. Oh, those wacky voters. Of course, if they’d ever been to Ypsilanti, they would have found clear choices for at least the late night eatery (Abe’s Coney Island, whose down-to-earth ambience beats the troweled-on faux-sketchiness of the Fleetwood without breaking a sweat) and local-band venue (The Elbow Room) categories. Not only that, but they would have found a town that doesn’t feel like an ersatz Berkeley, a town that has what pretentious city planners like to call “a sense of place.” The voters in this category didn’t just get it wrong - they got it backwards.