Ann Arbor was so much
Ann Arbor was so much cooler in 2002.
No, not really. But the Daily’s recent well-intentioned editorial on the “Starbuckization” of A2 makes us think that this will be the rallying cry in a few years. In it, the Daily mourns the loss of local businesses like the recently departed Decker Drugs.
Let’s take a look at these local businesses that the Daily misses so much. There’s Ethnic Creations and Shiva Moon, both of which roughly fit into the “New Age gift shop” category. Schoolkids Records, which still maintains a State Street presence, last we checked. Finally, there’s Campus Bike and Toys. We’ve always felt there were more than enough bike stores in A2, but we’ll leave this to the outdoorsy types. As an example of a still-thriving business with local “ambience”, they offer Rod’s Diner, which serves up funky atmosphere between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Replacing these kinds of establishments, which serve mainly to inflate A2’s sense of its own bohemian-ness, with the latest sandwich chain doesn’t have much effect on the actual student experience. The Daily should be lamenting the local businesses that we’ve rarely or never had in A2, at least in recent memory. The 24-hour diner that’s less pretentious than the Fleetwood. The coffeehouse that serves up the caffeine well past midnight. The rock venue that manages to steal a few acts away from the Magic Stick.
“It is time the government allocated resources and worked with proprietors in order to aid these local businesses,” the Daily writes. We can only hope that the independent, locally-owned stores designed to prey on carless students with prices several times what you’d pay at Kroger get all the help they need.