Find a City, Find Myself a City to Live In
“California. Nice state. Long commute,” reads mLive’s ad for their jobs section. “Find a job you love in the place you love.” But doesn’t the first part imply that California is really the place you love? After all, the only thing wrong with it is that it’s not close to where you are now. As reasons for not taking a job in California go, “long commute” is one of the lamer ones.
You could build a whole ad campaign around the premise of being too lame to leave Michigan. “California. Nice state. You’d have to get your alternator fixed first and then there’s that whole mess with Comcast you have to take care of.” “New York. Great city. But you’ll probably blow your whole paycheck on laptop electronica next month.” “Boston. Wonderful place. But you have these delusions of being in ‘grad school.’”
Find a job you love in the place you’re stuck.
I think the ad actually implies that you want to be in michigan. (ie, too bad that job is in california, it’s an awful long commute from here, find a job here instead)
From someone who recently moved here after spending the last 8 years in California, it’s not all peaches and cream there. ann arbor seems like a cheap place to live compared to even the suburbs of san francisco. there is no parking to be found… anywhere. the fact that you park your car five blocks from your house on a daily basis, you walk four blocks to a pet store to carry home a 20lb. bag of dog food all because it’s easier than losing a parking spot, and no matter how old you are you will always have a roommate due to the rent.
yes, socially ann arbor leaves a little to be desired, but life is give and take.
posted by Anonymous on January 28th, 2004 at 7:53 pmMy reading is totally different, due to the “nice state” part. Otherwise, wouldn’t the ad be “Nice job, sucky state, long commute.”?
posted by Anna on January 28th, 2004 at 8:34 pmWell, I used to work right by the beach in Santa Monica, lived a 15 min. walk away from work, had nightlife and all amenities within a few blocks, and never saw the freeway. So, I would offer that it actually is possible to enjoy living and working in CA, maybe even enough that it’s worth moving away from MI.
As far as the cost of living issue mentioned above, my feeling is that if I have to pay too much for something I’d rather enjoy it. I.e., rents in SM are unbelievable, but the apartments are very nice, unlike here where an astronomical rent doesn’t guarantee adequate plumbing or heating. Same deal with restaurants - paying too much hurts less when the food’s actually good - and bars - paying $6 a drink isn’t terrible if the place is fun. Just a thought.
posted by Nick on January 28th, 2004 at 9:58 pmI don’t actually like California, by the way. Well, I’ve had a terrific time every time I’ve been there, but it’s not for me. If I were going to move somewhere warm, I think Miami would be more interesting, or maybe Austin.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 28th, 2004 at 10:54 pmCalifornia is my native state, and I hate to say it, but it’s not going to get any more livable there anytime soon. They have the worst budget situation of any state in the union (Michigan included), a complete wild card for a governor, and a cost of living that is to be experienced to be believed. If I were to go back, it’s hard to say where I would wanmt to live. The good places are too expensive to be livable, and the not-so-good places are cheaper, but why would anyone want to live in Fresno or Merced? (No offense if anyone’s from there.)
posted by frank on January 28th, 2004 at 11:09 pmWell, yeah, no place is perfect for everyone. As much as I liked CA I’m well aware of all it’s problems, and I understand why many people don’t care for it. It’s a matter of preferences. I personally dislike the East Coast, actually - much more pretentious than the west, and if I have to live somewhere that’s crowded and overpriced, it might as well have an agreeable climate and lots to do outdoors. For all its problems and the difficulties of living in LA, I really enjoyed my time there and grew a lot as a person through the experience. Also, I think part of why I’m unhappy in AA is that it’s so unstimulating by comparison.
posted by Nick on January 28th, 2004 at 11:34 pmNick, LA is a great place — no argument there. I grew up there, and for better or worse, it will always be where I came from. It’s more a matter of livability than a matter of greatness that makes up my mind nowadays. I think LA and SF and a lot of other places are fantastic and exciting cities, but are they livable?
You are correct that if a place is expensive, it should be livable. And everyone’s going to have a different idea of what defines livability. I guess I’ve had my fill of exciting — after living in SF for over ten years, I got that out of my system, so to speak. But then, I wouldn’t want to live in Bumwipe, Egypt, either.
posted by frank on January 29th, 2004 at 12:20 amFrank, I do think you have a valid perspective on LA and California. My first 2 years there, in which I had to stretch a measly MA student stipend to cover the costs of living in southern Orange County, were not pretty - that, and OC being OC, gave me a rapid introduction into all of the ways in which CA can be a dreadfully unpleasant place.
Where I differ with you is on the idea of livability. The problem is that many of the problems in CA can’t be avoided by going elsewhere. In a refrain that I’m sure will make you feel momentarily at home again, things that happen in CA 1st often emerge as national trends later on. The fiscal and political meltdown going on out there, as well as the crises in education, healthcare, and other areas, are consequences of taxpayer revolt and irresponsible governance. But that’s happening all over - some of the bleakest economic data these days come out of OR and WA, Pittsburgh and other cities are fighting losing battles with municipal bankruptcies, etc. The point being that you just have to find a suitable place and, as Henry Miller once said, make whatever life you can among the ruins. I’m not at all sure there’s any truly “livable” place anywhere (though, to be fair, I haven’t been out of the US much), to the extent that no place can give you all of what you want. Every place presents a challenge - “livable” is just a question of how much you care for that challenge.
posted by Nick on January 29th, 2004 at 11:25 amNick, have you lived in cities of comparable size to A2 before? If we’re going to discuss “unstimulating by comparison”, we really shouldn’t be involving LA or San Francisco as the other half of the comparison. If you want to compare *Detroit* to SF and find Detroit lacking, that’s all well and good. If you’re going to compare Ann Arbor to something, though, I want to see, say, Palo Alto/Mountain View on the other side of the equation. Similarly, save the NYC comparisons for Detroit; use New Brunswick, NJ as the NYC equivalent of A2. I don’t know Boston well enough to provide the A2 equivalent there–maybe Amherst?
At any rate, I don’t mean to just be a whiny Ann Arbor apologist, but if you’re going to compare A2 to things and call it overrated, then compare it to either comparable places or to its own expectations. Don’t throw up completely ludicrous comparisons and (surprise) find Ann Arbor lacking.
posted by Murph on January 29th, 2004 at 11:57 amWell, Murph, 1st of all, I know that it isn’t appropriate to compare AA to a large city. You know it. Most people reading this site know it. But a very large part of AA’s population and U-M’s alumni body doesn’t know it. And those are the people out there tricking unsuspecting prospective graduate students like myself into moving here. I was told repeatedly when choosing b/w here and Berkeley that AA was so much more fun than LA, that I’d have all the amenities of living that I had out there without the traffic, and that the people were warm, welcoming, and friendly. So I hardly think I’m alone in drawing these comparisons - where I feel more alone is in drawing them correctly.
As far as living in an AA-sized town, the best I can do is Chapel Hill, which is better than AA in nearly every way I can think of. But of course that’s not an entirely fair comparison either - Chapel Hill is actually smaller than AA.
posted by Nick on January 29th, 2004 at 12:44 pmNYC doesn’t tend to have smaller cities around it because as the boundaries moved out, smaller cities got sucked in (e.g. Brooklyn).
The Boston-area equivalent would be Cambridge; Amherst (pop. 35,000) is much smaller than AA. Northampton (28,978) feels bigger than Amherst and is actually pretty awesome. There’s a thriving folk community there (Dar Williams lived there for a long time, for example) and I think that Dinosaur Jr. was from Northampton, too. I lived in the Amherst/Northampton area for a while, and I saw a lot of live music, if that is one of your measures.
A city that is half the size of AA is Portland, ME, but I’m pretty sure it could easily hold its own against AA anyway. Portsmouth, NH, too.
What about Oakland/Berkeley, CA? That might be a fair comparison.
posted by Anna on January 29th, 2004 at 1:16 pmi’d say if ann arbor was a 13 mile drive away from chicago, then yes, you could compare it berkeley/oakland… because that’s what makes those 2 cities a better location to ann arbor.
posted by Anonymous on January 29th, 2004 at 1:52 pmThat last (intentionally?) anonymous comment brings up a good point. If by “Cambridge” you’re talking the one on the Charles River, effectively a part of Boston, it’s a different animal. Ditto Berkeley/Oakland. Those both have the advantage of a close, thriving city, with links by mass transit. None of that sentence would apply to the Ann Arbor / Detroit link.
And Nick, if that’s what you were told about A2 (and people *do* have an unfortunate tendancy of saying that sort of thing), then you have my apologies, and my encouragement to flame on. Though I doubt that even the inner fire of rage will keep you at an LA level of January toastiness in this weather. I’ll note that I attended a talk by a faculty candidate from USC a week ago; he was putting up a brave face about the weather, so I warned him about the whole snow in April thing…
posted by Murph on January 29th, 2004 at 4:16 pmMurph, you’d be surprised at what the inner fire of rage can do for your utility costs. I’m saving a bundle, and recommending it to all my friends.
And I do like your logic today. You’re right - copmaring AA to anyplace larger or smaller is completely invalid - and as long as you can cry foul when anyone compares AA to any place remotely civilized, you can go a very long time without asking yourself any difficult questions or thinking very hard at all about the place you live in. And that is the point of the Ann Arbor experience, right? Learning how avoid thinking critically?
posted by Nick on January 29th, 2004 at 9:42 pmNick-you were told by people that AA offers the same amenities as LA, but better? seems like a quick assessment on your part and you could have seen that wasn’t true.. as pointed out, there’s no ocean, everyone knows the midwest is relatively flat, so no mountains…sure there’s no 3rd street promenade, but i don’t particularly miss the tin man anyway.
yes, as a UM alumni, i actually chose to come back here after living in LA, Berkeley, Palo Alto and San Francisco. why? because i could buy a house, park my car in my garage, and regain almost 3 hours of my life per day because i no longer sit on the 405. to me, that’s critical thinking.
posted by Kellie on January 29th, 2004 at 10:30 pmI’ve lived in the Midwest most of my life, so I already knew it was the least aesthetically appealing part of the country, but I still felt cheated when I moved here. Nobody told me it was just like LA - I was told that it was the “Manhattan of the Midwest.” More realistically but even more insidiously, I was given the impression that it was kind of like Madison, and if you wanted to experience the big city, you could just go to Detroit, which was kind of like Chicago.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 29th, 2004 at 10:38 pmSo, to summarize, “Does AA suck compared to some objective standard of what makes a place a good place to live, or does it suck in a relative manner, compared with other places just like it?” Basically, we have rejected every place that might be like it but better (Madison, because it’s bigger and plus near water; Chapel Hill because it’s smaller, Berkeley because it’s near San Fran, Amherst because it’s 1/4 the size, ditto for Northampton, Portland because it’s 1/2 the size, all major cities because they’re much bigger). Hm.
posted by Anna on January 30th, 2004 at 8:25 amThank you, Anna. That’s all I was trying to point out.
posted by Nick on January 30th, 2004 at 8:49 amI guess if we want to count New Brunswick, NJ (pop. 48,573) we could conclude that other places suck, too.
posted by Anna on January 30th, 2004 at 10:48 amOK, I understand you kids are let down, so why don’t you (we) make the best of it.
Who’s in for a roadtrip to Toronto? I’ll take care of a van(s), help get tickets to a Leafs game (it really doesn’t matter if you like hockey—it’s a lot of fun), and can even arrange dinner/barhopping/concertgoing/hotels if everyone would like. I’ve got connections at Molson and Canadian Club for those of you who like tours and such…
I’ll even put up a sign-up sheet in the bar so that you can meet some new people.
We’ll make it a weekend. Leave on Friday, return on Sunday. How about the weekend of Feb. 21st? Who’s in?
todd leopold
posted by todd on January 30th, 2004 at 11:57 amFor obvious reasons, I can’t go, but that’s really nice of you and a great idea!
posted by Anna on January 30th, 2004 at 12:15 pmTodd, I know you’re trying to do a good deed, but are you sure you want to put all of that negative energy into one van? I heard that after they left your bar, you had to pump powdered Zoloft through the green tubes to fumigate the depressing vibe from the place. Ah, but maybe you plan to take them to Toronto and leave them there? Perhaps they’ll even find contentment, and if not, at least they’ll be spreading their epidemic of bitterness in some other country.
posted by David on January 30th, 2004 at 12:19 pmAppreciate the offer, Todd, it does sound like fun. But break at U-M begins that weekend and I already have plans out of town.
And David, sounds like you’ve got more than enough negative energy to sustain AA without us.
posted by Nick on January 30th, 2004 at 12:27 pmNow that Nick and Anna aren’t going, it’s starting to sound tempting…
posted by David on January 30th, 2004 at 12:31 pmI predict they spend the whole trip in the hotel room, watching the Toronto city council on public access TV, whining “this town is boring too”.
posted by Andy on January 30th, 2004 at 12:53 pmDavid, why would you considering leaving Annarbour for a weekend? You’d miss out on your tantric pot-throwing class.
posted by Anna on January 30th, 2004 at 12:57 pmWell, Todd, I’d be interested… Lemme know how it’s looking.
posted by js on January 30th, 2004 at 2:42 pmjs
Anna dear, didn’t I tell you? I decided to drop tantric pot-throwing and take adolescent hissy-fit-throwing instead, since you so highly recommended it. How am I doing, Professor?
posted by David on January 30th, 2004 at 3:17 pmToronto is the nicest part of Ann Arbor.
posted by Arborslave on January 30th, 2004 at 3:23 pmMurph made an interesting point on 1/29 (how city-to-city comparisons are sometimes inappropriately done with cities in different weight classes). How about city-to-region comparisons? As a Midwesterner, I just *love* (no, not really) hearing people from Manhattan talk about how they could never live in the “Midwest.” Well… could they tolerate rural upstate NY? Would that be the Midwest? Rather than doing NYC-Chicago, they’re doing a city-to-region comparison. Not really fair…
posted by Kevin on January 30th, 2004 at 3:28 pmKevin, it’s hopeless. If you hang around here long enough someone will eventually get around to asserting that even the moon is a more cultured, livelier, and all-around better place to live than Ann Arbor. And you’re polite, so you won’t argue with that, but you might naively suggest that Ann Arbor might have a slightly higher population than the moon, hopeing someone might agree that, yes, given the moon’s relative dearth of people, Ann Arbor might be almost as fun. Who could dispute that? Just you wait and see. Someone will go to the secret dataset she keeps in her ass and “prove” to one and all that, in point of fact, the moon has many, many more people than Ann Arbor. And they are smarter. And better cooks. And better lovers. Better parents. And they are, every last fucking one of them, going to heaven. And they’re more modest than Ann Arborites too. But not only that, this stream of ass-data will also demonstrate that Ann Arbor’s crime rate is much higher than the crime rate on the moon. In Ann Arbor you stand a 98% chance of getting shot and raped on your way out to fetch the paper (and it’s not even a good paper). And the moon has cleaner water. And lower rent.
posted by David on January 30th, 2004 at 3:54 pmI’m sorry, David. Were you looking for Annarbour is cool?
Oops, sorry, that’s right. It doesn’t exist.
posted by Anna on January 30th, 2004 at 4:02 pmGolly, Anna, you’re not even trying. Don’t you have some ass-data or something?
posted by David on January 30th, 2004 at 4:09 pmWell, I moved to AA for the education, but I think it’s the friendly locals that I’ll stay for.
posted by Nick on January 30th, 2004 at 4:18 pmGuilty as charged. I’m a data-slut. What else would you like to accuse me of, being a professor? Oh, wait, you already did that. Disliking Ann Arbor? Ouch. Thinking you’re silly for taking what I say on a website dedicated to poking fun at AA seriously? You got me. I can’t take it anymore. Where’s that intravenous Zoloft?
posted by Anna on January 30th, 2004 at 4:18 pmPowdered Zoloft. And it’s cheaper in Canada. Too bad you can’t go.
posted by David on January 30th, 2004 at 4:21 pmSo that’s what the kids are calling cocaine these days.
posted by Anna on January 30th, 2004 at 4:23 pmNo, I’m pretty sure they still call it cocaine. They call it crack in New Haven, though, don’t they?
posted by David on January 30th, 2004 at 4:25 pmOh, ow, ouch. You sure know how to hit me where it hurts. Have you no mercy?
Actually, honestly, I am really curious, David, since you seem to be so offended by AA-bashing, what do you like about it so much? Is it really that you like it so much, or do you just get irritated by the trash-talk? Have you lived elsewhere that you’ve liked? Or is AA the best place? I’m serious. I promise not to make fun.
posted by Anna on January 30th, 2004 at 4:39 pmI’m almost tempted to spill my guts, but I really don’t have time. I’ve got to punch out at 5:00, and there’s sweeping up to do first, and Wal Mart’s getting really weird about anyone staying longer than 8 hours. Lawsuits out west, I guess. So maybe next week. Thanks for asking.
posted by David on January 30th, 2004 at 4:46 pmAh. So you’re one of us. You get perverse satisfaction from bashing, but the market on AA-bashing is cornered, so for the sake of originality you bash AA-bashers. I guess that’s fair. Carry on.
posted by Anna on January 30th, 2004 at 4:50 pmI’m not sure what you meant by that, but OK.
Anyway, I confess, I made up Wal Mart. Well, I wish I’d made up Wal Mart, but I just made up the thing about working there. But I do have to head out at 5:00–my fiancee and I are hosting a birthday party for a friend and I have to run some errands to buy supplies. So, taking you at your word, I don’t really want to get into anything time-consuming. I was actually glad the fight was petering out.
So seriously, maybe next week, but you’ll have to reciprocate by explaining why it is that you can’t seem to get this town you hate out of your system. If I went every day to a “my ex-girlfriend sucks” website, people would rightly assume that I wasn’t over her, so what gives with you? Frankly, I think you’re secretly in love with Ann Arbor, but can’t face to awful truth. And no sarcasm. Any sarcasm and the deal’s off.
posted by David on January 30th, 2004 at 5:03 pmBye.
(The rest of you can ignore this)
David -
Actually, my comments fluctuate with my grant deadlines. The closer the deadline, more stress, more procrastination, more comments. So, since my grant is due tomorrow, I’ll just write this now. You can read whenever.
To be honest, no sarcasm, the reason I like this site so much is that I really enjoy AAIO’s and others’ sense of the absurd. The absurd is the holy grail of humor IMHO. And AA provides a lot of good material. The problems in AA are funny. The problems in my neck of the woods are not funny. Craig’s List, even the Best-ofs and Rants ‘n Raves were getting dull. Beside, I don’t have an ex-boyfriend that either amuses me enough or that I actually dislike enough to actually spend time bashing. I’m the stay-friends type. But I digress.
I don’t sit around glowering in my office, sending hate vibes to AA. In truth, I don’t think about AA all that much; it’s just an abstract target — and symbolizes to me a lot of things I think are obnoxious. Not heinous, just obnoxious. To my surprise and delight, a number of people who post here are really smart. Even some with whom I bicker. The ones who aren’t are fun to tease. Either it’s genetically hard to get me riled up, or I had good training as an older sister or as a scientist, but I don’t mind being a target; it’s all in good fun. Occasionally, something that interests me for other reasons engages my attention and I engage in a more serious discussion. Probably because I dated a city planner for a long time and you can’t hang around a city planner for too long before you start to ponder questions like, “What makes this place a good place to live? What makes that place a bad place to live?” And as for your boyfriend comment, perhaps you’re right; but the majority of people I spend time with are people I knew in AA, or people that I have common ground with because they did time in AA/UM. The people I spend hours on the phone with went to UM. You can’t spend 10 years someplace and not develop ties. I probably visit AA 4-5 times a year for research meetings and to visit friends, etc., so it’s not like I’m completely gone physically, either. I spent my entire adult life up until a few years ago in AA.
I didn’t hate AA for the first bunch of years. I wouldn’t have gone back for grad school if I’d been a rabid AA hater. I just liked it less and less over time, partly because the nature of the place changed (sorry AAIO) from sort of a quirky friendly town with interesting, albeit strange, characters to add to my collection of friends, to an obnoxious and pretentious town. By the time I left, I really was sick of it. I hadn’t been skiing for years because I was too poor for the West, too far from the East, I hadn’t been for a decent hike in a long time, the schlep to the family abode in N. New England took me 17 hours to drive and I was too busy in grad school anyway. So, when I left, couldn’t get out of town fast enough. Of course, that was all wrapped up in being relieved to be done with grad school, be glad to be moving to the next chapter instead of being stuck in school forever, being glad to have enough money to afford the gas money out, etc.
So, to summarize: Busy = stress = procrastination = time spent on internet. Sense of absurd = funny = enjoyable way to spend my procrastination. There you have it. No sarcasm.
posted by Anna on January 30th, 2004 at 5:38 pmNow that this has become the “What the hell are you doing here?” thread, I should throw in my two cents.
I’m another person with an interest in statistical data and city/city comparisons, regional variations, crime rates, etc. I grew up in East Lansing. But now I’ve lived in Ann Arbor for more than a dozen years, own a house here, am involved in politics here, and have no intention of leaving.
Plus, I’m a blogger, indeed, I have been involved in online conferencing of one kind or another for more than two decades. In terms of local blog discussions, AAIO is where it’s at.
I have mixed feelings about the Ann Arbor bashing. On the one hand, AAIO and other critics are right on that tenants and students are systematically screwed here. I cut my teeth politically working for the interests of MSU students in East Lansing, so I’m familiar with these issues, and I (mostly) haven’t changed my mind.
I also strongly concur with Anna that Ann Arbor isn’t as nice a place to live as it used to be. Unfortunately, that is a common problem across the country: places that used to be unique and quirky are being forced into a common mold. And to some extent, the things which used to make Ann Arbor unusual are now widely available, via chain stores or the Internet. Why tolerate the costs and hassles of living in Ann Arbor, some ask, when you can enjoy many of the benefits elsewhere?
Some Ann Arborites are struggling to protect and defend the things which they like about the “old” Ann Arbor. On the whole, I think this effort is a good thing, and it has scored some successes. Ann Arbor is the only city in Michigan with a lively downtown area, in large part because city taxpayers have been willing to subsidize parking structures and an extensive city bus system.
Ann Arbor resisted the movement to demolish whole neighborhoods around downtown with the federal urban renewal program, and it was a leader in historic preservation. Other cities around the state have dreary wastelands, windswept concrete plazas, and six-lane expressways where historic neighborhoods and downtowns used to be.
Of course, these efforts which make Ann Arbor different from other Michigan cities are intimately tied up with the snobbery of Ann Arbor — a tempting target for ridicule.
I’m an admirer of AAIO’s writing, but sometimes AAIO doesn’t see a distinction between defending what’s good about this place, and the smug way some of its denizens look down on the rest of the world. And so I get drawn into the argument, because I want to make that distinction.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 30th, 2004 at 6:30 pmAss Arbor’s efforts at historic preservation are not only groundbreaking, but unbelievably far-reaching. My neighborhood, the “Old West Side,” is populated by human-appearing simulacra, all of whom appear to be at least 45 human years of age. They are not fully functional (if one attempts to speak to them while passing on the street, for example, they will generally look in the other direction, or clutch more tightly at their fine leather attache cases). Judging from their attire, these beings were embalmed and automated at some point in the late 1950s. They do not move quickly, but they are very lifelike.
The efforts at historic preservation of buildings in the district are far less impressive, serving merely to fashion a de facto covenant community: one may alter the facade of any building as long as the modifications are in accordance with the esthetic sense (read: understanding of “History”) of the well-intentioned Michiganders on the Historic District Commission.
The Commission is not entirely closed-minded, however. When approached by a sufficiently well-heeled developer, or chain restaurant representative ( HP Picklershitters Midwestern Fat Factory, for example, coming soon to the Main Street Historic District), their “Historic” understanding becomes far broader.
posted by Arborslave on January 30th, 2004 at 9:56 pmMaybe it’s just late, but that was funny.
As far as preservation of historic structures, do the lawns and porches covered in garbage and urine-soaked furniture fall under that? I guess they don’t build them like they used to . . .
posted by Nick on January 30th, 2004 at 10:25 pmThe satire would be funnier if the author had any idea what he was writing about.
Part of the intertwining problem I mentioned earlier is that Ann Arbor and its neighborhoods have become popular, hence sought-after, hence expensive, hence populated by disproportionate numbers of affluent people for whom cost is no object.
The Old West Side was Ann Arbor’s German neighborhood, with little wooden houses on a grid of numbered streets, on lower ground than the newer and fancier neighborhoods further west, and dotted with old factories here and there. It decayed in the 1960s and 1970s, with typical problems of bad landlords, mortgage and insurance redlining, crime, the whole bit.
The people who organized the neighborhood were, at the time, mostly young and hip (or elderly and German) and not at all affluent. The neighborhood had no money, but some interesting architecture. One of the ways they tried to stop deterioration and abandonment, and gain some respect from the city/bankers/police/utilities/etc., was to fight for a historic district ordinance, one of the first in the entire state.
Because they were new at writing historic preservation rules, they were very cautious. The Old West Side ordinance was (and is) extremely loose by today’s standards. You can do almost anything to a house as long as it doesn’t mess up the streetscape. The Old West Side, indeed, set the tone for historic preservation rules in Ann Arbor: much more permissive than what other cities have. There’s a huge contrast between easygoing Ann Arbor and strict, exacting Ypsilanti on historic district rules.
(Ypsilanti even regulates paint colors, whereas Ann Arborites are shocked at the very thought.)
By the 1980s and 1990s, the Old West Side’s mostly 600 and 900 square foot houses became very sought after, and expensive. Wealthy folks were willing to buy and renovate them because (under the easygoing historic district rules) they were allowed to build huge additions, often tripling or quadrupling the square footage of these little houses, or building a connecting addition to merge two houses into one.
So, yeah, the formerly humble Old West Side now has attracted lots of moneyed folks with fancy attache cases mentioned in the satire. But the historic district was not created for them.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 31st, 2004 at 1:05 amIt is true that I have no knowledge of the no knowledge of the history of the precious OWS, having only been here a few years, and departing ASAP (Spring/Summer 2004!!!!!). I have heard from some of my neighbors that this neighborhood was once interesting, so am willing to accept this as fact.
posted by Arborslave on January 31st, 2004 at 9:57 amI can confirm that Ann Arbor’s rules are very, very lax compared with those in some places. My parents live in a historic neighborhood in New England (where historic means 1600-1800, not 1850-1935; nobody there cares much about the latter) and their historic district rules prohibit things like window unit air conditioners (even in the back of the house) and required special permission to put in a compressor for air conditioning, even though the unit was going to be hidden among some hedges which were behind a stockade fence at the side of the house. The owners before my parents were forced to destroy a deck on the back of the house — one that was already built. And storm windows can only be put on the *inside* of the house.
posted by Anna on January 31st, 2004 at 11:20 amThere is a house on the next block in the process of a historic renovation: it was a thousand square foot, early 20th century dwelling. All but the front fifteen feet of the house was demolished, and a mini-mansion was tacked on the back.
I once joked with one of the OWS historic district covenant officials that we should be allowed to build an outhouse, pig pen, and slaughterhouse in the back yard. But that apparently isn’t the kind of history we wish to enact.
At the moment I am wearing a Civil War drummer boy uniform, and have infected myself with yellow fever. That’ll show them.
posted by Arborslave on January 31st, 2004 at 12:01 pmNick, thanks for your earlier remarks. I would have to reluctantly agree with you about the California trend going national.
My summary of Berkeley/Oakland (I lived there for 4 years) vs. Ann Arbor: much more to do and see in the former (if you’re into cultural/zeitgeist stuff); a better public transportation system, but by no means perfect (BART is great if you have a car to get from the outskirts to the BART tracks, but otherwise BART is a tossup, and Alameda County Transit, while doing its best, is severely underfunded); but also the worst traffic imaginable on the main freeway artery (I-80), high crime, poverty, and other socioeconomic woes, infrastructure on the brink of disaster, a completely corrupt political patronage system, and hardly any of what you could call affordable housing.
posted by frank on January 31st, 2004 at 6:43 pm