ann arbor is overrated. » Blog Archive » Tuscaloosa Is Overrated

Tuscaloosa Is Overrated

Let’s be clear on one thing - this porch couch ban is not an idle threat, not a non-issue, not a bit of political grandstanding that has no chance of becoming law. Similar bans have passed in similar towns.

We almost hesitate to post this USA Today piece from last year about college towns taking action against “student slums” - it might give the OFW Association ideas. Among the initiatives that, as the reporter puts it, “get students to be better neighbors”:

“Several college towns, including Michigan State University’s home, East Lansing, and University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill, N.C., limit the number of students who can live together in off-campus housing.”
“Seattle limits off-campus land the University of Washington can buy or lease for student housing.” (This sounds more like a way to get students to be tenants of price-gouging private landlords.)
“The Philadelphia suburb of West Chester, where about 3,500 West Chester University students live, bans new student housing within 400 feet of other such housing. Last semester, West Chester Mayor Richard Yoder implemented Operation Vigilance. It aims to reduce underage and excessive drinking by imposing the maximum state penalty, such as loss of a driver’s license, compared with previous consequences like community service.”

All of this almost makes Ann Arbor seem less overrated - although the U of M hasn’t needed any help from the city in deciding not to create new student housing.

The article also quotes a Tuscaloosa city council member, elected as a student, who had a couch on his own porch. Now he tells students who want to keep theirs, “We have to do our best to make our community better while we’re here.”

29 Responses to “Tuscaloosa Is Overrated”

There is a law on the books in Ann Arbor limiting the number of unrelated people living in a single house. Only six people can be on a lease. It’s quite old and was originally used to prevent brothels from operating.
posted by NG on July 9th, 2004 at 8:35 pm
Ypsi has a similar law, but it’s per room (the “roominghouse law”). It’s the most frequently violated building law in Ypsi.
posted by js on July 9th, 2004 at 10:28 pm
“”We’re seeing property values decline and families not wanting to buy houses in that area because it’s unsightly,” says John Sheffield, a Tuscaloosa activist who pushed for bans on outdoor sofas and parking in front yards.”

here it is….
posted by todd on July 10th, 2004 at 8:16 am
I’d like to see them try and get rid of lawn parking in this town–the landlords around the Stadium would stage a coup d’etat.
posted by Alex on July 10th, 2004 at 9:22 am
OK Alex, now that’s a good point.

What is “dirtier” than an upholstered couch?

A car parked on your lawn.

I guess that it’s not the same if you aren’t trying to fix the car.

Someone should bring this up at the Council meeting.
posted by todd on July 10th, 2004 at 10:55 am
Ypsi has an ordinance about parking on the lawn. When I lived there, my neighbor used to park there and anyone who’d come to visit would do the same. The street was 20 feet away, so I guess some might understand why he did it. I used to call the cops on him all the time because the city refused to enforce it. He eventually stopped, but when I drove by the other day, I saw his porch was filled with garbage cans, junk, and other fabulous white-trash antiques. I’d be stunned if AA doesn’t have a similar ordinance on lawn parking that isn’t enforced.
posted by Eric on July 10th, 2004 at 2:14 pm
If they banned (or enforced a ban against) on-lawn parking, West Side bobos couldn’t make an extra buck during football games.
posted by Anna on July 10th, 2004 at 6:14 pm
Anna, maybe I’m missing your sarcasm, but I think that that is Alex’s point.

…..a very funny point.

And from what I can read, Mucho and others don’t agree that this is an important issue on its face……I very much think that AAIO is once again correct in that this is anti-student legislation that is a canary in the proverbial coal mine. Letting this pass or allowing it to snowball and gain support would be a big mistake IMHO. It is important in the sense that it leads the city down the wrong road.

Tension between homeowners and students will continue to rise as the city avoids infill, and the enrollment at Michigan rises….moving more students into neighborhoods.

Maybe one of you information science people can take a look at the enrollment stats…. as I am having a difficult time deciphering the tables…. but it appears that UMich’s enrollment has grown by 10,000 since 1990. The city only reports a growth of 4,400 in the same time span.
posted by todd on July 11th, 2004 at 10:15 am
Ann Arbor does have an ordinance against lawn parking as well. The law specifically exempts football saturdays and days during Art Fair from enforcement.

The actual definition of “lawn” is somewhat hard to understand. It’s illegal to park on actual grass on your lawn, but if there is an area that is cut out with gravel, stone or concrete then you can call it a driveway or parking lot and that seems to be legal. Not sure of the specific language.
posted by NG on July 11th, 2004 at 12:01 pm
Todd, I was being sarcastic, but not very funny, I ’spose.

I think it’s ludicrious that there’s an exception during football games. Seems to me that such an ordinance directly targets students, while the powers-that-be (some of whom no doubt rent out their lawns for parking during football games) write themselves a self-serving exemption. AA needs to decide whether it wants parking on lawns or not. If so, everyone should get equal protection under the law.
posted by Anna on July 11th, 2004 at 12:41 pm
It’s my experience that the students are the ones that make out like bandits on football Saturdays. The “powers-that-be” would have to live in Burns Park to live within walking distance of the stadium, and if you’re going to park that far away from the stadium there’s plenty of street parking. If there wasn’t lawn parking on football saturdays, the stadium’s side of town would be exponentially crazier on a football day. I don’t think it’s ludicrous as much as convenient for the fans.

I don’t really agree with the Art Fair exemption however — with the shuttle lots there isn’t really as much as a parking crunch as people believe, since they all insist on parking near campus. Those exemptions exist mostly for churches and non-profits that use the fraternities near the Washetenaw and Hill area, which bring in quite a bit as fundraisers every year.

Shuttles aren’t as feasible for football saturdays as they are for art fair — during art fair people come and go as they please, while football traffic pretty much leaves all at once when the game is over.
posted by NG on July 11th, 2004 at 1:58 pm
I am not sure how it is that students make out like bandits from football parking. It is certainly not students who make money on football parking. I have known students that lived in apartment buildings along Main Street, within walking distance of the Stadium, and their LANDLORDS rent out their tenants’ parking spaces if their cars happen to not be there during a game. It is clearly the landlords and not the tenants who are renting out the lots and yards. If you live in Ann Arbor there is no reason that you can’t walk, bike, or take the bus to a game. Plus it seems to me that everybody coming and going at the same time would make shuttle service that much easier to coordinate.
posted by Anonymous on July 11th, 2004 at 2:52 pm
sorry, that last one was from me–dunno why my info disappeared
posted by Alex on July 11th, 2004 at 2:58 pm
I agree with Alex about the transportation. Also, most of the yard football parking seems to be in that neighborhood across Stadium Blvd from the stadium — those are single-family homes, most not student-occupied.
posted by Anna on July 11th, 2004 at 3:13 pm
Everyone makes out like bandits during football games– both students and homeowners. It’s been my experience that students are the ones renting out parking during games, not landlords. A friend of mine and her roommates made lots of money last fall on their Main Street lawn. I’ll be doing the same on Madison this fall– my landlord even mentioned it as a selling-point when he was trying to rent us the place. The area around the stadium includes both students and non-students, and everybody wins, in my opinion.
posted by Brandon on July 11th, 2004 at 6:54 pm
It’s an empirical question. We need data. $100 says that, per capita, local residents make more for parking than student renters.
posted by Anna on July 12th, 2004 at 8:36 am
Some landlords have a clause right in the lease that their tenants must park elsewhere on football Saturdays so the landlord can rent out their parking spaces on those days.
posted by tom on July 12th, 2004 at 8:59 am
…and others make their fall rents that way.
An empirical answer to the question: who makes more money (aggregate) from lawn parking would require either so many assumptions as to be unreliable or so much work as to not be worth that $100.
Now, if anyone wants to start writing grants or to get an independent study to find this out, well, then, that’d be more worthwhile…
posted by js on July 12th, 2004 at 10:45 am
JS, Actually, we don’t really even need empirical data, though a little of that would help. When it comes to estimates, you’d be AMAZED at how close to the real answer people can get on, for example, estimating the number of golf balls sold in the US annually, based on logic and very loose assumptions. You can get within a few hundred without any trouble at all. This is the key to getting six figure jobs at management consulting companies. So, if you want more than $100, dust off those estimating skills and get to work.
posted by Anna on July 12th, 2004 at 11:32 am
I’ve been a tennant for years and have always make out like a bandit during a game, even parking cars on property I didn’t live at
You want to talk about bobo’s , football saturday the town is overrun with suburban bobo’s just handing me money.
posted by Bez on July 12th, 2004 at 1:02 pm
oh and i’m not a student renter, just a renter. Not a home owner, not a bobo.
posted by Bez on July 12th, 2004 at 1:12 pm
The mix of people selling spots is exactly that, a mix. How many of the people who said that students didn’t sell parking spots (anna, alex) have ever paid for a parking spot for a football game. Two years ago, I paid for a spot for each home game, and every time but one it was a student, not a resident I delt with. Not evidence of anything, just what I saw. I would guess that its about 50/50. Also, remember, even though many of the residents have full lawns, it doesn’t mean they got people to pay for the spot. Many residents have their friends come over and park at thier house.

Also, I don’t know much about organizing transportation, but do the people who thought it would be easy to do have any experience?? Its easy to guess at something, another to actaully know what your talking about. If you are a public transport specialist, my bad.
posted by Just a Voice on July 12th, 2004 at 4:01 pm
Gosh, I really didn’t mean to start this firestorm of controversy. Honestly, I don’t really care much about this non-issue.

However, being stubborn by nature, and ornery by deadline, I will still say this: Although it has been a few years since I’ve been to a football game, it seems to me that the neighborhoods right near the stadium, that is, on the West side of Stadium Blvd., have the most cars-in-yards. Those streets are no-question a mostly non-student population. Furthermore, if you consider *all* students at the University, and *all* non-students in town, logic dictates that fewer students will have yards than locals (since more live in apartments, in buildings, and in dorms), thus, more locals will have the opportunity to benefit from said legislation than students, especially since some cars parked in students’ yards are actually there at the behest of the landlord (back in the day, mine sold my assigned parking space on Football days!).

Argue if you like, but I don’t see how all this dickering is going to help shelter the good people of the OFW from such student offenses as “music playing” and “talking”.
posted by Anna on July 12th, 2004 at 4:23 pm
What about people (like my husband and me) who are students AND homeowners in that neighborhood?
Are we profiteering locals or deserving, entrepreneurial students? Or both? I think it’s a great system, by the way. Not only do we not mind the extra money, but it’s a pretty fun place to be on a Saturday morning–a neighborhood-wide tailgate party.
posted by c-loh on July 12th, 2004 at 4:50 pm
First, I didn’t say that students don’t rent out parking space. What I said was most likely it was the landlords making out like bandits in larger numbers than tenants. Words like “tenants” and “landlords” are pretty neutral about student vs. non-student.

Second, why would organizing a shuttle be any more difficult that organizing a multi-route city-wide bus route? Considering they’ve already managed to do that here, it hardly seems like it would require additional expertise. Plus I didn’t say it would be easy to do, I just said it wouldn’t be any more difficult than organizing a shuttle for Art Fair.

Sheesh, people are so argumentative.
posted by Alex on July 12th, 2004 at 6:43 pm
I don’t think that there’s a distinction between being “profiteering” and being “entrepreneurial” and neither is wrong in and of itself. What’s wrong is legislation that targets students to their detriment and locals (for lack of a better term) to their advantage.
posted by Anna on July 12th, 2004 at 9:24 pm
Rough demographics based on anecdotal evidence:
I work for the football guides (one of our many fine publications), and so have to walk through the football squalor most Saturdays during the season. The main areas for selling parking are on State, West Stadium, Hoover, and assorted side-streets to the north and east of the stadium. Main Street tends to be filled with vendors and businesses until about Pauline, and the side streets don’t seem to have the proper lawn space (the street parking, however, is always packed). On West Stadium, it is primarily homeowners, with some student rental. On State St., it is almost entirely student. On Hoover it appears to be about 60/40 student, with a fair chunk of the non-student taken by businesses. On Brown, it’s students. On White, it’s some black guys who have coordinated their entire block (who are too old to be any students but doctorate students, and that’s, well, doubtful). Most of the yards, with a few exceptions, of resident homeowners are too manicured to support large-scale parking.
I believe that it is primarily students who benefit from lawn parking fees, though the demographic served by lawn parking is definitely not students. Students are more likely to expend the effort, and have less regard for lawn care, and (in my experience) are louder and more aggressive in hawking their lawns.
The way that I would find out would be to first look up the tax records for several blocks around the stadium and cross-reference them with the rental certificates, to provide a picture of rental versus homeowner occupied properties in the neighborhoods, and then guess based on lot size. I would then assume that any property that had over a certain amount of parking provided, which is a zoning requirement based on lot size and occupancy (I would guess that any lot with four or more spaces would have the excess lawn capacity) would sell lawn parking. Still, this would be hard to verify without either going door-to-door or waiting for football season to verify the sampling methods.
Also important would be a gradiated scale for discussing how much each spot went for (it’s up to $80 for some on Hoover, but only $10 for some on State). That would weight the results in favor of those who lived closer.
(It could be argued that simply taking a sample of the lots directly surrounding the stadium would be adequate, and extrapolating their demographics outward would tell enough about the total picture. But I don’t have the confidence in that as a complete picture of parking sales).
So, um, that’s how I’d find out for sure. Aside from that, I don’t have enough information to speculate…
js
posted by js on July 13th, 2004 at 12:54 am
wow, JS. quite a rundown. but if the goal is to be targeting accuracy and not just spinning, i’m not gonna argue with the methodology…

regarding the shuttle idea:
the reason why shuttles (or any mass transit) work (or don’t) hinges on peak use versus baseline use. events like artfair run all day and people come and go at various times, creating a need for back-and-forth transit. events like football games, concerts, etc by contrast have a very high spike of use just before and just after the event. thus, a much higher number of vehicles is required to service it.
posted by craig on July 13th, 2004 at 10:35 am
As another side note: There are shuttles to and from parking lots for the football games. They cost a dollar. I believe that the people who pay to park either don’t like the idea of touching other football fans or want to tailgate.
posted by js on July 13th, 2004 at 3:01 pm