ann arbor is overrated.

The Ann Arbor rental housing market finally begins to tank.

We’ve long been aware that National Review’s Jay Nordlinger is not exactly filled with warm feelings for his hometown. After reading yet another A2-themed item of his, discussing an Observer piece on campus conservatives (among other things, he found the Observer’s fairly standard use of “chair” instead of “chairman” to be unbearably PC,) we became curious just how deep his Tree Town antipathy went, and we were not disappointed. A list of his A2 mentions rivals this site in documented, obsessive Ann Arbor hate. Among the highlights:

• Mayor Hieftje wrote Nordlinger to correct what he said was an inaccuracy, that Hieftje had hugged a woman who called the U.S. a terrorist state. Hieftje went on to clarify that “he hails from ‘Main Street Ann Arbor,’” not what he implies is the more leftist “campus Ann Arbor.” All that campus leftism really gives a bad rap to the anti-Patriot-Act-resolution-passing, “European” Ann Arbor that National Review would just love if they gave it a chance.
• Apart from New York, A2 is the city with the highest rate of New York Times subscribers.
• There is or was a “leftist grocery store” in Ann Arbor called the Village Corner, or VC, whose politics extended to “enjoying the different connotations of ‘VC.’”
• Nordlinger’s stint working at The Little Professor bookstore, which he claimed refused to stock conservative magazines, was a painful but decisive point in his political development.