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And You Could Just Raze It Without Building the High-Rises

Murph makes a commendable attempt to find some common ground between student and non-student residents of A2.

Discussion over development within Ann Arbor is often a battle of straw men. On the one hand, we supposedly have wealthy NIMBY homeowners who want to freeze the city in amber, and preserve it exactly as it is forever. On the other side are marauding developers and their cronies–student “temporary” residents longing for Manhattan who support “development for development’s sake” and would see Ann Arbor razed to the ground and rebuilt completely out of modernist high-rises.

Yeah, we think it’s about time to put that caricature to rest as well. Some of us are longing for Boston, not Manhattan. Get it straight.

11 Responses to “And You Could Just Raze It Without Building the High-Rises”


  1. I approve of the title of this post. . .

    posted by Murph on February 7th, 2005 at 8:33 am

  2. hey murph, I can’t get to your site from this link…what’s up?

    posted by OFW insurgent on February 7th, 2005 at 10:17 am

  3. AAIO, I’m disappointed on your lack of coverage on the new blue “OFW Historic District” signs sprouting up in your neighborhood.

    posted by Brandon on February 7th, 2005 at 12:52 pm

  4. “OFW Historic District” signs sprouting up in your neighborhood.”

    If ever there was a need for “I’m with stupid –>” lawn signs…

    posted by Ryan on February 7th, 2005 at 1:16 pm

  5. Actually, the Kerrytown Historic District Street banners have been up for about 10 years (a silly homage to Matisse that I bastardized at the time I designed them…the background was supposed to be cyan not royal blue so I don’t like the lack of contrast, but enough about that…what the hell, I got paid.)

    …I haven’t seen any of the OFW street signs yet (though I have had many pleas to sponsor one…which I have no interest in doing, btw)

    posted by OFW insurgent on February 7th, 2005 at 2:29 pm

  6. OFW Ins, are you getting redirected to nexcess.net? If so, that’s a DNS problem that Nexcess (my hosting co.) *should* be fixing for me.

    posted by Murph on February 7th, 2005 at 11:55 pm

  7. yup, that’s it. still happening too.

    posted by OFW insurgent on February 8th, 2005 at 8:40 am

  8. The signs are totally around. They’re blue. I saw one at Ann & (Thayer or Fletcher… I forget) on the bus yesterday.

    posted by Brandon on February 8th, 2005 at 10:46 am

  9. so what’s the verdict? Ugly? Cheesily constructed and dated? Interesting? (I haven’t seen them yet), I’ll have to go down to that neck of neighborhood and take a look.

    posted by OFW insurgent on February 8th, 2005 at 1:55 pm

  10. Yes, I’d say they meet all three of those criteria

    posted by John on February 9th, 2005 at 7:05 pm

  11. Oh, they aren’t that bad, really. They just seemed to me like a half-assed attempt for the OFW “permanents” to make-known their “turf” in highly-student areas. Then again, I kinda like the idea of signage in neighborhoods, historic or otherwise: they help with identity-building… half the students up there don’t even know what their neighborhood is actually called, and refer to it as “Kerrytown” or the “Northside.” Maybe “Student Ghetto Nonhistori District” signs on Vaughn and Packard next?

    posted by Brandon on February 10th, 2005 at 7:23 pm