ann arbor is overrated.

“Some of you may have heard of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development association’s plan to build a series of parking structures and commercial buildings on three city owned properties in downtown Ann Arbor,” an e-mail sent to various environmental lists begins. “Unfortuately, these three properties will be cost inefficient to build and lie directly in the path of the proposed Ann Arbor Greenway, a sustainable vision for the future of our city.”

This is a terrific line of reasoning that we intend to employ more often. Isn’t the whole point of putting the greenway there to stop those properties from being developed? “Unfortunately, [AAIO’s roommate]*, that sheepskin rug will lie directly in the path of the proposed 308 Walcott Tileway, a sustainable vision for the future of our shared sanity.”

See you all at City Hall tonight.

UPDATE: The meeting actually starts at 7, not 7:30 like the Greenway website reports.

* Not our current roommates, who are all wonderful people, but our former roommate in Boston, who is also a wonderful person.

The greenway debate (here’s the Arbor Update post) takes a fantastical turn, with Friend of the Ann Arbor Greenway Margaret Wong describing her plans to transform downtown into “Margaret’s happy world” and DDA member Rene Greff comparing the greenway proposal to both ponies and puppies. Greff, who also owns Arbor Brewing Company, supports increased density downtown that might eventually lead to a grocery store within walking distance, but not every local business owner feels that way; Joe O’Neal supports a greenway that would involve turning 100 residences into parkland. Somehow, it makes more sense when you consider what business he owns: Kerrytown Market.

Elitism Week on AAIO continues (and can we just reminisce for a bit and say that Goodspeed’s characterization of U of M secret societies like Michigamua as “elitism lite” was one of the funniest things we’ve ever seen on an Ann Arbor blog?) Here we have a Craigslist posting from an A2 “proffesor” in “the creative genres of education” looking to meet “beautifull young women.”

The AP runs a story about retirees moving back to college towns like A2. One development has condos that go for $250,000 to $750,000, part of the appeal being two performances a week by students and professors from the music school at that university that never contributes anything to the town and drives down property values.

Also, yes, that is a Mr. Stadium shirt on Kevin Costner (thanks, Rob.)

The “umstudents” LiveJournal community’s “craziest drinking story” thread offers a revealing look at undergrad life. A representative one: “i drank at this one girl’s dorm who i had a relationship with, and we both got drunk to the point of puking. while she was puking, i was calling her a dirty whore and a fuckin bitch.” WITH WHOM. WITH WHOM I had a relationship. Isn’t it supposed to be hard to get into Michigan?

Anyhow, we’re sure that the grad students and non-students have some even better stories. “I drank both of the drinks we were allowed at this department party.” “I was so drunk that I started arguing that there should be this big park going all the way through downtown.”

Anyone find a Communist coat button by the North Campus co-op?

Ed Vielmetti has started a wiki for reviews of Ann Arbor coffeehouses. Great idea, but the appeal of Cafe Ambrosia continues to elude us. The entry for it reads:

Cafe Ambrosia. 326 Maynard, between Williams and Liberty. Coffee, light snacks and sandwiches. Close at 10PM, sometimes a little erratic during University breaks or holidays. No wifi, which means that laptop people are generally accomplishing things instead of staring at e-mail or IM through an empty glass. Great place.

We were over there recently. We sat down at the only available place, a tiny table by the door, under harsh fluorescent lights. Had we tried to stare at anything through an empty glass, we would have failed miserably, because they serve everything in paper cups. On the stereo was My Bloody Valentine’s “Loveless,” as it was the last time we were there.

The lack of atmosphere doesn’t seem to affect the place’s popularity, though. In fact, we’ve almost completely given up on trying to work at any coffeehouse in the vicinity of central campus — usually, we’re unable to find a table at all. Ann Arbor has to be the only town where a place like Ambrosia or Espresso Royale could possibly be packed to capacity every weeknight. But according to a news article tacked to the blue faux-marble wallpaper, Ambrosia’s owners are planning to open a new place in Evanston, a college town where standards for coffeehouse ambience are far higher. Good luck with that.

An opinion piece in the Berkeley Daily Planet laments that the University of California doesn’t contribute to its host city like a certain public university in Ann Arbor does. “[T]he authors detail how much U-M has paid Ann Arbor and other public entities for things like property rental, water and sewer services, supplemental police service and capital improvements,” Talk About Town reports. You’d think that it would be difficult to refute an impressive array of statistics like this, but Talk About Town provides a devastating rejoinder: “From afar, it must look like Ann Arbor and U-M exist in utter utopian harmony. How nice.”

The new DDA plan incorporates a “greenway” through downtown, but not in a way that’s accceptable to greenway supporters; at one point, the trail would go past a five-story building. Not to mention some railroad tracks. You might as well have it going down the middle of the Long Island Expressway at rush hour. “[G]reen ribbon-wearers,” reports Arbor Update, could be seen at last night’s meeting about the proposal “loudly scoffing, laughing, and sighing.” Well, we all know how that worked out for Al Gore.

By now, you’ve probably seen or heard about those “Old Fourth Ward Historic District” signs that have been popping up around our neighborhood. As needless, pretentious signage goes, they rank right up there with the “Annarbour” boundary markers. But they’re just symbols of a problem that goes far deeper: the name “Old Fourth Ward” itself, clearly designed to mislead students into thinking that they’re supposed to vote in the Fourth Ward, and townies into thinking that the area has some historical significance. So we think it’s time to start a movement to rename the whole area to … NoHu! (North of Huron, obvs.) Drop it into casual conversation! “Ooh, nice hat — did you get it at one of those NoHu boutiques?” Use it on your blog! “The NoHu crowd isn’t going to be happy with this new three-story high-rise they’re proposing.” Change your online handle to “NoHu Insurgent”!

Of course, New York neighborhood abbreviating didn’t stop with Soho (we’ll drop the second capital from NoHu when the name becomes universally accepted,) and there’s no reason to think that this is going to stop here. We fully expect sobriquets like NoMad (north of Madison) and ACoNoCa (apartment complexes by North Campus) to catch on when this trend gets going full steam. Any more ideas?