The King and the Queen Went Back to the Green, But You Can Never Go Back There Again
We admit that we’ve found it difficult to maintain any interest in the “debate over the debates” that’s been raging over the greenway public hearing, even with the Hieftje intimidation allegations, so we’re glad that it seems to have been resolved, at least for now. Although Margaret Wong still isn’t happy: “I don’t think a single public hearing will be enough to bring out the depth of public comment that the greenway deserves,” she told the News. Yeah, one hearing just isn’t enough to take in the full spectrum of the greenway debate, considering the intellectual complexity of what we’ve seen so far from the Friends of the Ann Arbor Greenway. How can one hearing capture satin and grosgrain ribbons, booing and sighing — all in the space of an hour or two?
Been beating the heck out of Google (when I should be working) looking for how much land in Ann Arbor is already parkland. City website says there are 147 city parks. This doesn’t count UM open land like the Arb, school district land, etc. Maybe I’m spoiled because I live across from Beckley Park and up the road from the Argo canoe livery and close to Longshore Park and Bandemer and on and on but damn there’s already a boatload of open space in this town. Call me crazy but I kinda like my city to be city and my country to be country. Bigger threat to Ann Arbor’s liveability (that a word?) seems to me to be the multi-gabled $300k starter home sprawl on the outskirts of town. Oh wait, we taxed the shit out of ourselves to fix that problem with the other Greenway proposal. Problem solved - never mind.
posted by Thomas Cook on May 12th, 2005 at 9:43 amStop wasting time in Google and go to the source:
2002-2005 Parks and Recreation Open Space Plan
http://www.ci.ann-arbor.mi.us/CommunityServices/Parks/Pros%20Plan/pros.html#text
SECTION G - INVENTORY OF THE PARK, RECREATION AND OPEN SPACE SYSTEM
posted by Anonymous on May 12th, 2005 at 4:38 pmhttp://www.ci.ann-arbor.mi.us/CommunityServices/Parks/Pros%20Plan/pros_secG.pdf
greenBELT = plan to preserve farmland/minimize McMansions-sprawl
greenWAY = CentralParkish pathway idea (great idea with feasibility issues, currently hijacked by greenwashing NIMBYs, anti-density and railroad-haters)
posted by Anonymous on May 13th, 2005 at 11:15 amgreenWAY = CentralParkish pathway idea (great idea with feasibility issues, currently hijacked by greenwashing NIMBYs, anti-density and railroad-haters)
I find the comparison between the greenway proposal and Central Park to be tenuous at best. Maybe someone can explain it?
New York’s Central Park is a park in the midst of dense building, whereas the Greenway is, at best, a thin border between the urban part of Ann Arbor and its regulated, non-growth, stagnant neighborhood to the west.
Wouldn’t a better analogy for Central Park in Ann Arbor be something like replacing the parking lot next to the library between Fifth and Division with a park?
Viewed from downtown, the Old West Side, with its restrictions on growth, change, and development, its walkability, the mature trees lining its streets, etc. is already a rather parklike border.
posted by archipunk on May 13th, 2005 at 11:35 amDefinitely, well put. I meant in the sense of an urban park, but obvs it’s metaphors like “Central Park” that set up an unrealistic vision of what a well-planned greenway could be.
posted by Chris F on May 13th, 2005 at 12:14 pmWouldn’t a better analogy for Central Park in Ann Arbor be, oh, I don’t know, the Arb?
If people want to complain that the Arb is too far from their homes to be useful, well, not everybody in Boston can see the Common from their bedroom window; some of them are a 45 minute train ride away. (And the homes that abut the Arb in Ann Arbor are, pricewise, the local equivalent of Beacon Hill . . .)
The greenway has some good pieces. Any comparison to Central Park, though, is totally off-base.
posted by Murph on May 13th, 2005 at 2:19 pmBut isn’t the Arb for only students and their damn dirty couches?
posted by Chris F on May 13th, 2005 at 3:03 pmarchipunk - well said! the greenway really isn’t like Central Park at all… unless the OWS folks want their homes torn down for multi-story condos. I would much rather have the library lot become a park, and build the pkg structure on William & First.
Murph - no, I would not say that the Arb is analagous to Central Park, at least not at this stage in Ann Arbor’s development. It’s too far from downtown to have the same feel as CP does relative to the bustling urban environment that borders CP on all sides. Of course I understand that once upon a time, CP was out in the boonies relative to ‘downtown’ NYC as well, but Ann Arbor isn’t going to get that type of growth for at least 50 years, if ever.
posted by KGS on May 13th, 2005 at 5:17 pm