The New West Side’s Dale Winling and U of M Housing Public Affairs director Alan Levy square off on the student housing situation in the weekend section of today’s Daily. Levy’s painstakingly “balanced” perspective doesn’t offer much hope that the university will act as a student advocate:
Two successive years of very large freshman classes with the attendant pressure on being able to house both returning on-campus residents with contracts for the new academic year along with all those freshmen has generated some media attention and campus commentary that U-M and Ann Arbor have a student housing “shortage.”
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While there are some landlords who press prematurely for students to make decisions about next year’s leases, there are students (and sometimes parents) who want first crack at the “best” housing and prod landlords to finalize lease signing before they would otherwise choose to do.
So that’s why the landlords have been so supportive of the mayor’s proposed ordinance that would push back lease-signing and free them from all this unwanted prodding.
Meanwhile, Dale hits most of the important points, but we have to disagree that, unlike native Midwesterners, “Arrivals from Boston or San Francisco think they’re getting a great deal for living in a cute downtown with amenities like museums and music venues within walking distance.” As a Boston arrival, we can say that this is not always the case. He’s right about Chicagoans being justly appalled by A2 rents, though. We recently visited a friend of ours who just moved into the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. That’s Lincoln Park, the upscale North Side yuppie haven immortalized as the home of the Lincoln Park Trixies. The rent on her two-bedroom third-floor walkup, within a few blocks of the L and DePaul University, is $800 a month.
In the same issue, Murph talks about the local blog scene while presenting himself as a strong contender for best-dressed A2 blogger. If we ever launch “How Do I Look?: City Council Public Comment Edition”, (”Tie-dyed sweatshirts and two-tone hair are the latest looks for OWS fashionistas”), we’re going to need some stylish bloggers.