ann arbor is overrated.

The Ask Metafilter consensus: Iowa City is pretty much indistinguishable from A2.

A writer to Minneapolis City Pages’ food column expresses excitement that her adopted city may finally be catching up to A2 in gastronomic sophistication: “I’m a big foodie, and after growing up in Ann Arbor and living in London, Toronto, and other places, I’ve been so delighted to see the Twin Cities grow in its food selection over the past 20 years.” And here we always thought that those “New York, London, Paris, Ann Arbor” shirts were supposed to be a joke.

A letter in today’s News defends councilmember Joan Lowenstein’s anti-drinking campaign from its “scurrilous” detractors, on the grounds that disallowing the Arena’s event will allow people not to watch drinking take place.

In this case, Lowenstein and her fellow council members are standing between bar owners and their unjust profits. Not a comfortable place to be, but a righteous one. Joan is demonstrating a sincere concern for students and the public, in attempting to spare the public from viewing this drinking ritual known as “St. Patrick’s Day/ March Madness.'’

“As students move in, neighbors cringe and property values fall,” the Daily asserts (the latter claim isn’t so preposterous, but is backed by absolutely no evidence in the story.) The “nut graf,” as those in the news biz like to say:

[Gwen] Alexander still hasn’t been able to sell the house she bought when she came to Ann Arbor for graduate school. Although she hasn’t turned down any potential buyers, she said she told her realtor not to sell the house to someone who would turn it into student housing.

So in other words, this woman, who bought her house as student housing, is now trying her best to keep it from turning into student housing. Of course, it was the good kind of student housing when she bought it, but if she sold it to a landlord, it would go to the kind of students who have to rent. Not our sort of people at all.

The Ann Arbor Golf and Outing Club is none too happy about proposed sidewalks on Stadium and South Main that might cramp their style. The worst-case scenario is pretty dire: “Members are worried that, at worst, new sidewalks would mean realigning one or more holes on the course, which, in a domino effect, might mean changing the entire layout of the course.” When you’ve finally managed to join a club this exclusive (”The wait can be quite long. Members joining in 2006 have been on the waiting list for at least four years”) the last thing you want is city officials ruining it for some, well, pedestrian pedestrians.

Joan Lowenstein’s anti-alcohol crusade continues; despite a trouble-free event last year, she is again trying to stop the Arena from holding their outdoor March Madness celebration. “I don’t think the city should be promoting excessive drinking,” she said. “The city shouldn’t be in the business to rent space in order for them to sell more alcohol.'’

The News cites Lowenstein’s involvement in anti-drinking group Campus Community Conversations (check here for their extensive survey of 13 “community members” on their “awareness” of the problem.) Does anyone think it’s ironic that Janis Bobrin is a member of this organization?

Libertyblog characterizes the name of weather site Weather Underground as “retro terror chic,” noting that it “operates out of, you might have guessed it, Ann Arbor (MI).”

Financial guru Jennifer Openshaw suggests college-town real estate as the next hot investment opportunity. “[S]upply — and the quality of homes in the area — is usually constrained by strict zoning and growth controls, common in most college towns,” she explains. But watch out for areas where students might actually have a choice in where they live; Openshaw counsels aspiring slumlords to “avoid urban areas, like Boston or Berkeley, Calif., as these markets are too complex and have lots of housing alternatives.”

Judy McGovern is surprised that Pfizer employees don’t want to talk to the media. “It’s plainly, and in some cases explicitly, about the fear of being punished for doing or saying anything that might offend Pfizer officials … Few of us would choose to create an organization where folks who work hard and contribute on the job would worry about being penalized for what they say off the job.”

Well, okay. Maybe Pfizer is an unusually repressive company. But it’s more likely that this is a case of the mainstream media being out of touch with their readers.

McGovern is asking Pfizer employees to speak publicly about their jobs. Is she aware of how many bloggers are fired for publishing their opinions on issues that have nothing to do with their jobs? And the mainstream media both stoke these fears and legitimize employers’ actions by producing a steady stream of “be careful what you put online” stories, framing it not as a free expression issue, but as an issue of careless employees or job seekers facing the consequences of their indiscreetness. So why, if it’s dangerous to put anything out there on your own site, where you can be sure that your ideas will be represented fairly and completely, would you talk to a reporter, over whom you have no influence as to how your statements will be used? The risk is just too high.

Journalism is a clubby, insular world where you can speak your mind without much fear of reprisal, and it’s probably easy for journalists to forget that most of America works for companies that can and will fire them at any time for any reason, including expressing ideas that the corporate brass doesn’t like. Maybe more ordinary Americans starting to shun the press as if they were officials under indictment will help them remember.

The News gets all negative-nancy about a recent rash of car thefts from the Liberty Square garage, but they miss the key point: people are finally using the structures! No more getting frustrated and swearing off downtown just because there aren’t any good cars to steal in the surface lots. Furthermore, certain A2 detractors of late will be pleased that the thieves showed their Michigan loyalty by choosing Dodges over those “preceived supereior imports.”