A2 Newly Overrated
It’s been an Arborific week for the Times. First there was Thursday’s Zingerman’s piece by stalwart mitten-state correspondent Micheline Maynard. And now there’s this profile of veteran city-ranker Bert Sperling, in whose new edition of “Cities Ranked & Rated” A2 comes in fifth, just behind Gainesville, Florida and Bellingham, Washington. Here we learn about Sperling’s scientific approach to quantifying city rank. For the most romantic city, “we looked at sales figures for flowers given as gifts, at places with water nearby.” And it turns out that the exact same approach works for finding the city with the most retirees in the hospital! (West Palm Beach.) As far as we’re concerned though, no one beats David Byrne in the city-ranking business.
This is funny because I currently live in Gainesville and move to Ann Arbor this August. As much as Ann Arbor might be overrated, the idea that Gainesville (which is nice enough) if the highest rated place to live in America boggles the mind.
posted by Anonymous on May 7th, 2007 at 11:03 amIt’s time to start a Gainesville affiliate, aaio. Imagine the money you could make from franchising your idear.
posted by David Boyle on May 7th, 2007 at 11:11 amGo to Zingerman’s all you want, tourists of Ann Arbor. I’ll get my half-loaf of the bread-of-the-month at 9 PM, plus cheese samples from otherwise idle employees. In fact, I prefer it that way.
Just don’t block my effing driveway with your minivan while you browse the Farmer’s Market. Next time I’m not going to bother with a note. Oh, and don’t glare at me when I’m biking on the sidewalk ’cause I’ve had too many close calls from idiot drivers on Fourth or Fifth during tourist-riffic time periods. I’m going as fast as a jogger, for chrissakes - my feet aren’t even on the pedals. You’re especially not allowed to glare from the front lawn of the house I’m renting, which you’ve decided is perfect for your picnic. I had the same idea, but you beat me to it.
In related news, moving to the east side of Division makes tourist-stress-levels decrease significantly.
posted by Jen on May 7th, 2007 at 5:36 pmJust don’t block my effing driveway with your minivan while you browse the Farmer’s Market. Next time I’m not going to bother with a note. Oh, and don’t glare at me when I’m biking on the sidewalk…
Wow. It’s like the hipster version of “hey you kids– get off my lawn!”
posted by Constantine on May 7th, 2007 at 7:10 pmThe rating article was in the New York Times on Sunday, along with a photograph captioned, “Houses along the Huron River in the Barton Hills district of Ann Arbor”. Of course, Barton Hills is in Ann Arbor TOWNSHIP. Maybe that kind of publicity is what makes A2 overrated?
posted by justme on May 7th, 2007 at 7:12 pmI’ll deny being a hipster, but not the rest…
posted by Jen on May 8th, 2007 at 12:21 amWell, Barton Hills is actually its own independent municipality.
posted by Brandon on May 8th, 2007 at 2:54 amNo, Barton Hills is part of AA Twp, it is not independent.
posted by tom on May 8th, 2007 at 8:27 amWell, it’s a Village. But within Ann Arbor Twp. We’re both right.
posted by Brandon on May 8th, 2007 at 4:14 pmI’ve never really understood the relationship between a village and a township. Villages seem to receive some services from the township in which they are located, but it is not clear to me how much autonomy a village has.
posted by tom on May 9th, 2007 at 5:17 pmWikipedia: “In some states such as New York, Wisconsin, or Michigan, a village is an incorporated municipality, usually, but not always, within a single town or civil township. Residents pay taxes to the village and town or township and may vote in elections for both as well. In some cases, the village may be coterminous with the town or township. There are also many villages which span the boundaries of more than one town or township, and some villages may even straddle county borders…Michigan and Illinois also have no set population limit for villages and there are many villages that are larger than cities in those states.” Yeah its somewhere between a township and a full-fledged city. I’m too lazy to look up the exact legal parameters.
posted by Brandon on May 9th, 2007 at 6:38 pmVillages have idiots.
posted by Ypsidweller on May 9th, 2007 at 8:57 pmCities have slickers.
and Towns have drunks.
posted by abc on May 10th, 2007 at 11:04 amTownships have strip malls.
posted by Bob on May 10th, 2007 at 11:08 amCan townships stay afloat on a sea of strip malls?
posted by Chris on May 10th, 2007 at 11:30 amAs long as the barnacles are periodically scraped off, their are no mutinys, and Gillgan is at the helm.
posted by Bob on May 10th, 2007 at 11:49 amStrip malls are everywhere.
There are actually two entities in Barton Hills (from their website):
Barton Hills Village is a municipality governed by an elected nine-member Board of Trustees, a home-rule village charter and a set of ordinances. Of particular importance is the Zoning Ordinance which sets forth construction requirements and should be consulted before beginning any project, even a very small one.
Barton Hills Maintenance Corporation is a private corporation whose shareholders own the roads, parks and water system, which are leased to BHV (and therefore remain private). BHMC also conducts architectural review of all projects after BHV zoning has been approved and has an elected nine-member Board of Directors. Most (but not all) BHV residents are BHMC shareholders.
posted by jcp2 on May 10th, 2007 at 12:48 pmDoes anyone happen to either have a copy of the Zingerman’s article or know if I could still get access to it online somehow? I read it online but it’s now been archived and would cost $5 to retrieve. =8( I was hoping to share it with a friend who just visited from out of town and loved going there… Thanks!
posted by me on May 11th, 2007 at 2:09 pmme:
Wow. I thought they waited a full 14 days to archive it. Apparently not.
If you know anyone with U-M library access, they can access the NYTimes online from the ejournal section of lib.umich.edu. The audio slide show, however, won’t be there - text only.
posted by Jen on May 11th, 2007 at 11:29 pmthe decision to dedicate this much time and energy to something so pointless (hating on ann arbor) is not only very infantile and short sighted, but it is also incredibly sheltered. i love the attention however, so please, do keep it up. its frightening to imagine how much positive potential there might exist were you all to exert this very same effort into something a bit more intelligent and productive. pick your battles folks. this one, i’m sad to say, simply isn’t worth it.
- a (recently graduated) ann arbor faithful
posted by Anonymous on May 12th, 2007 at 9:55 pm“i love the attention”
Woah, we have a celebrity here–Ann Arbor herself!
posted by Bruce Fields on May 12th, 2007 at 10:32 pmAnn Arbor Is Overrated is a model of civic participation. I only wish there were a team of indigenous critics pouring this much attention into New Orleans.
Anyway, let me be the one to say it. People here don’t hate Ann Arbor. They just think that it is a little to high on itself most of the time.
posted by Alan Gutierrez on May 13th, 2007 at 12:59 amIt’s not the worst place I’ve ever lived. That’s about as positive as I can get about it.
posted by Pants Rule on May 13th, 2007 at 9:13 amRe: New York Times archive
Among its various online research tools, Ann Arbor District Library offers access to the New York Times archive from 2000 forward: http://www.aadl.org/research/browse
Registration required, but it’s free.
But there’s a lag time of up to two weeks between publication date and inclusion in the archive, which apparently has not yet passed for the Zingerman’s article.
posted by HD on May 13th, 2007 at 12:43 pmI wasn’t aware of the two week lag time. I guess I hadn’t been using the AADL’s New York Times search function to seek recent articles.
Many of the longer articles from the 1970s or so were scanned in a screwed up way, with overlapping columns that make them more difficult (sometimes impossible) to read on the NYT official site. The ProQuest (AADL) versions at least make all the clipping layers transparent, which increases the chance of being able to figure the articles out.
The nytimes.com and aadl.org search functions also differ in various subtle ways that yield different resuls For example, the aadl site assumes that multiple words are a phrase.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on May 14th, 2007 at 2:18 amAnyway, I strongly agree with AG’s comment above: “People here don’t hate Ann Arbor. They just think that it is a little too high on itself most of the time.”
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on May 14th, 2007 at 2:20 amI don’t hate Ann Arbor at all. I do hate some people in Ann Arbor, and some stupid things people say about Ann Arbor, but the city itself? Got no beef. Heck, as many dubious places as I’ve parked, they’ve yet to tow my car. Could be worse!
posted by Chris on May 14th, 2007 at 10:04 amI think A2 is a great place to live especially considering that as many note, there is no great lake, ocean or mountains, aside from that my family really likes it here. The best place we have ever been, no (see above about mountains and oceans) but very far from the worst.
posted by Dustin on August 3rd, 2007 at 6:55 pm