ann arbor is overrated.

This doesn’t happen every day: the city cracks down on a negligent landlord, this time for failing to provide gas and electricity.

Newman said many of the apartments are vacant this time of the year. Tenants are allowed to keep their belongings in the apartments, and can enter them, he said. But they cannot sleep in them, he said.

Are they still paying rent? Is this legal?

“Newman” would be longtime A2 landlord Dale Newman (in this case he was the property manager), who owned the “dilapidated”, burned down Michigan Inn, doesn’t want to test his properties for radon and doesn’t want to comment about a faucet spewing brown water in one of his properties.

As much fun as the A2 townie-vs.-student wars are, sometimes you just need a break from pondering what Jane Jacobs would have thought of the setback on the building slated to replace Anberay, or how the new stormwater fee structure affects renters. Our less academically encumbered counterparts in East Lansing provide a change of pace with this exchange in the comments of Radar Online, which has just declared Michigan State “Worst of the Big Ten.”
(more…)

Well, “Huron” and “awesome” sort of rhyme. Brandon’s unfailing music-scouting skills bring us this gem of a video that uses the power of soulful folk to make the case for a greenway. Our best transcription of the lyrics to “The A-Squared Environmental Blues”:

We live in Ann Arbor
We are pure and green
Let’s unbury our stream
Free Allen Creek down to the Huron
Make our city more awesome
Get your shovels, hammers and might
March to the stream and break that bite(?)

We’ve got the A-squared environmental blues
We’ve got the A-squared environmental blues
Can’t be green when we’ve got no stream
We’ve got the A-squared environmental blues
(more…)

A letter to the News brings to our attention a growing problem in A2 that will only be exacerbated by a proposed development on Fifth Avenue: “ugly apartment buildings in residential areas.” “[T]here is nothing worse for a quiet residential area (which that area is, generally) than a rental unit that has about four times the number of occupants than currently lives in that space.” Yeah, really — what does this developer think he’s doing, bringing all these residents into a residential area?

And it gets worse: it’s possible that the landlord of the new building won’t discriminate on the basis of his tenants’ source of income or family status. “I doubt he will rent to just professionals or families. He will probably be allowed to rent to students.” So we have not only people living in residential areas, but the terrifiying prospect of a landlord who may follow the law. Is there no way this can be stopped?

Of all the places (you’d need the better part of one hand to count them!) to eat a delicious lunch in A2, The Boston Globe recommends “Dominick’s … an Italian cafe inside an old house with a fountain on its backyard plaza.” Is Dominick’s really known for its food?

Metromode might not be completely up on the difference between greenways and greenbelts, but one thing’s clear — whatever they’re called, these areas offer beaucoup dollars to nearby property owners and a green-sounding cause to rally around and solicit donations for!

Urban Oasis’ thoughts on last night’s election results:

I am almost gleeful in anticipation of the schadenfreude I will no doubt be feeling over the next 2 years — Ann Arbor is going to be feeling some serious buyer’s remorse. “Wait, we just elected a retiree and a B&B operator to govern one of the largest cities in Michigan that’s home of one of the largest universities in the country? WTF were we thinking?”

We can’t possibly leave A2 any time soon with two years of this kind of madcap hilarity ahead. Anyone looking for a roommate?

“I’d like to see aaisoverrated turn out 50 voters to support their pro development position.”

— mucho gusto

Check in here if you voted in today’s election (whether or not you voted for a tool of Big Development.)

The Daily goes off the deep end and endorses Sabra Briere, who they say “stands out as the [1st Ward] candidate most likely to catch up with the flow of City Council right away.” Isn’t it better in some cases to have a candidate that will be hopelessly behind the flow of City Council?

“She understands that making Ann Arbor affordable is important to maintaining the diversity of the city,” the editorial claims. Really? Briere’s husband and fellow local activist David Cahill has said on this blog that “She has not been discussing affordable housing.” The Daily also makes the inexplicable claim that “She also believes that the people of Ann Arbor are not just homeowners and taxpayers; students make up an important part of the city too, and they must count.” Unless this is a reference to the grade-school aged “future voters” featured on Briere’s website, since when? Perhaps the Daily felt that they had to split their picks between the challengers and the “establishment” candidates; it’s hard to imagine why else a student paper would make this endorsement.

Remember all those News food columns with readers requesting bygone recipes for retro dishes like “townwheel sandwiches” and “colonial salad dressing”? Today’s returns to form with an inquiry about two Willow Run school cafeteria specialties from the 60’s: hamburger gravy and whipped peanut butter sandwiches. “The gravy had hamburger (very small pieces but full of hamburger) in it and the gravy was a brownish transparent gravy, and was it good,” writes the nostalgic alum. “[The sandwich] was very light and tasted so good. It was also a big hit. I was told it was peanut butter whipped with honey. I have tried that and the honey overpowers the peanut butter.”

On the other side of the A2 food and beverage spectrum, former Daily editor Donn Fresard charges that Ashley’s is serving light lagers at 50-degree temperatures more appropriate for Belgian ales because “they and/or their customers think it’s more highbrow that way.”