ann arbor is overrated.

I See the 2000s Apartment House, Bleak in the 1970s Sun

If there’s anyone who should be able to dispel the idea that the new Burns Park zoning proposal is based on anti-student demagoguery, it’s an alum from 1970 who grew up in the neighborhood. Writes “Alum 70,” “Having students next door are [sic] a constant problem…The students are for the most part gone in three years at most and also have no intention of being a part of a long term community. The effects of this can be seen all over Ann Arbor.” So, in other words, no one who plans to live in a place for less than some specified number of years — 10? 20? — should be able to live anywhere.

And not only do these students trash the city’s neighborhoods, they’re also responsible for eliminating gas stations near campus (possibly because they don’t want to fill up the cars with which they clog up the streets.) “I assume they didn’t want the low-class types that were employed there to spoil the elitism of the academic environment.” It’s a good thing we have egalitarian populists like Alum 70 to stand up for the common man.

It must be due to this deep love of equality that s/he affirms the Daily’s opposition to the University Village development; the editorial’s arguments about economic stratification must have been quite convincing, because otherwise one might think that such a development would be a good way to get these interlopers out of neighborhoods like Burns Park.

6 Responses to “I See the 2000s Apartment House, Bleak in the 1970s Sun”

Notwithstanding folks like Alum 70 who like to blame local bogeymen, the consolidation of gasoline retailing happened everywhere in the U.S., for compelling economic reasons. To quote myself in a post I wrote in 2004:

In the old days, there were lots of independently owned gas stations everywhere. Not any more â€” not even in places which have plenty of commercial road frontage available.

The business of selling gasoline to motorists has a very narrow profit margin. To sell sufficient volume and minimize labor costs, you need massive investment in a battery of automated self-service pumps, and a very specific type of high-traffic location.

Most old-time gas stations were in the wrong places for this, and their costs were too high. The economic censuses document a steep decline in the number of gas stations nationally
and in almost every local area. Everywhere on commercial strips, you can recognize the shapes of those sturdy 1970s gas stations, now converted to restaurants or car dealerships or other uses.

For consumers, there is more limited choice, and a longer drive to the nearest fueling outlet, but lower prices and round-the-clock availability. Driving further is an environmental negative, but with fewer and better-run sites, there is less likelihood of gasoline leaking from tanks into ground water, and fewer neighborhood externalities.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 14th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Re: the subject…. The Modern Lovers rule.
posted by StarChild the Lurker on January 14th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Heh, I was hoping someone would notice that.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 14th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Ditto on Jonathan Richman! I looked at this thread earlier and totally missed the title.

Possibly even more relevant to the Deuce is this one: http://homepage.mac.com/ramonrempel/JoJo/songs/c/cornerstore.html
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on January 14th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Also, there are three gas stations within walking distance of the neighborhood in question (two on the corner of Packard & Stadium, one on the corner of Stadium & S. Industrial)
posted by Matt on January 15th, 2008 at 10:04 am
The point is not that they can’t stay anywhere, but that you can not build a stable neighborhood with transients. Is this too difficult a concept to understand? Homeless people and those with little money have a right to live somewhere as well. Students used to be able to live in homes, including the Burns Park neighborhood, but council decided to make so many restrictions, such as a separate entrance and exit, this possibility was eliminated. And Mr. Kestenbaum may be interested that these common men, or at least their children, used to invade campus with bats and pipes and beat up on students every spring. They didn’t need me to stand up for them. But things have changed. The word for students known by every kid in Ann Arbor was “pinhead”. They did not earn as much respect as they do today when they criticize Ann Arbor as nothing but another Livonia type suburb of Detroit. Ann Arbor was never like that. It had an identity of its own separate from Detroit from the beginning. But now, the University has destroyed that because they dominate everything that goes on in Ann Arbor. They even forced the demolition of all the sleazy bars in town where students and local citizens could mix. Now the students pretty much stay to their own bars and have little to do with local types. Ann Arbor was not great because of the common man or woman, but because the lowlifes were accepted and not shunned as homeless. And they even had good and respectable friends who were common men.
posted by Alum 70-David Rigan on March 20th, 2008 at 12:45 am

I See the 2000s Apartment House, Bleak in the 1970s Sun

6 Responses to “I See the 2000s Apartment House, Bleak in the 1970s Sun”

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