ann arbor is overrated.

City Council finally revisits a serious problem: that Summer Fest workers may have to be paid a living wage (previously). They may be doing work and all, but is A2’s living-wage law, which would take effect if the city increased its funding for the event, really intended to apply to these “scores of high school and college students”? “We’re not talking about people trying to support families. We’re talking about primarily students in temporary, seasonal jobs,” says Chris Easthope. One can hope that Council will consider changes to the law that will close this loophole allowing workers of the wrong age and family status to earn more than minimum wage.

It should also be noted that Judy McGovern, who reported this story, has argued against a living wage for these workers in her column.

So well-meaning, so beside the point. Geoff Larcom wants students to realize that science can be fun and exciting, since we need “more math and science grads to compete with other nations that impose more rigorous requirements on their students.” Unfortunately, until opportunities for scientists improve, this is an example of what has sometimes been called the Great Education Myth.

Employers do argue that there is a shortage of workers with technical training, but their motives are somewhat questionable. Rochester professor Ron Hira addresses these claims specifically as they relate to IT jobs in Information Week, and concludes that although “many blame a lack of interest in the tech field among young people, or our failing K-12 education system” for declining numbers of students going into these areas, “the most likely explanation is that students, using an array of information at their disposal, including advice from relatives in the field, have decided that IT isn’t as attractive an option as it once was.” With a front-row seat for Pfizer’s closing and the impact it has had on the region, Michigan students who might have been interested in any science field can’t really be blamed for thinking that an MBA, followed by a quick escape from the state, sounds like a better deal.

The News relies on a faulty understanding of how universities operate in their story on GEO talks. “The typical graduate student instructor teaches 16.5 to 20 hours a week during the eight-month academic year. In return, the graduate student receives a full tuition waiver, health care coverage with the premium paid by the university, and a salary of $15,199.” Twenty hours a week? That doesn’t sound like a lot of work.

What they leave out is that grad students in most departments are also expected to do research — whether their funding for a particular semester comes from a teaching assistantship, research assistantship or fellowship — in order to continue in their programs. Since the U of M is a research university, it places a high value on research.

The Golden Avenue anti-density zoning change passed unanimously last night. At least the landlord lobby seems to have done their research; they didn’t let one of the proposal’s supporters get away with casting it as a measure aimed solely at stopping commercial development, when just two months ago she had been issuing dire warnings about “the encroachment of student housing.”

The neighborhood, Judy McGovern writes, is “home to both year-round residents and students in rental properties.” This terminology pretty much sums up everything that’s wrong with the way we look at housing and at adulthood in general — not just in Ann Arbor but everywhere.

You’re either a “student in a rental property” or a “year-round resident.” That’s how normal people live, anyway. They go to college, party a bit and then settle down in a nice house with a family. Twenty- and thirtysomethings who rent and live alone or with roommates? Sure, they exist, but they are “adultolescents” who refuse to grow up. Or, if we’re being charitable, they are forced by economic circumstances beyond their control to delay the onset of real adulthood.

In any event, there’s no reason to design policies to accommodate them. They’ll never learn that way.

“Is it just us, or does it seem that you can hardly pick up a national magazine or a newspaper without reading something about Ann Arbor?” (It’s probably just him, or otherwise we wouldn’t be posting about this.) “What’s so special about Ann Arbor? Why does it seem to be a focal point for so many fascinating people and cultural phenomena?” That’s what the prospective producer of a new A2-themed documentary, covered in Jo Mathis’ column today, wants to know, and he wants to talk to you in his efforts to make the film a “charmingly offbeat entry that the Telluride judges will adore.” Modeled after “Fast, Cheap and Out of Control,” the project is tentatively titled “Hypercubes, Humvees, and Hippie Hash.” But it’s not too late to go with “Slow, Expensive and Over-Extolled”!

Crime-fighting, at least when it happens in Ann Arbor, “is overrated,” according to the National Post’s review of the Samuel Jackson vehicle “Jumper” (UK title “Sweater”— well, it should be) in which Hayden Christensen bends time and space in a desperate attempt to get out of A2. The Peterborough Examiner’s coverage at least evinces a little excitement for the Ontario town’s role in the movie: “Peterborough does not appear as itself in ‘Jumper’, but ‘plays’ the part of Ann Arbor, Mich.,” which is helpfully described as “a university city about 45 minutes outside Detroit.” But the movie has been more or less universally panned for its allegedly nonsensical plot; one critic grouses that Christensen “can only jump to a place he has seen or can adequately visualize … the script doesn’t say.” Clearly, this reviewer has never cast a successful 3rd-level “teleport self.”* In fact, if a city changes too much from when you’ve last seen it, it is generally impossible to teleport back there; this can be prevented only by a 4th-level “freeze in amber” spell.

* Sorry, 5th.

Leopold’s is moving out because of the high rents, but how, one wonders, can landlords continue to charge these prices when half of Main Street seems to be sitting vacant? Isn’t this a terrible business move as well as a drain on a potentially vibrant downtown?

This Ann Arbor Business Review forum on commercial real estate (linked to by Todd over at Mark Maynard’s place) may explain things a little better:

Why are these vacancies still on Main Street?

[MAV Development’s Rob] Aldrich: We don’t want a food use (in 350 S. Main). And we’re holding our rent. What a lot of people don’t understand is that when your market is at 85 percent, you’re 15 percent vacant — most people are still making money. Unless you’re substantially below that level of vacancy, there’s no reason to drop to what the market perceives to be the value of the space. So you wait — that’s what we’re doing. We’re not going to play the game with B tenants who want to look at A space.

[First Martin’s Chris] Grant: We’re doing the same thing that Ted’s doing in a way - we’re leasing 12,000-square-foot spaces where people are taking 9,000 for the first year. We’re willing to let them take 9,000 the first year because we think they’ll grow.

So the vacant buildings are part of a conscious strategy, one that isn’t primarily focused on making A2 a great place to live.

This reggae follow-up to last summer’s indie-folk video sensation “The A-Squared Environmental Blues” (thanks, Brandon!) confronts head-on the theme of…well, we can’t quite figure it out, so we’ll let them put it in their own words: “This cultural attack focuses on the greedy and shortsighted actions that have brought the [Ann Arbor farmers’] market to a crossroads, and points towards the solution — equal access for all.” It’s less accessible than its predecessor, but the boob-flashing at what appears to be Leopold’s at various points throughout lends it a certain immediacy.

That’s great, it starts with an “earthquake,” (probably) birds and (possibly) snakes, (probably not) an aeroplane. David Cahill is not afraid. It’s the end of the pro-development era in Ann Arbor.

In case anyone was wondering, we feel fine.

If this thread about making neighborhood input on development mandatory was the most fitting place for Todd Leopold to post the news about his departure, this story in the News about the fate of a scarce liquor license may be the perfect bookend. The city has voted for it to go to a public golf course over any of the 9 local businesses that applied for it. But at least one of the businesses has some council support. That would be Everyday Cook in Kerrytown, which teaches cooking classes, serves fancy lunches and offers its “amazing loft space for full-service dinners and private parties.”

The competition over the license is so fierce because “its price tag was $2,000 because it is a new license. The council had been told that businesses buy such licenses on the private market for six figures.” Why is this legal? You’re not allowed to sell your Ohio State tickets for over face value, but these government-granted resources can be sold by private businesses for 100 times their initial cost. Is there any public benefit in permitting these sales?

So the day after the news breaks that Leopold Brothers is leaving town, we learn that its replacement (well, not strictly, because Leopold’s has a manufacturing license, not a liquor license) will most likely be a concession at a golf course whose sales will help offset the taxpayer subsidy, a subsidy demanded by a vocal group of neighborhood residents, that is currently propping up this niche recreational facility.

But at least there’s an outside possibility that it will be a boutique kitchen store.

Todd, we’ll miss you.