ann arbor is overrated.

Me on the Totter

There are a couple things that somehow have never come up here on AAIO. Our real name. Whether or not we’re willing to bathe in a rain barrel as a political statement against the Old West Side Association. So check out our interview on Teeter Talk for these and other unedited facts.

50 Responses to “Me on the Totter”

Beginning of the official end, huh?
posted by js on May 20th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Unmasked at last!
posted by wendy the (former)OFWinsurgent on May 20th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Anyone surprised???? Where to from here? Great pic!
posted by me on May 20th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Now that you are blowing town, will anyone continue writing the blog?
posted by tom brandt on May 21st, 2008 at 12:48 am
“AAIO: ‘We’ Tottering on the Brink?” would’ve worked as a title, too.

Guess we may not hear much more of your lip, man…
posted by David Boyle on May 21st, 2008 at 1:07 am
LOL! 6 years in a CS theory PhD program, to end up in an academic / government job in MD? That explains a lot…

http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science

Looking forward to towsonisoverrated or columbiaisoverrated or bethesdaisoverrated or whatever other precious, disgruntled view of the world you’ll have wherever you are. Keep on hatin’ life, sister - you’ve earned it!!!
posted by Eureka! on May 21st, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Now that you are blowing town, will anyone continue writing the blog?

No one’s going to keep writing this blog, but I will most likely write another blog — stay tuned!
posted by ann arbor is overrated on May 22nd, 2008 at 8:59 am
I think you were thinking about Tower Plaza, not University Towers. Tower Plaza is the ridiculously tall one on E William. U Towers is on South U and not quite as tall.

Not that there’s much of a difference. Ridiculously high rent, and small ugly apartments.
posted by galois on May 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Hhhwhat? You’re moving to Maryland? MARYLAND??? After running a blog called Ann Arbor is Overrated? Not New York, Tokyo, or London? Despite the nice shore, the crab cakes, and the proximity of the Smithsonian, that part of our country probably gives you the least culture (and longest commutes) for the price with the possible exception of the central valley.

I will be expecting marylandisoverpriced.com. Seriously, you should bequeath this blog to a worthy individual.
posted by Oak Park Dave on May 23rd, 2008 at 5:36 am
See, Maryland isn’t overrated at all! Whereas, before I moved to A2, everyone was telling me how culturally rich and reasonably priced it was.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on May 23rd, 2008 at 8:41 am
Maryland wasn’t such a culture vacuum when I was there (99-03). But then, I was in Annapolis and DC was about as far west as I got. Baltimore wasn’t bad. I liked the inner harbor and Orioles games were always a blast.
posted by Tit for Tat on May 23rd, 2008 at 9:29 am
“…before I moved to A2, everyone was telling me how culturally rich and reasonably priced it was.”

heh. Were these people related to the U? I think that’s called a sales job that apparently worked.
posted by me on May 23rd, 2008 at 10:35 am
As much as I appreciate the high level of snarking on this site, and will be very sad to have to seek a new snark venue, and really, I appreciate and have greatly enjoyed the work you’ve done:

“everyone was telling me how culturally rich and reasonably priced it was.”

None of the thousands of townies that I know would have made either of those assertions since, what, 1976? Really, you must have been talking to some financially rich and unreasonably white people.

but I mean that in a nice way
posted by Nitro on May 23rd, 2008 at 10:45 am
Heh. The “culturally rich” claim was generally from ex-townies, or friends of friends of townies. The “reasonably priced” one was from people who just assumed that a small town in the Midwest would be cheap, but there was certainly no countervailing view.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on May 23rd, 2008 at 10:49 am
Now that your “secret identity” has been revealed, are people looking at you differently when you walk down the street? When you go to a restaurant now, do you get a skunk-on-a-stick when you distinctly had ordered a squirrel-on-a-stick?

Congratulations on the new job!
posted by A Different Jon on May 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 am
Baltimore has a great music scene!
posted by Brandon on May 23rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I’ve heard that maryland is culturally rich and reasonably priced. How can it not be with DC so close by!? At least that’s what I’ve heard from friends and friends of friends.

heh. Couldn’t help myself.
posted by me on May 23rd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Julia, there’s some kind of reasonable conservation-of-Maryland going on - Rob Goodspeed is moving back here from College Park, so you can swap with him.
posted by Edward Vielmetti on May 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I happened to be searching for something in the Ann Arbor News and ran across the article mentioning your “uncloaking” as this blogs author. Before today, I was unaware of it all. I just had to drop you a line though because I’m wondering how many places, besides Boston you might actually have lived? For those of us who have lived in more college towns and cities than we care to admit to, Ann Arbor isn’t a terrible place to call home. I started out there in Fall 1979 as a grad student spouse, lived there for 20 years and continued the collegetown hopping for the past decade. I am now almost full time back at “home” in Ann Arbor, a lot older and wiser than the 26yr old I was when I first landed there in the midwest. I must admit to loving Ann Arbor and having missed it when I was gone. Gone to some pretty dismal college towns that can claim stunning weather or Ivy League status; places that most people drool over but make me cringe to recall them. Yes, Ann Arbor is quite a conservatively liberal town. My 20something daughter who spent her formative years there can barely abide it now after having roamed a bit herself. In the end, I think you have to consider where it is you are coming from prior to landing in Ann Arbor, or anywhere else for that matter, before your criticisms can be truly validated. Have you ever tried living in Ithaca NY?? or Durham NC??? Yeah, the leap from Boston or Denver would be rather harsh, but if you’re cruising in from, say, Champagne-Urbana or Tilburg, Netherlands, Ann Arbor begins to look pretty damn good. Good luck to you in Maryland/DC area - I guess that would be another area I have gladly left behind– particularly the self-important residents.
posted by countiss on May 23rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Good riddance. I hope the culture and cost of living are to your liking in Maryland.
posted by Sylvia08 on May 23rd, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I think you can complain about Ann Arbor, and it can be fun, and worthwhile! Whee!
posted by Nitro on May 23rd, 2008 at 9:25 pm
The one thing I do not miss about Maryland are the speed traps. Hopefuly AAIO doesn’t have a lead foot, because it will cost her. The only place I have encountered that was worse was a few miles south on I-64 between Richmond and Norfolk.
posted by Tit for Tat on May 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 pm
countiss: I lived in Ithaca, NY as a grad student at Cornell, and I think it’s a pretty nice place to live, in many ways quite comparable to Ann Arbor.

However, the competition for the few professional jobs in Ithaca is even more intense there than it is here. And Ithaca is located in New York State where politics and governance is just deeply, inescapably corrupt and abusive. Same goes, of course, for some otherwise nice towns in equally corrupt states like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

All that being said, I have great respect for AAIO and share a lot of her perspective on things. In trying to explain my ideas about life in Ann Arbor, I have written a whole lot of long-winded comments here (I sort of hope those won’t be lost forever).

And Julia’s very charitable line about me as “a politics geek in the best possible sense” (echoing perhaps the New Yorker cartoon where a guy is described as “a creep, but in the best sense of the word”) has taken on a life of its own: people have found and used this line to introduce me at speaking gigs.

I, for one, will miss AAIO a lot.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on May 23rd, 2008 at 10:17 pm
AAIO-

There are a couple different types of “overrated.” One type is those top 50 lists that instill civic pride chest puffing.

There is, however, a type of overrated that actually has a number attached to it. In a free market we “rate” things with our pocket books. We can see how people rate a city by looking at the prices of roughly equivalent housing stock. (More specifically, we can look at the ratio between average family income and the median prices of roughly equivalent housing stock.) The higher the price compared to median family income . . . the higher the rating. We then look at the amenities and cultural/intellectual access a community offers. We look at crime. We look at schools. And the weather, etc. What is critically important in living environs is very specific to the individual, but cost provides a reference for establishing a “rating.”

Example A: People who vote with their pocket books by buying houses think that Cambridge, Mass should be rated over twice as high as Ann Arbor despite the substantially higher crime rate in Cambridge. The typical family in Cambridge makes less than the typical family in Ann Arbor, but pays a lot more to buy an equivalent house.

Example B: Many parts of Maryland are highly suburban and expensive. Consumers have rated suburban Maryland much higher than Ann Arbor. Even areas with a significantly higher crime rate are often more expensive. Don’t get me wrong . . . I don’t think that D.C. or Baltimore are wastelands. There are some great folks out there and the museums are nice, but the government geek culture and the long driving distances do not combine to make it an artistic hotbed. It also doesn’t help that New York siphons off so much talent from that area.

We should be able to find the degree of overrating Ann Arbor (and everywhere else) has had in the past few years by how far down house prices go. My best guess is that Ann Arbor won’t turn out to be nearly as overrated as some other places.
posted by Oak Park Dave on May 24th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Oak Park Dave,

Using this logic, the food you get in an NFL stadium must be the best in the whole wide world. I’m sure their prices have nothing to do with a lack of choice in supply, and everything to do with demand, right?

You’re real great with the demand side of the equation. Maybe you ought to have a look at the restriction of supply in Cambridge and Ann Arbor.
posted by supplyside on May 24th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
What’s with these “don’t let your door hit you in the ass” comments? What is this, Texas? “Hey if you don’t like ‘merica, leave it”. Lame.

AAIO, good luck in Maryland. I appreciated your presence here….as you can see, people like Kestenbaum enjoyed your site as well. You brought people into the political process here in Ann Arbor. You should be proud of that. That is no small feat this day and age. People who didn’t understand your site should shut the hell up, and start their own site. You made people think about the direction that Ann Arbor is headed, for better or worse. And you actually got people engaged. Good for you.

Cheers,

Todd Leopold
posted by todd on May 24th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
supplyside-

The price of food in an NFL stadium is controlled by an authoritarian regime (henceforth called “The Management”). The price of housing in a free market economy, with a mobile population, is usually NOT controlled by an authoritarian regime. I don’t think that citizens of Massachusetts get deported if they try to move to North Carolina . . . Maine might be a different story.
posted by Oak Park Dave on May 24th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
It isn’t a free housing market, OP Dave. It is restricted in both Cambridge and Ann Arbor. Which is fine, but that’s what’s moving the prices up. You have to look at both sides of the ledger.

And your citation of a mobile population……..many (heck, most) of the population in Ann Arbor and Cambridge aren’t freely mobile. Most are students. And students are stuck for four years, and in the case of grad students, often longer than that. They HAVE to live near campus. That’s where you get the gouging, coupled with a “housing problem, what housing problem?” from local landlords. Gee I wonder why so many local landlords don’t want the project that will hold 1,000 students to be built near campus. I’m sure it has nothing to do with their inflated rents, right?
posted by todd on May 24th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Todd-

I personally think that there should be more tall buildings in Ann Arbor and way more student units. At the same time, we don’t have forced matriculation at our universities.

Student: Mom. Dad. College selective services has drafted me. They are sending me to Bo Diddley Tech. I don’t know how I’ll afford it. They charge $650 a month for an unheated rat trap in Bo Diddley Town. (violin plays as the tears flow.)

Students have to weigh the costs and benefits of where they enroll.

As for the general situation in Ann Arbor and Cambridge (which includes the many non-student families) . . . An average family living in Ann Arbor will be able to own a home, contribute to a retirement account, and do a little bit of traveling. An average family living in Cambridge another will have have to scrimp to get by. It’s just the financial reality. When people let their money do the rating Cambridge is rated much higher than Ann Arbor.

Remember: The name of this soon to be defunct blog is annarborisoverrated not annarborsucksforstudents.
posted by Oak Park Dave on May 24th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Hey, AAIO–

I just moved from A2 to Baltimore, MD. It’s awesome. I look forward to your new blog!
posted by OWSider on May 24th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
AAIO - you have provided many of us with food for thought as well as a lot of amusement. We will miss you and look foreward to your next publication. Keep us posted and good luck in your new endeavor.
posted by Anonymous on May 24th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Ditto to what Larry and Todd said. AAIO has been fun, thanks!
posted by Bruce Fields on May 24th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
You’re a chick? Count me as one of those who thought for sure you were a guy.

In any event, congratulations on the upcoming move. Maryland is a hell of a lot better than Ann Arbor could ever dream of being — but Virginia is even better. Unfortunately, you will have to look out for the AA types who have also moved from there and want to change everything until it is as bad as AA.
posted by Bender on May 25th, 2008 at 12:18 am
It literally never occured to me that the author of this blog was a female. I feel like a character in one of those “you’re a sexist!” jokes from the 70s.
posted by RMc on May 26th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
“Chick”?

Oh no’es! It’s “That 70’s Blog”!!
posted by David Boyle on May 26th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
RMc? Silent Red? Is that you?
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on May 27th, 2008 at 10:22 am
I feel like a character in one of those “you’re a sexist!” jokes from the 70s.

When I first started blogging, a complicated series of e-mail bounces led a reader to discover my identity, after which he said he “read the blog slightly differently.” I really do think people reacted to me differently on this blog than they might have if I hadn’t been anonymous.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on May 27th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I think this is the first time you have referred to yourself as “I” rather than “we”.
posted by tom brandt on May 27th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I always say “I” in the comments, we on the front page. It’s a delicate balance.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on May 27th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Ah, I never noticed that before.
posted by tom brandt on May 27th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Shucks, I’m quite sad about all this. Everyone leaves before I get to meet them.

Well, at least Baltimore sometimes has positive population growth. Someday, Detroit, someday.

This town will miss your site, AAIO.
posted by Young Urban Amateur on May 27th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I will greatly miss this blog–not only did it get me interested in local politics, and alert me to the love of inequality of so-called “progressives,” but it also led me to meet most of the people in town I’ve called friends over the past three years (ironically enough, making Ann Arbor less overrated, at least in one sense). If that hadn’t happened, I can’t imagine how much life would have sucked since.

Goodbye, AAIO, good luck, and many thanks.

Oh, and what Todd said about the “love it or leave it” thing. People who think like that don’t deserve democracy.
posted by Lazaro on May 27th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Put me down for “never considered AAiO was a woman.” Doesn’t make a difference in how the blog ‘feels’ or ‘reads’ though. If anything it makes ME the a-hole for making such assumptions. I guess I’ve just never known women who were this cynical (and I do not mean that in a bad way).

Anyway, best of luck, and keep on fighting the good fight.
posted by Jeremy on May 29th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I personally am glad you remained anonymous throughout your AAiO blogging tenure. The perspective you provided as well as the discussions you provoked I think were best served by an anonymous writer. I have thoroughly enjoyed your writings and wish you the best of luck as your life takes you to Maryland.
posted by Dess on May 29th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I think I’m going to cry now.
posted by Ypsidweller on May 29th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
After all this, “You blog like a girl!” may never be considered an insult again.
(Though was it ever?? ?)
posted by David Boyle on May 30th, 2008 at 12:30 am
So long, senorita. It’s been a blast having you in town. Best of luck wherever you are.
posted by a2oldie on May 30th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Computer science is a great field
posted by Kaptain Krunch on May 30th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
My Dear Ms. TeeteringAlgrenReader,

Haven’t lived in AA for 30 years (nor set foot there in half a dozen), but enjoyed your blog and the discussions whenever I checked the site, which was maybe once a year.

Best of luck to you with Maryland, and “Have a nice life”…
posted by Publius on May 31st, 2008 at 12:44 am
Homeless Dave is a local icon and there is still debate whether he actually had Bill Clinton as a totteree. One reader pointed out that the totter used was not the same one Dave employs however Dave pointed out he has two seesaws. It has also been adverted that Bill Clinton’s tie while on the totter was light green and videos of his U-M commencement address show a dark tie; this cannot rule out the possibility Clinton changed ties prior to his commencement address. The strongest proof against the authenticity of the Clinton interview on the totter, however, that has been pointed out is that it is seriously doubted the former president would raise his white-gloved hands and impersonate a polar bear. The debate rages on…………….
posted by Kaptain Krunch on June 2nd, 2008 at 8:55 pm

Me on the Totter

50 Responses to “Me on the Totter”

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