Changes in the city of trees.

[netmouse]

In a response to Mrissa from an earlier thread I go on a bit about ways that Ann Arbor has changed that makes it less fun these days for me to show people around town. I grew up here, and find it much less the comfortable, casual, ideosynchratic and hippy college town it was when I was a kid. Borders has changed from a deep and interestingly unique store to a chain clone. I didn't even go into how the Art Fair has gotten less artsy and fun and more commercial. Even Zingerman's sandwiches are not as good as they once were, since they shrunk them a few years back to keep competitive in the face of Amers and other sandwich cafes.

Would you agree that Ann Arbor is changing for the worse?

What changes do you like? (having Trader Joe's and Whole Foods come in could be counted as positives, for instance).

What do you miss?

Comments

[technolope.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the decline towards cleanliness and corporate-ness has been faster in these last 6-7 years than it was before. Will some of the more sage readers please comment on this? My suggestion is that if that is true, then it might be due to the huge excess of easy money that has been created in the last half-decade+. Low interest rates drove up land prices and everyone's been grabbing for "their" share of the assets. And safe money tends to homogenize and sterilize.

Anyways, if easy money is part of the reason, then Ann Arbor may regain some of its charm and coolness as the Michigan (and whole US) economy swirls down the toilet.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_earthshine_/]

...Ann Arbor may regain some of its charm and coolness as the Michigan (and whole US) economy swirls down the toilet.

This is a thought i've had more than once, and part of me wants to establish some kind of LLC and fund in case the opportunity to scoop up some awesome piece of downtown/campus real-estate ever presents itself. It's a pipe-dream, though, it seems -- the core area of town will be the most economically resilient, because i think people believe they will always be able to count on the U to prop up the immediate economy and therefore the safety of the real-estate market. It would seem the only possibility might be if the economy busts so hard that downtown businesses start to fail and aren't replaced by new ventures quickly enough -- in which case, some landlord whose bleeding capital might get desperate enough to sell a commercial property. ...which i'd be all about, if it were at all affordable.