Student Voting Rights

I
feel like I’ve been really testing the adage “it’s better late than
never� on this blog lately. Anyway, I was recently reminded of a group
that I vaguely knew about that did a lot of great work during the 2004
election – the Student Voting Rights Campaign.
With Eugene Kang running in Ann Arbor I’ve been thinking about voting
rights more frequently these days. Go check out their site. Their their listserv archives is in particular a great treasure-trove of student voting information. From their about page:

So
long as students are systematically discouraged or prevented from
engaging in electoral politics in the communities that they call home,
we will have less young people on the voter rolls, we will have less
vibrancy and innovation in our local politics, we will raise more
citizens who become politically apathetic adults, we will retain a
needlessly vast cultural age gap, our government will be less
responsive to the concerns of the young and we will have a weaker
democracy than we deserve.

One of the founders of
the organization, Ellen Kolasky, wrote a report for the League of
Conservation Voters Education Fund last summer that I blogged about in September
on the suppression of student voting rights. When I went to find a copy
of the report online it was nowhere to be seen, but I tracked down an
electronic copy from LCVEF:

> “Not Home, Not Welcome: Barriers To Student Voters� (PDF)

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Planning the U-M Medical Campus

The University of Michigan recently unveiled a master plan for the University’s rapidly growing medical campus, which is explained in an article in today’s University Record.
I am glad to see the university inching towards the realization that
the medical campus that currently exists is a positively hostile place
for pedestrians esthetically, visually, and literally. Walking around
the medical campus today is a daunting experience for the pedestrian:
there is no grid or explanations about how to find one’s way, and the
buildings are designed with their internal functions in mind. In fact,
it is almost entirely designed around the auto. What is needed is an
element of urbanity in the medical campus that is currently lacking.

Too
often the sort of campus planning conducted by the university is the
sort that looks down from above and maps out parking and pedestrian
flows, and where buildings can be build or expand in harmony with the
existing structures. (This graphic is a detail from a larger image
from the new Master Plan) Although this sort of planning is very
important, it overlooks how important the experience of the campus is
from the pedestrian level. Up to this point the U-M hospital complex
has taken the form of what I think of as “postmodern urbanismâ€? – that
is, extremely high levels of density that nonetheless are unpleasant
for pedestrians and confusing for visitors because they are designed
for access from autos and designed to contain pedestrians inside the
structure exclusively. The buildings do not interface with the street,
frequently containing entrances only from parking structures or from
special roundabouts designed for autos. All commercial activity is
sequestered inside food courts difficult or impossible to access from
the outside, despite the thousands of students living in hill
dormitories.

Consciously constructing an environment of
pedestrian urbanism would not only create a pleasant environment for
the employees and patients of the hospital, but also cater to the needs
of the tens of thousands of students who live in hill dorms and would
patronize any potential common space or retail. (I find it ironic that
Michigan’s hospital has a great cardiac unit, but it’s easier to drive
around the medical campus than walk and the food court contains a Wendy’s.)
How might the university provide for growth but also encourage such an
environment? Build the large laboratories that are needed, but reserve
some ground floor space next to the sidewalk for permeable functions -
either a lobby adjacent the street, or small shops open to the street.
At least one convenience store was destroyed to make way for parking,
and I don’t imagine it would be too hard to find a vendor interested in
occupying a small space, say, across the street from the massive Mary
Markley dorm. In the long term, the rent from university-owned
commercial space could bring the university revenue.

I
am encouraged by the glimmer of awareness to these needs that can be
found in the master plan – they’ve identified “Integration of physical
facilities with the natural environment and community� as an important
goal, and even have a slide listing “improved pedestrian amenities�
(where this image was found) as part of a Powerpoint presentation
about the plan. Whether or not they have the understanding of how to
make this a reality – beyond sterile walking paths that go nowhere and
nobody can find – remains to be seen – notice the streetscaping in the
image is great, but the building is just a blank wall. The ultimate
irony is that the university’s planning and architecture schools has
some of the nation’s pre-eminent new urbanist planners and thinkers,
who gave many suggestions similar to these when tasked by interim
president B. Joseph White for creating a plan for North Campus.
The university is slowly realizing – like most cities have – that
chewing up their urban fabric to create unpleasant and banal suburban
spaces in fact ruins what makes Ann Arbor so attractive to students,
professors, and residents alike.

Related Posts:
> See my post on the University’s destruction of the Planada building to make way for medical campus parking, or my post on the Planada in Preservation Magazine.� Yes, they’re building a parking garage on that spot.
> See my post on broader University planning issues, in response to an op-ed in the Ann Arbor News
> See my first rant about the need for street-level commercial space on Medical Campus

Looking back, I am beginning to sound like a broken record on this stuff. I wrote this in November 2003:

The
University must recognize their role in destroying street life. Parking
garages, massive office and laboratory buildings all enforce a
uniformity of use on the surrounding streets: meaning they will only be
used at certain times of the day, and there will never be businesses,
no matter how many pedestrians pass buy hungry for a cup of coffee or a
bagel. There is no rational or economic reason why all new University
buildings must be single-use, only a cultural one.

Maybe I’m slowly becoming the cranky old man I was once rumored to be …

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BAM-N Activist Killed In Detroit

The Ann Arbor News reports that Joe Wagner, a 21-year-old Ann Arbor man who was an organizer for BAM-N in Detroit has been killed. The details surrounding the killing are unclear. (Via)

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Florida’s Fading Stardom

I finally got around to reading the Post’s review of Richard Florida’s most recent book, Flight of the Creative Class, which came out in April. The reviewer makes it sound like a warmed-over version of his Rise of the Creative Class
which I thought was thought-provoking, if not the most rigorous social
science research, saying she found “meandering logic and fuzzy
idealism.� I found a related book, The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape, to be a much more concise yet similar discussion about the impact of the changing economic realities on American cities.

Meanwhile in Michigan, Governor Granholm is giving his theory whirl for her state’s cities – the Cool Cities Initiative is on its second grant cycle. I just got around to downloading the summary of results
(PDF) from a major online survey of graduates of Michigan colleges and
universities the state conducted in 2004, but I haven’t checked out the
results yet in detail.

On a cursory review, I found a few
interesting statistics. Nearly 70% of those surveyed said they agreed
that they want to live in a place that “fits my lifestyle more than a
job that pays the most� and 70% agreed “I can get a job almost any
place I chose to live.� They report concludes “gambling places/casinos,
professional sports, large malls and shopping centers, and warm weather
do not play a significant role in choosing place to live.� The report
also had a little mini-list of the top ten “first choice� cities in
Michigan. Here’s the top five – the bottom five have such small
percentages I’m not sure its significant:

1. Ann Arbor
2. Detroit
3. Grand Rapids
4. Traverse City
5. Marquete

Finally,
the table of top attributes the respondents were looking for in a place
to live was interesting. I thought it was surprising that the #3
attribute was “Walkable Streetsâ€? – ahead of “shopsâ€? (6), “people my
age� (#10), “arts/culture� (#16), or even “low taxes� (#24). Also high
on the list: “safe streets� (#1), “affordable� (#2), “many different
jobs� (#4), and “public schools� (#8).

I thought this suggestion to Michigan cities tucked at the end of the file was amusing:

Because
Cool Cities Initiatives deal with a variety of topics not typically
dealt with in traditional economic development circles, it is important
to include the parts of the community that are familiar with those
non-traditional areas within the Development Targets when creating the
strategic plan. Some of those representatives include the arts and
culture community, minorities, small business owners, or the gay
community.

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Reading

I just finished Kevin Boyle’s excellent book Arc of Justice. Up next: James and Grace Lee Boggs’ Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century

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What They’re Worth

The WaPo on some notable members of the House and Senate. Look up how much the pols are worth on Opensecrets.

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Vote For Eugene Kang August 2

Eugene Kang
is a native Ann Arbor resident who is running for Ann Arbor’s City
Council from Ward 2. He is a 21-year-old University of Michigan senior.
If elected, he would be the first undergraduate on the City Council in
many years. He is running against a former Republican mayoral candidate
Stephen Rapundalo in an August 2 Democratic primary.
Ward 2 includes Mary Markley, Couzens, Alice Lloyd, Stockwell, the
Linden Street area and all the neighborhoods northeast of Washtenaw
Avenue. To register to vote or check your registration or polling
location, call the city clerk at 734-994-2725.

> Contact the Kang campaign at kangforcitycouncil (at) gmail.com or (734) 972-7254.
> View his platform
> Read articles printed by the Ann Arbor News and the Michigan Daily about his candidacy
> Join the Kang for Council Facebook Group

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