The People’s Republic of Ann Arbor

We boarded the train (yes, train) in Carbondale on a sunny Friday morning, headed for Chicago. There we’d lay over for five hours, awaiting our connecting train to Ann Arbor. The Chicago part of our journey was interesting, but it’s the Ann Arbor part that matters. Late at night, we pulled into “A2,” tired and questioning whether we’d ever take a train again.

We had two reasons to visit Ann Arbor. Our friends Gail and George moved there last year after a valiant effort as urban pioneers trying to bring Detroit back to life. It was a bigger challenge than they realized, so they decided to move to a gentle, nurturing city where life would be less difficult and more rewarding. The other reason is that my boss, Nancy D., had just moved there also, and a visit offered me an opportunity to work face to face with her for at least a day. In this age of telecommuting, a face to face session with your boss can be all too rare.

I expected to like it, but I wasn’t prepared to be as charmed as I was by Ann Arbor.

There are certain cities where liberal values prevail. The most prominent are places like Boston and San Francisco, but there’s a second tier that in some ways offers more hope. In the Midwest, where I’m from, those cities are places like Bloomington, Indiana, Madison, Wisconsin, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. They’re small enough that the liberal agenda completely takes over and changes their fabric.

What do you find in a liberal-agenda city like Ann Arbor? First off, a thriving inner city. A bustling downtown chock full of restaurants and retail stores, coffee shops, hot-dog stands, libraries and post offices, galleries and bars. Public schools that people support and that work. Public transportation, parks and libraries and other amenities for the people. Efforts to conserve energy like solar panels and bio-diesel fuel for buses.

Ann Arbor has all of these and more. It is clear this place didn’t just come to life last year, but has been nurtured and supported for decades. It’s what happens when people treat civic life as important, and don’t retreat into gated communities to keep the riff-raff at bay.

As the national economy heads into uncharted and frightening territory, the Ann Arbor city council is preparing to make it easier for residents to put food on the table. They’re working on an ordinance to allow city-dwellers to raise poultry in their backyards. To that I say “cock-a-doodle-doo!”

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