We need to
start renaming all the streets in Ann Arbor. Why? First, lets start with the
reason street names in any bedroom community suck. Most were named by developers.
95% of developers are super boring, and the other 5% are eccentric as hell. So
you get this pattern: elm, oak, pine, pinecrest (getting fancy)... repeat the pattern
2,200 times, then throw in a euphemism
for something dirty that no one gets the first hundred times they pass by the
street. Both flavors of developers are ill-suited for the job.
We need to
turn this job over to the proper authorities: the writers, artists, Avant Garde
musicians, medical marijuana advocates and let's through a couple skater punks
in there as well. That's the team for the job - for Ann Arbor, anyhow.
Why bother?
I could give you a lot of reasons like returning Ann Arbor to it's artistic and
counter-cultural roots, adding art to every day life, casually exposing our
children to creative language and ideas or
a number of other soul stirring, community building and neighborhood strengthening
high concepts. But the real reason is the Silicon Valley sucks and we need to destroy
it by attrition. We need the young hipsters (the smart ones, anyway) to move
here rather than the soul-sucking valley, or Portland or going off the god-damned
grid. There's been quite enough of that silliness. We need their ideas. We need
their brains. We need their money. And the money that follows the creative
types. And eventually we'll need their idealistic kids with ancient farmer
names. We especially need their idealistic spending habits. We have a lot of community
theater to support in this town, people.
We need to
brand our town to them (note: let's replace "branding" with a less
douchebaggy term when we actually implement this plan). We need to put on the
full-court viral news feed press. Will hearing about our little scheme really
convince the next Steve Jobs or Lego master builder to move here? Why not? Young
people are stupid, even the smart ones. Especially the smart ones. Remember
when you were 24 and followed that girl half way across the country, even
though she had friend-zoned you Freshman year? Yeah. You ended up in Omaha. Omaha.
Let me repeat, Omaha.
I don't
think it's even a little unlikely that some brilliant young bio-electrical-plasma-morpholigical-virtual-substrate
venture engineer monk might come across our scheme on The Pitchfork news
section (or CNN, but they can say Pitchfork) and decide this is the place to
start that start-up.
So what
about the fallout we're going to get from all the nostalgic middle-aged dudes
and crotchety old men (it's always the men, the women will get it right away)? Fuck
'em. Who do they think's going to fund their Medicare and pay to have their
streets plowed? That's right, the hipsters after they sell out. But not if they
all live in Williamsburg.
If I sound dismissive,
I feel entitled because I'm one of them (oddly I represent both groups -
damn!). Yes, when you come to change the name of my beloved Westwood to Bauhaus
or stomp on my cherished, idealized childhood memories of Traver by renaming it
Oneohtrix Point Never Lane, I will fight you. I will rant. I will go way past
my allotted time and City Council meetings and I will NOT heed your gavel. I
will chain myself to street sign posts and lay down in traffic. I will be
really pissed that there aren't any Editors left to write letters to. And I
will be happy. Nostalgic bores and cantankerous old farts thrive on defeat. We
need it. This would be a gift to us. Yoopers and Western Michigan evangelicals
need more ammo with which to self-righteously mock The People's Republic of Ann
Arbor. Spartans need more WTF? moments when they visit every other year.
What about
the streets named after great people? Come on, most of them were slave owners, Eugenicists,
Nazi sympathizers or Japanese interners. Actually I'm pretty sure they all
were.
So for the
good or our fair city and all of our futures - and our property values - let's do this thing. Meet me on the corner of
Waiting and Godot!
