City Council meets to revise zoning; discuss policing research, universal basic income

Source: June MacDonald.

"Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore."
— Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

That's the feeling I had when I read that headline. Head snap. Spit take. WTF? I had the feeling I wasn't in Texas anymore. And indeed I wasn't. The story appeared in Ann Arbor's "The Michigan Daily", a student-run newspaper for the University of Michigan.

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All three of the topics mentioned in the headline had details that would have been strange reading in a Richardson newspaper. First, the zoning discussion. Here's an excerpt:

The TC-1 zoning district is designed to discourage single-use, vehicle-based building such as the University of Michigan Credit Union drive-through location that was denied a permit earlier this year.

Councilmember Lisa Disch, D-Ward 1, explained the city planning commission’s rationale for this proposed zoning change.

“The TC-1 zoning district restricts the creation or expansion of that kind of outmoded development, which is at odds with this city’s initiatives towards reducing carbon emissions by getting people out of their cars and onto their feet and onto their bicycles or onto buses,” Disch said. The resolution passed unanimously.

Source: The Michigan Daily.

Next, the policing research (note that the world in this metaverse has a good Stefani Carter):

Stefani Carter, chair of the Ann Arbor Independent Police Oversight Committee, delivered a report on her committee’s findings and said racial disparities were especially prominent when looking at traffic stop statistics. According to Carter, the Southeast Michigan Criminal Justice Policy Research Project analyzed data from AAPD from January 2017 to December 2019 to help connect different governmental organizations and community groups to conduct further research on police behavior.

“The analysis identified significant disparities across every dimension that they examined,” Carter said. “The largest disparity identified in the analysis involves African American male drivers for stops initiated for equipment violations, which occurred 2.4 times more likely than would have been expected.”

Source: The Michigan Daily.

Finally, Universal Basic Income (UBI). People continually wring their hands about the lack of affordable housing. They never think to ask, "How about we try just giving people rent money?"

Deputy City Administrator John Fournier and Kristin Seefeldt, associate professor of social work and public policy, responded to questions on the city’s upcoming pilot of a guaranteed income program. The first phase of this program would offer a guaranteed income for low- and moderate-income residents engaged in entrepreneurial activities. On Monday, City Council unanimously voted to allow University of Michigan Poverty Solutions to administer the program and the associated research.

Source: The Michigan Daily.

I lived in Madison, Wisconsin, home of a great state university. I saw how a hotbed of discussion, debate, and innovation at a university can rub off on a city, making it an exciting place to live. I imagine that is what is at work in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well. Dare I hope that UT-Dallas in Richardson grows into that kind of university, one that brings that startup culture to Richardson, where new ideas are encouraged and experimented with. Maybe Richardson's nascent Innovation Quarter (IQ) should re-envision the whole City as an Innovation City.

Twelve years ago, I had a dream: "The Future of Richardson is in Beijing". This morning, I find I'm in a dream where the future of Richardson just might be in Ann Arbor. Don't wake me up just yet.