In the course of an undergraduate education here at the University of Michigan, there are just some things one is bound to encounter at some point or another. The Big House, the Shapiro Undergraduate Library, the block ‘M’; not to mention Zingerman’s, Hatcher Graduate Library and Angell Hall; these are the perennial names, spaces and places that make the U-experience what it is today.

If we look a little closer, however, there is another figure that tends to receive a considerable amount of attention here as well: His name is Karl Marx.

In his article for Geographical Review, geographer Blake Gumprecht posits the American college town as “a place apart, a unique type of urban community shaped by the sometimes conflicting forces of youth, intellect and idealism that have been a critical but underappreciated part of American life.” 

On Tuesday of Welcome Week this year, I had dinner alone on my porch. The house I had moved into just a few days earlier was still uncomfortably hot, so I fled to the cool breeze and quiet murmur of the street. Settling into a chair, I watched the world go by in front of me as dusk faded into night.

The Bird scooters that dropped in Ann Arbor this September and have continued to flock around campus are really akin to the common pigeon. They populate the sidewalks in droves and weave in and out of crowds of pedestrian students. They have their typical nesting areas, practically stacked on top of each other outside of the Modern Languages Building, Ross School of Business and other places that are just a bit too far from the other side of campus. City officials have tried to control them, but still they zip and zoom in every direction.