4 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com fJe Jtidhiian ,IaUlp Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com HANNAH DOW E-MAIL HANNAH AT HDOW@UMICH.EDU STEPHANIE STEINBERG EDITOR IN CHIEF MICHELLE DEWITT and EMILY ORLEY EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS NICK SPAR MANAGING EDITOR Our generation, our America I I'm Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Low-cost living City should encourage affordable housing Forget the high prices of Zaragon Place and 4 Eleven Lofts. A developer has figured out a way to build a multi-story, afford- able housing complex near downtown Ann Arbor. Avalon Housing, a non-profit organization, partnered with developer Three Oaks a few years ago, and the project is finally about to break ground. This development will be an asset to the community, and developers should try to create other affordable housing options near campus and in the Ann Arbor area. his past weekend the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 ter- rorist attacks came and went. The his- toric juncture in time was accom- panied by a flurry of solemn reflections in the media, whose authors shared their memories of that tragic day, many now wondering with DANIEL CHARDELL The Near North Apartments Planned Unit Development was approved by the Ann Arbor City Council in Sept. 2009 and will create affordable, environmentally friendly housing for households earning less than 50 percent of the area's median income. There will be 39 residential units - 24 apartments allocated to low-income households and 15 supportive apartments with rent subsidies. Near North will also offer 2,714 square feet of retail space and 1,553 square feet of office space. In a city notorious for over-priced housing, projects like Near North are a change for the better. More availability of affordable hous- ing will benefit students and low-income Ann Arbor residents. Especially in this economy, people need affordable housing more than ever. The greatest benefit from the development is that Near North will be located within a quarter-mile radius of the downtown district - an economicallythriving area, as opposed to many affordable housing projects that are built in areas with strained economies. As a result, many tenants will have easy access to employ- ment and shopping in the downtown area. The environmentally friendly project has been given financial incentives to keep the housing as green as possible. The U.S Depart- ment of Housing and Urban Development awarded Near North a grant that requires the units to be certified as Energy Star-qualified housing and achieve LEED certification. In addition, the Ann Arbor Downtown Devel- opment Authority has committed an extra $50,000 if the project receives silver LEED cer- tification and $100,000 if the project receives gold LEED certification. While most low-income housing projects are constructed in the cheapest way possible, Near North - with the help of the U.S. govern- ment - is being socially responsible by encour- aging the creation of environmentally friendly housing. It is commendable that developers are seeking to create an affordable housing com- plex that will also be energy efficient, which will ultimately cut down on expenses for its residents. Local union representatives are pushing the DDA to come to an agreement with the devel- opment team to employ local workers for the project. Though DDA officials are not sure if they could dictate such terms, it would be bene- ficial to hire local union labor and stimulate the Ann Arbor job market. Union representatives made it clear that their contractors are lack- ing jobs, and a project like this could provide a much-needed boost. Near North will benefit many people throughout the Ann Arbor community and is an important development for students and residents who are facing financial struggles. Federal funds should continue to support simi- lar projects and help low-income Americans find safe, affordable housing in thriving com- munities. anguish where this country of ours is headed and where its 20th century prestige has gone. One article in particular caught my attention: Roy Scranton's Sept. 7 piece in The New York Times, "The Only America They've Ever Known." A veteran of the war in Iraq, Scran- ton writes passionately of the post- 9/11 legacy that's been left to our generation of young adults - a legacy of recession and debt, of corporate profiteers and political opportun- ists, of disillusionment with our poli- tics and indifference to our bloody wars. Far from bringing us together, our leaders' decisions following 9/11 have - perhaps irreparably - dam- aged our national resilience and soli- darity, not to mention our reputation abroad. This America, says Scranton, is the only one young people have ever lived to know. He's right. On Sept. 11,2001,1 was going on just 11years old: Many of my peers at the University were of roughly the same age, if not younger, the day the towers collapsed. Being so young, memories are hazy. I was conscious of an outside world, but only in the most superficial sense of the word, as if the earth were one- dimensional. My memories likely resemble those of any child who, like me, wasn't directly affected by the trag- edy. I remember images of chaos and rubble,butIcouldn'tgrasptheextent of actual destruction and human suf- fering. I was aware that terrorists from some far-offplace were atfault, but I was ignorant of the histori- cal circumstances that precipitated the attacks. I was frightened, but I didn't understand that this was only the beginning of an era in which fear would reign supreme. I was witness to the atrocities of 9/11, but I wasn't truly a participant in our national grief. Only years later, after revisiting the events of that day, would I join the ranks of those older generations who felt, firsthand and without warning, the pain of such evils. But here's the problem for our generation. Though we were alive to see the tragedy of Sept. 11, very few of us have concrete memories from the pre-9/11 era. Having occurred at the outset of our most formative years, the tragedy of that day has become for most young people a "given," an "inevitable," an "abso- lute" from which all subsequent events originate and against which all our progress is measured. For seniors, 9/11 was an unforeseen and horrific jolt to the status quo. But for us, the young adults who came of age in its aftermath, 9/11 set parameters for our emerging consciousness of politics, diversity and the world beyond our borders. Perpetual and unwinnable war abroad seems alarmingly inevita- ble to young people today precisely because we've known nothirig else. We haven't known enough peace to know what being at war really means. Our America is not the America of our mothers and fathers. Our America is a nation forever on edge, at war, in limbo. Now, 10 years later, it seems that only those old enough to know and remember what it meant to live through that day are in a place to reflect on 9/11 and the changes the U.S. has since undergone. But is there anything of substance for us young adults - then just children for whom the specter of 9/11 has been the con- stant backdrop of our youth - to reflect upon as well? My answer is a resounding yes. No matter how cloudy our mem- ories, we are the youngest genera- tion to live through and remember Sept. 11. In the distant future, we will be the last living generation to say that we were there. As today's youth and tomorrow's leaders, we've been given a choice: We may remain apathetic, presuming that the post-9/11 status quo that we've inherited is the given, inevitable route, that our nation must take, or we may recognize that this legacy is an impermanent and curable feature of the previous decade, not necessarily indicative of our gen- eration's future. Post-9/11 U.S. should forge a new legacy. 0 I propose we pursue the latter. Anything less would be one step backward for our democracy and, much worse, an insult to the thou- sands of innocent people we lost on Sept.11.9/11put our nation at across- road, andthe path our leaders chose - unilateral and costly warfare over multilateral cooperation - is the only one we've ever known. Let's not assume all this was inevitable. Let's call into question the presumptions we've entertained since childhood. 4 Let's forge a new legacy - one that deviates from the trend of the past decade and one that truly honors the victims of that horrific day. -Daniel Chardell can be reached at chardell@umich.edu. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Teddy Papes, Timothy Rabb, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner ASHLEY GRIESSHAMMER| On the brink of bankruptcy Moderate understanding This summer, I interned at a financial plan- ning firm where I assisted the company in writing its second personal finance book. Part of my job was to research and write about large news stories concerning the financial world. As everyone probably knows, many of the head- lines this summer were about the nation's debt ceiling crisis. The debt ceiling is the limit on how much money the United States government can bor- row, and the U.S. has always been a debtor country. On May 16, 2011 the debt ceiling reached its limit at $14.3 trillion. Analysts predicted that government payouts would be able to continue until Aug. 2, 2011, but after that time, the U.S. Treasury wouldn't be able to fulfill obligations unless the ceiling was raised or another solution was put into place. This outraged many people who depended on assistance like Social Security and expected to get back what they had contributed while they were working. Raising the debt ceiling would allow the government to borrow more money; ifit wasn'traised, lawmakers would have to cut spending to fund their obligations. Programs like Social Security and Medicare might not have received their payments if the ceiling had not been raised. If the government had defaulted on their payments, it would have had to pick and choose what programs were most important and needed the payouts. There were a number of proposed plans and solutions for the crisis. The Republicans wouldn't raise the debt ceiling unless there was a large deficit reduction via drastic spend- ingcuts without atax increase. The Democrats wanted to raise the debt ceiling immediately to fix the short-term problem, and then employ spending cuts and revenue increases to solve the long-term problem. Personally, I would not want to pay more taxes to fix a problem the gov- ernment created, as I'm sure no one else would. I agreed with the Democrats' plan to raise the ceiling immediately to fix the problem at hand, but I also agreed with the Republican view of cuttingunnecessary spending. The government had to figure out a solution by Aug. 2, and it did. According to an Aug. 6 article published in The Economist, there will be $917 billion in spending cuts over the next decade, coupled with an increase of $900 bil- lion in the debt ceiling. Following these steps, a congressional committee of Democrats and Republicans are to find $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions in return for a matched debt ceiling raise. After the deal was reached on July 31, it seemed that the government would be ok for the time being. However, shortly following the resolve, the U.S. credit rating was lowered for the first time in 70 years. The U.S. has always held a AAA rating from Standard & Poor's rating system. But following the debt crisis, the rating was lowered to an AA+, one notch below AAA. The previous triple-A rating made Treasury bonds the safest investment in the world. While these bonds are still considered to be the safest, it shows that people are starting to notice the flaws in our government. After the recent financial crisis, Americans are now more concerned with their invest- ments, as they should be. And our government is an investment. I agree with the S&P's lower- ing of the U.S. credit rating. The debt ceiling crisis shows the many cracks in our govern- ment. Ifa catastrophe like the debt ceiling cri- sis occurred in a private company that could no longer pay back its debts, its credit rating would plummet. It should be no different for our government. It seems like our government is more of a business every day, so it should be treated accordingly. While I still believe that invest- ments like treasury bonds are almost com- pletely safe, it's nice to see that some people are noticing the issues with our government sys- tem. Even though it would be highly unlikely for our governmentto go bankrupt like we saw this summer in Greece, it's not impossible. Ashley Griesshammer is a senior editorial page editor. When Washington D.C. interns meet for the first time, one of the first things they learn is every- one's political ideology. Many of the interns I met this sum- mer considered 3 themselves to be - ar political moder- JEREMY ates, which is LEVY certainly under- standable. But I was surprised when a group of my new friends had a quasi-celebration about being middle-of-the-road. The conversation went something like this: "You're a moderate too?" "Hell yeah, moderates unite." "Let's high-five." I found this exchange odd since, based on what I already knew about some of the kids, I suspected their political ideologies were more distinct than they thought. And after spending much of the sum- mer with them, I'd say I was right. One of them was a sociology major researching sex trafficking and human rights issues in third world countries. Another was a slightly religious social conservative. One endorsed Keynesian economics but berated the Democratic Party con- stantly. The last worked for Repub- lican House Speaker John Boehner, who's really only a moderate when you compare him with the Tea Party. This story intrigues me because throughout much of college, I've also had a tendency to refer to myself asa moderate. But as the anecdote above shows, the label doesn't necessar- ily do justice to the beliefs of those bearing it. If my friends and I had mapped out how each of us felt on a range of issues, I'd be willing to bet that our opinions would have been very diverse. So where does this tendency toward self-declared moderation come from? Individuals may be weary of associating themselves with one political party, especially when they think the members of that party are acting like idiots. For that matter, some may want to distance themselves from the numerous prominent images of "typical liber- als" or "typical conservatives." The truth is that there are lots of mixed messages in the public sphere about what it means to be liberal, conser- vative, or anything in between, and those messages can be difficult for any college student to grapple with. Over the past three years, many things have led me to the conclusion that I was only moderately liberal. I didn't care to protest when the Uni- versity announced that Republican Gov. Rick Snyder would be the grad- uation speaker. I think it's mostly futile to avoid making purchases from Walmart, BP or other corpora- tions that have been denounced as immoral (unless the boycott is really organized - which it's not). And during the health care debate two summers ago, I was regularly aggra- vated with Democrats who were completely unsympathetic to argu- ments about cost control. I could go on elaborating on the above opinion or listing others like it, but the common thread to all of them is that they are all poorly executed attempts to implement liberal ideals. It took me a long time to realize that these opinions do not make me mod- erate. Many of my peers might tell you that I'm actually a raging liberal. In my view, our country's drug policy and its effect on the size of the prison population and minority communities are absolutely absurd. The question about taxes for the country's wealthiest is a no brainer, and I'm fairly certain that beyond that, there are many other house- holds (including my own) that can afford higher taxes. And I'll guess no matter which party holds the presi- dency or Congress in the future, I'll probably never think they are doing enough to help the country's poorest. Political labels don't convey one's entire opinion. For me, college has been a good opportunity to work through ques- tions of political identity. In certain instances, terms such as liberal, conservative or moderate only serve as pigeonholes. In others, you have to suck it up and pick a side, even if you think the side you choose is full of idiots. I expect to continue devel- oping insights about my identity as I finish college, and I hope other stu- dents find they have a similar expe- rience, because in many instances, regular labels do not convey the full complexity of one's opinion. - Jeremy Levy can be reached at jeremlev@umich.edu. a