Ann Arbor is not an especially large place. The city occupies just 29 square miles, and without football game traffic no point is more than 20 minutes away from another by car. Yet those 29 square miles contain 162 parks—some just tiny patches of grass squeezed in among rows of houses, others expansive nature areas criss-crossed by hiking trails. Even as new construction springs up all over the place, city officials and residents remain committed to maintaining green spaces of all sizes and shapes.
One indication of the importance that parks hold in Ann Arbor is that the city has gamified their use through the Visit Every Park Challenge (VEP). Run by Ann Arbor Parks & Recreation, VEP is pretty self-explanatory: visit Ann Arbor parks, keep track using their provided checklist, earn a prize at every 25 parks, get a spot on the “VEP Wall of Champions” for accomplishing the ultimate goal.
I signed up for the VEP mailing list last year but dropped the challenge after hitting only 20 parks or so. I decided to try again this year—not only for the satisfaction of completing a checklist (😍) but also because I’ve had a difficult time motivating myself to get outside and walk as much as I used to. My routes have felt stale, and I’ve found myself latching onto any weak excuse (slightly imperfect weather, a baseball game to watch, “I really should vacuum”) to stay inside. Weeks and then months went by with barely any activity on my Strava feed. When the “Welcome to VEP Challenge 2024” email arrived in early April, it was a timely reminder that I could mix things up and take goal-oriented walks, as well as see more of Ann Arbor’s nooks and crannies. Even in a city of only 29 square miles, there are plenty of streets I’ve only passed by in the almost eight years I’ve lived here.
Maybe I’ll finish the challenge and land on the VEP Wall of Champions, maybe I won’t, but at the very least I’ve spent more time outside in the past week. I’ve walked to five parks, learning that Dicken is just a lonesome patch of grass next to cars whipping by on Maple Road, but that Churchill Downs offers a nice playground to the kids living in the neighborhood surrounding it.
Five down, 157 to go.
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James T. Areddy, “Research for Sale: How Chinese Money Flows to American Universities”
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Jacob Dreyer, “Xi Thinks China Can Slow Climate Change. What if He’s Right?”
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Nectar Gan, “China sees foreign threats ‘everywhere’ as powerful spy agency takes center stage”
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Mara Hvistendahl and Lauren Hirsch, “How an Obscure Chinese Real Estate Start-Up Paved the Way to TikTok”
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Didi Tang and Dake Kang, “Far fewer young Americans now want to study in China. Both countries are trying to fix that”
Viola Zhou, “AI ‘deathbots’ are helping people in China grieve”
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Matthew Luxmoore, “After Navalny’s Death, the Russian Opposition Is Divided in Exile”
María Luisa Paúl and Marisa Iati, “They fled Venezuela — and transformed D.C.’s food delivery scene”
Sui-Lee Wee, with photographs by Ulet Ifansasti, “What Can ‘Green Islam’ Achieve in the World’s Largest Muslim Country?”
Featured photo: Pictures from my first four Ann Arbor park visits in 2024, April 15-20.
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 