A while back, I was walking down an alley, cutting my way through East Lansing, when I tripped over an angel. She startled me - weeping on the urban drab of brick and concrete; a perfectly sprayed stencil.

At that moment, my familiar walk was no longer routine, and the boredom of another day in East Lansing was suddenly replaced by reflection and an immense appreciation for the artist who had patiently mapped every feather and strand of hair before bringing her to life through the spray of an aerosol can.

I had stepped over stencils on campus, and had seen the graffiti of Detroit, but it wasn't until I looked at that angel that I fell in love with street art.

From its birth as territorial graffiti, to its gentrification into intricate stencils and refined social commentary, street art has remained the voice and fist of the speechless and powerless. I found myself passing the angel daily, contemplating her message, imagining the artist's identity while studying each smooth stroke. She spoke to me and had become a landmark of the city. I nearly wept when I found her face had finally faded back into gray concrete. I wish I had visited her with my camera - a transient piece of art reflecting my own mortality.

East Lansing prides itself as the city of the arts, an exciting title until you look around and realize the city is a carbon copy of every other middle-class suburban city in America. It needs street art, not only as a way to express the identities that make each resident and the city as a whole unique, but also as a means to ease the mounting tension between its students and a middle-aged oligarchy eager to forget they live in a college town.

Imagine if East Lansing was an interactive city, one where the city's government worked with local businesses and residents to commission murals and zone areas for wheat-pasting flyers.

A walk down Grand River Avenue would no longer be a dull stride past blank walls and chain stores, but rather a celebration of the hopes and fears of us all, and a reminder that East Lansing truly is a city of art and expression.

Bus stops could be galleries, crosswalks could be arenas for political debate. The side of a downtown parking structure offers a blank canvas over El Azteco Restaurant, the opportunity to create a center point for the city and a landmark to attract visitors and potential residents. I fell in love with one little stencil - imagine how people would react to a beautiful mural above the center of the city.

A vibrant culture of street art would help East Lansing, not only in proving its legitimacy as an artistic city, but also by attracting new residents - student and nonstudent alike.

Current city planning and policy appears to emphasize the transition of East Lansing from a student-oriented city, to one of quiet family neighborhoods where rising property costs push students further from downtown. I'm not here to attack East Lansing's families, but I do want to call on the city to halt its current trend of alienating students.

East Lansing seems to have forgotten students are the reason it exists in the first place, taking us for granted as it pushes ahead with plans to make the city another suburban enclave for middle-class families. It's no surprise that an increasingly marginalized student population has struck back with art, reclaiming the city wall by wall, and reminding those in power they are still an influential part of the city's identity.

I say, "right on, street artists" and "hold up East Lansing." Don't attack stencils and graffiti indiscriminately with paint and power washers. People, young and old, move to college towns not only for good schools and safe streets, but for the counterculture that exists in them. East Lansing's environment of youth, its discourse and creativity, are what make the city attractive. Take that away and it becomes nothing more than another suburban town where the gifted and talented grow up eager to leave.

I'm not calling for an open-door policy on street art. If we're to expect East Lansing to respect the art of students and the youthful reclamation of public space, then we all need to respect art as well.

Taking the time to create skillful stencils and tasteful murals is one thing, but many street artists out there have fallen into the trap of crappy smiley faces and lame declarations of "Kill 4 Love" scrawled across walls. Sorry, but that's not street art, it's pure vandalism and undermining to the artistic movement as a whole. Before East Lansing takes our art seriously, we need to take it seriously ourselves. We live in the city of the arts - let's make that rhetoric a reality.