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College Town Life | Featured College Towns | College Town Issues | |
22-30 Thousands
celebrate town-gown connection Jointly sponsored by the Arts Council of Princeton and the University, the day-long affair featured over 160 artists, craftsmen, merchants and organizations. Attendees sampled international cuisine, listened to live music, viewed demonstrations, perused galleries and participated in arts and crafts activities. Unique offerings such as paella and martial arts demonstrations lined the closed roads, as well as more traditional festival fare such as funnel cakes and cotton candy ... College
co-op living wanes But on many campuses today, co-ops are becoming neglected relics, struggling to find members and money for upkeep. The reasons are varied, said Jim Jones, the director of asset management for the North American Students of Cooperation, a national organization for cooperative living groups. Universities have been spending much of their housing money on building new, high-tech dorms designed to lure new freshman, Jones said. The value of on-campus property at many schools has skyrocketed, making co-ops a tempting option for development ... City to tenants: Move out Law
limits number of unrelated adults who may live in homes At least one needs to find another place to live, according to the city of Sioux Falls, and soon. The four ran afoul of an ordinance that says no more than three unrelated adults can live under the same roof in areas zoned for single-family housing. Around April 18, a letter arrived from the city informing them of the violation ... Time
to share the road? Yellow street signs depict a bike and beckon: "SHARE THE ROAD." ... The college town of Madison, Wis., boasts an extensive system of bike lanes, and Kalamazoo offers a few. Now you'll see University of Notre Dame students riding in the old lanes on Twyckenham. Cycling his way back to campus ... Campus
Pointe and its importance to Fresno & Clovis Over the past several decades, the area surrounding the campus has remained largely unchanged or has declined. Our alumni from the 1970s and ‘80s would find massive changes on campus, but few changes in the community immediately surrounding the campus. Fresno State is doing its part to improve the campus experience for today’s students, which reflects their desire for a vital, safe and appealing campus that offers the amenities of other major universities across the country ... AU
trustees panel OKs design for 8 new residence halls A new dining hall to feed the 1,700 students who will live in the new apartment-style suites is part of a campuswide dining plan that likely won’t go before the board until fall, Mouton said. The new residence halls will not only help AU compete against other housing options in the city, but also serve as an asset to attract top quality students, especially freshmen ... Helping
college towns cope The goal of the hearing, Dinniman said last week, is to "hear some solutions" to how to pay for increased police protection in towns such as West Chester, State College and Bloomsburg where bar-goers, not all of them students, have been known to have one or two or three drinks too many ... New
zoning increases density “The North Burnet/Gateway neighborhood is a huge area the size of downtown, the state office complex and UT planning areas combined,” Planning and Zoning Director Molly Scarbrough said. “It’s also an area where two rail lines come into pretty close proximity, half a mile to a mile of one another. There are really only two other areas in Austin where that happens.” ... Students
begin their annual exodus; Charities benefit from items left behind The uncovered lot was inadequate. "We had to turn people away," said Jones. Items that could have been collected by local charities were ruined. "The rain would turn good things into garbage," she said. The university is now working more closely with the city and charity organizations to be sure that useful items are not unnecessarily lost. Queen's outreach programs have let students know what resources are available to them and which charities may pick up their old things. Students finishing term papers and studying for exams may not be looking beyond their books at how to dispose of their bookshelves, though ... UM
hopes to complete six new housing projects by 2013 Gilbert Arias, assistant vice president for Student Affairs, said the number of students who want to live in the Village, which currently houses 719 undergraduate and graduate students, illustrates the need. "Demand is incredible," he said. "What we're doing is we're looking at what the demand is to live on campus and determining how many rooms [we need]." ... Student
leaders step up demand for dorms The Undergraduate Student Senate last week adopted its first resolution demanding that university officials include dormitories in future expansion plans, and earlier this semester, students formed a group to advocate for on-campus housing ... UC
Riverside Buys University House at Highlander Ridge The university paid $31.4 million for the complex at 3429 Canyon Crest Dr. Escrow closed on April 20. The name of the complex will remain the same: the University House at Highlander Ridge. University officials have scheduled a community meeting at the complex for 6 p.m. Wednesday to answer questions ... About half of UC Riverside students live in off-campus apartments, about a quarter commute and a quarter live on campus ... Cycling
race to hit Spartanburg Riders from across the United States and many parts of the world will converge on the college town for the Athens Twilight, an 80-lap closed circuit course. The "crit," as cyclists call it, is a fast-paced bicycle race open only to professional and elite riders and is the first stop on the tour. It's the third year in a row, USA Crits has toured the southeast completing eight criteriums in nine days ... High
life at UW: Upscale campus housing attracts more students Despite the prices, these places fill up fast. Paul Evans, director of University Housing, said students flock to high rises because they're close to campus, newer and often better kept. Students face a competitive market and often wait in lines outside a rental office to live at a certain address, said Linda Scheid, campus-area housing coordinator for UW Visitor & Information Programs ... Human
Rights Fest is local rite of spring The first Athens Human Rights Festival was held on the University of Georgia campus in 1979 as a living memorial to students who had been killed by police and National Guardsmen at Ohio's Kent State University and Mississippi's Jackson State College during protests in 1970. Since 1984, the festival has enlivened the town square across from the University of Georgia Arch. This year's May 5-6 rights festival promises to continue the event's many years of firebrand speeches and family-friendly fun, on a springtime weekend in the Classic City ... Mercer,
Macon to work to refurbish neighborhoods between campus and downtown
Video The goal is to attract and retain more students and young professionals. "This is about building or rebuilding this segment of our city," Mayor Jack Ellis said during a news conference. He announced the creation of a 15-member commission that would look at the development of the "College Hill Corridor," which runs from Mercer and down College Street into downtown ... UCCS
dream turns sterile Instead of this vision, the plan as currently proposed is a typical suburban shopping center anchored by big-box stores Costco and Lowe's. It would have a 3,500-car parking lot, Nevada Avenue as a six-lane arterial and stores facing inward, their backs to Fountain Creek and Monument Valley bike trail. We could also expect a great increase in runoff from the impermeable surfaces. Rather than something like an Old Colorado City, we will have another Academy Boulevard. It will not create any lasting sense of place, nor will it be an environment where people would want to go to socialize. As Howard Kunstler says, "This is Nowhere," the generic landscape of suburban America. ... Fourth
Annual College Town Reading Set for May 1 College Town is a consortium of Spartanburg County’s six colleges – Converse College, Sherman College, Spartanburg Methodist College, Spartanburg Technical College, the University of South Carolina Upstate and Wofford College – and the City of Spartanburg. The consortium produce academic, social and service events designed to strengthen the relationships of the campuses and the community ... Uptown
tour book updated Originally printed in 2001, the 50-page booklet has been revised to include newly discovered information about some sites and to remove descriptions of buildings that have been razed since the first edition was published. Although the Uptown Oxford Historic District includes all the properties in the High Street business district, the brochure covers only those built before World War II. Of the 100 sites listed, many include archival photos from the Smith Library along with a paragraph explanation of the historical and architectural significance of the 19th and early 20th century buildings. Each tour booklet includes a map and is intended to be a used as a self-guided tour Copies of the booklet are free from the bureau at 30 W. Park Place and from the Smith Library at 15 S. College Ave ... Trapped
in a box It is time for the county to stop pushing for fruitless repairs and start looking at real solutions. A blessing called eminent domain is the county's golden ticket to both cooling the housing crisis and revamping the apartments. In June 2005, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that local governments can force property owners to give up their property to allow for private development that would benefit the public. The county could exact this domain to push out the less-prominent Knox Box owners and engage in a partnership with Firth to remold the Boxes into high-rise student apartments that are aesthetically pleasing, economically practical and, most importantly, safe ... Downtown
Waco to get face-lift The project, Waco Town Square, will include upscale retail shopping, restaurants, office space and a student housing development geared toward Baylor and other local college students ... "We find that is the most appealing approach from the student perspective," Wallace said. He also added that the proximity to Baylor definitely influenced the decision to build Waco Town Square with student living options. Wallace said Waco Town Square apartments will "add something that is not available in the Baylor market," and it will be a "community-oriented, pedestrian-friendly area," with weekly events like concerts and movie nights hosted in the center of the square ... Developer
maps midtown growth The sweeping rehabilitation, which could result in more than 1 million square feet of new building space, would be guided by a comprehensive development plan unveiled yesterday ... Princeton
Borough homes are affordable to few But even Schrayer, a local real estate agent and chairman of the borough's affordable housing board, was surprised to learn just how deep those pockets have to be these days. The median price for the 484 single-family houses sold in the borough over the past five years was an eye-popping $716,000, according to Schrayer ... Mayoral
hopefuls discuss arts neighborhood, Dinky move The new development in the area near the Dinky station has come under fire in recent months over how it will affect the local community and the University's tax contribution to the Township. In their first public appearance together, the two Democrats differed on their views of the proposed development. The panel entitled, "Uniting Town and Gown: Why Local Politics Matter," was moderated by Wilson School professor and Princeton resident Stanley Katz in McCormick Hall. Preservation,
growth plans must dovetail The neighborhoods also changed because the university is a ripe market for retailers and for those who own rental property. Some property owners built additions and larger homes that ended up being, in essence, miniature dorms. These places don't violate existing zoning regulations, but they change the character of older and once-tranquil neighborhoods where most homes were owner-occupied. More students crammed into mini-dorms meant more late-night parties, more noise, more cars competing for limited parking, and a qualitative change in the ambience of the area ... Tension
swirls around rezoning plan Penn State still owns Circleville Farm, pending the outcome of the rezoning application by the prospective owner and developer, the Lezzer/Haubert Partnership. The township and the partnership have been negotiating the development of Circleville Farm since the university's board of trustees voted to sell it more than three years ago. The traditional town development zoning district allows a mixed use of homes, stores and offices, and the land-use regulations could permit about 1,000 dwelling units in the next 25 years on the two tracts together, township officials said ... Housing
deal may be close in Milledgeville Homeowners say when more than three unrelated people live together in a single-family zone, they create noise as well as maintenance and parking problems. Landlords, who rent mostly to students from nearby Georgia College & State University, say those problems could be fixed by enforcing laws that already are on the books and contend such an ordinance drives up rental costs. Tuesday, the city council held a public hearing on an ordinance that would allow for group residences as a special use within the single-family zones if one off-street parking space is available for each bedroom ... Fake
ID necessary for decent nightlife in Dallas Getting the fake ID was never about buying alcohol. It was about choices. Without a fake, my choices were limited to fraternity parties, random house parties and about 14 mostly seedy bars and clubs ... I noticed a big difference in nightlife while going out in College Station. The majority of bars are 18 and up, and they are strict on fake IDs. As an underage person I can legally go out with my boyfriend and other friends who are of age. The strict enforcement of identification laws prevents underage people from drinking illegally, while the lower age minimum is inclusive. By doing the exact opposite - raising the age minimum to 21 and loosely enforcing identification laws, Dallas establishments are almost encouraging the use of fake IDs out of social starvation. This leads to even larger problems. If I get into a bar using my fake ID, then I can buy drinks. If I buy a drink, I am a minor in consumption and the bar is supplying me, a minor, with alcohol ... UGA
wage hike a necessary step in poverty fight Nonetheless, it was good to hear Wednesday that UGA will be increasing the minimum pay of salaried employees from $19,000 to $20,000 annually, starting Jan. 1, 2008. In addition, it must be remembered that the increase announced Wednesday is just the latest in a series of increases during the last several years that have seen the minimum salary at UGA bumped up from $12,790 ... Critical
Mass Write to your local newspaper’s publisher to express support for its book coverage. And if your paper doesn’t have such a section, ask why not. “It always baffles me,” as Freeman says, “why university towns like New Haven, Durham, Champaign-Urbana and Iowa City have virtually no book pages in their papers.” ... Cruces
gains more national attention In addition, the publication ranked Las Cruces ninth on its list of "Top 20 Small Cities for Doing Business." Cruces was ranked 31st on that list in 2006 ... That followed the news of 2005 when Money magazine named the city as one of the "Best College Towns to Retire." The Milken Institute had Las Cruces ranked in the top three small metro areas to do business in 2003 and 2004. Last year, AARP The Magazine included the city in its list of the five best U.S. cities to retire ... Princeton
prepares for Saturday's Communiversity crowds THE
POLITICS OF HOUSING But competition seems to be the name of the game ... Steven Elliott, property-marketing coordinator for American Campus Communities (University Centre's parent corporation which has built student housing facilities like this across the country), said "It wasn't until March that we were able to set up stalls on campus," which allowed the company to access students directly. However, the company was able to bypass the college officials by advertising in the Observer and the Vector, the campus newspaper of the New Jersey Institute of Technology ... Minidorm
Dispute To Be Looked Over Midtown residents looking for relief from "minidorms" that are popping up around the UofA could see a big move by the city toward giving them the protection they seek Tuesday. The city has decided to step in and impose restrictions on the student housing by creating a test zone ring around the school ... University
House complex to open this fall Texas-based University Partners announced in 2005 it would build, own and operate a 162-unit, 496-bed student housing development near the University of Alabama at Birmingham ... Housing
spreads off campus Then came the construction of University Village, a new apartment complex aimed at college students, behind her house. When the 600-bed complex opens in August, Roland and her husband, Garry Ward, fear they’ll be wedged between two slices of campus ... Trinity
First in Strained 'Town-Gown' Relations President James F. Jones regards the publication by The Princeton Review as "one of the most untrustworthy in the country since the methodology is flawed, to be generous." He said, "The Princeton Review will often hire not well-trained staff, who will then take up positions outside dining facilities of various schools across the country, ask students coming and going specific questions, and then assemble the data as if authoritative surveys have been conducted across a statistically valid cohort." Also, the conclusions run counter to findings of scientifically drawn surveys conducted by the Office of Institutional Research ... Author
reveals anecdotes that didn't make the cut "I wish I could have incorporated some more things," he said. "More could have been written on how close the ties are between town and gown. It's unusual for a college town." Despite the omissions, Burgess still accurately told the story of a university 100 years in the making, and owes it all to a group with a vision. "In 1907, a group of men and women saw beyond their years," he said. "They created something all of us in this room have benefited from, whether we were students or faculty or just attended a program there. It all goes back to those in 1907 who refused to give up." $1.2M
project to beautify Bay The new look will sport a decorative sidewalk, benches, trees, curved old-style street lamps and wrought-iron fences with brick columns in Saginaw and Kochville townships ... The appearance will help set Fashion Square Mall apart from other retail outlets and evoke the architectural style and feel of Saginaw Valley State University, officials said. "This will be nice to feel the presence of SVSU and give that area a college-town feel," said Saginaw Township Supervisor Tim Braun ... Olive
Court should remain a student tailgating stronghold Spring
cleaning City
tops for retirement again Fort Collins is listed in the latest edition of "America's 100 Best Places to Retire." Modern retirees will find facts and figures on population, climate information, tax rates, housing costs, health-care options and more. The book features personal anecdotes from newly relocated retirees ... Bristol
and Roger Williams inch closer to a deal On Tuesday, town council president Kenneth Marshall said the council has asked its lawyer to arrange a meeting with the university to iron out some "small details" regarding the proposal, but he would not expound on them. The university's original proposal was a 20-year, $150,000 per-year payment in lieu of taxes ... Property
owners question East Village On Tuesday, Theresa Nakata, the company's vice president for marketing and communications, said The Pierce Company Inc. has had progressive negotiations with the region's property owners for several months. The estimated $500 million East Village project involves redeveloping the land bounded by East Grand River Avenue, Hagadorn Road, Bogue Street and the Red Cedar River with a mix of residential, retail and entertainment properties by 2011 ... Town
and gown mesh over growth Instead, they met with young parents, elderly couples and businesspeople in the dense working-class neighborhood that surrounds the school, slowly building support for an ambitious expansion that will start later this year. It's an approach administrators are adapting at many small, private colleges in the Portland area, as enrollments rise and extra space disappears on their landlocked campuses ... Lease
is up Bucking the trend in mid-Michigan, East Lansing housing is expanding, and city officials appear to be working with various parties to strike a balance between providing for the transient student population and people aspiring to make the city their permanent home. "We need to be sure neighborhoods close to Michigan State University offer opportunities for owner-occupied housing, particularly those that are close to public schools," ... Design
students' projects have public impact Big Woods: UK students linked with a new Affordable Housing Professorship, the Kentucky Housing Corp. and Frontier Housing Inc. to create a site plan for the 2003 Big Woods low-income single-family project in Rowan County and created house plans that the developer followed or adapted when building began in 2004. The project won an award from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards ... Resonance House: This "design-fabricate-assemble" single-family residence, 151 Old Georgetown St. in Lexington, recently sold to a UK professor. It is a 3,000-square-foot contemporary house that fits into its historic downtown setting in terms of forms and massing. The project, under professor Gregory Luhan's digital design studio classes, also made news by producing only three tons of waste instead of the normal 15 tons to 18 tons of leftover building materials ... City
growth raises questions about state of downtown In recent years, many of those debates have focused on preserving downtown, with its unique blend of retail shops, restaurants and bars. The past year has been no exception, as a growth-oriented city election, a visit from a team of planning consultants and a variety of retail developments planned for West Sixth Street have kept the spotlight on the question of where in Lawrence people will be spending their dollars in years to come. Pretty much everyone can agree on one thing: Downtown is a special place, but it’s not the only game in town ... Student
dies in blaze near UC Nationwide, 108 people have died since January 2000 in campus-related fires, according to Campus Firewatch. Eighty-one percent of those fires were in off-campus housing. Four common factors in many of those fires were lack of fire-suppression sprinklers, missing or disabled smoke alarms, careless disposal of smoking materials and impaired judgment from alcohol consumption ... Hold
on growth advised In a memo to Town Manager Roger Stancil, Planning Director J.B. Culpepper advised the council to follow through with a public hearing scheduled for May 7. That way, the council could gather community input on whether to enact a six-month development moratorium that would last at least until October. "The moratorium if enacted will maintain a development status quo," Culpepper wrote. That would give the town time to rewrite its zoning rules, which may mean creating brand-new zoning designations to achieve the council's goals. "The existing residential and non-residential use districts contained in the [town rules] are unlikely to achieve the vision for higher intensity mixed-use and transit-oriented development outlined by the council," Culpepper wrote ... Old
media grounded Va. Tech story Completing the circle, subscribers to Internet sites railed against journalists creeping inside their social networks seeking quotes. Call it Journalism 2.0: the search for sources now leads to cyber-sites. Instead of perusing phone directories or distributing business cards, reporters now post online requests for eyewitness footage. Particularly in a rural college town far from the usual media centers, the old media bumped into the new in an awkward confrontation that underscored how things have changed. By the time the well-known anchor faces arrived on the scene, the story had taken root online. "Blogs first, mainstream media second," as a writer on a popular site, cybersociology, described his information diet ...
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