Smart Growth in your "Shadow Campus": Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference

Here's some background on the issue of the "shadow campus," the topic of Dale McGirr's after-dinner speech. Historically, campus investments haven't done much to develop the towns surrounding them, which leads to shiny new university buildings surrounded by dilapidated historical districts. Less than 30% of students nationwide actually live on campus, which means that 70% live in the shadow campus, which most students will tell you is dingy, often unsafe, and sometimes resentful of student presence. What retail exists is tailored to transient students, rather than other residents, which leaves segments of the population out in the cold. Housing rehabilitated for students is usually old and poorly-maintained. (I know this from experience; I spent the first three days of my senior year on friend's couches while a plumber dealt with the water that had flooded three rooms overnight through a slow leak. When I came back to my apartment, the house next door was next was roped off by police as an assault crime scene.)

McGirr encouraged a shift in thought. Campuses should get away from the idea that off-campus affairs are not important unless the university wants a patch of land. Connecting to city administrators and taking a more active, sensitive role in community efforts will lead to more attractive neighborhoods (ever had to drive important visitors a specific route to avoid unsightly off-campus areas?), satisfied neighbors, and a more vibrant community.

As strategic drivers, he suggested the following:
-Create student housing supply with more appropriate location, density, quality, amenities, and support systems.
-Encourage more employees to live closer to campus and create an active environment with high personal investment (which creates an advantage in recruitment as well as a market for commercial capital).
-Take an institutional role in regional economic development (increase investment, create programs that support economic growth).

By connecting to city administrators and attracting developers willing to preserve the feel of a town while still creating high-density, mixed-use communities (a la Smart Growth), universities can meet their needs as well as improve relations within their immediate area. Support for staff willing to relocate and invest personally in homes near campus is also an interesting option.

I like the idea that campuses should take a more involved role in their towns. My own alma mater, Brigham Young, was about 30k strong and definitely overwhelmed its town of Provo. But it was a shock to me when I moved off-campus and realized that south of a certain street, Provo has a large Hispanic population. The students and the immigrant populations were the two largest in the area, and lived literally yards from each other. Yet, there was exactly zero dialogue between the two. Students would go on volunteer abroad programs to do work in Ghana or Ecuador, while thoroughly ignoring the non-profit groups operating in their own backyards to help their struggling neighbors who, like them, lived in crumbling homes without reliable amenities. The difference is that students get to leave after a few years. Many of these families didn't have the option. Professors, of course, were rarely willing to keep their families in these neighborhoods.

The questions this raises are thorny: what is the responsibility of a university? When do community outreach efforts become controlling rather than helpful? Should historical neighborhoods, with all their flaws, be razed in the name of development, and how will this affect neighbors who prefer the community as it is?

**I'm Xarissa Holdaway from the Campus Ecology team at the National Wildlife Federation. I'm live-blogging the UMD Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference, and will be checking in every few hours over the next two days to tell you what I'm learning. Please forgive any spelling/grammar typing mistakes, I'm doing this on the fly and will be returning to edit later!