Universities and Redevelopment

First, thanks for inviting me back.  My last PrawfsBlawg visit was interrupted by a stay in the pediatrics ward with my one-year-old.  (Dehydration -- I am bad at Pedialyte.)  I appreciate the second chance!

Now for substance:  Ilya Somin (Volokh Conspiracy) and Ben Barros (PropertyProf Blog) have posts about Columbia’s efforts to redevelop NYC’s Manhattanville neighborhood.  Ilya raises interesting questions about the project's public-use implications.  I share his skepticism about letting private institutions exercise eminent domain to reshape neighborhoods to better suit their needs.  But the dispute also raises questions of the age-old “town-gown” variety, which highlight a deep divide between the preferences and priorities of elite and non-elites in the U.S.

Many universities have – or would like to – redevelop surrounding areas.  Notre Dame, where I teach, is working closely with residents of the neighborhood immediately to the south on a redevelopment project.  ND would like to develop the area as a mixed-use “college town,” with houses, townhouses and small businesses.  The non-university-affiliated neighbors (who are mostly working class and African-American) are deeply skeptical.  They worry about gentrification, and, more importantly, an influx of students into the neighborhood.  I live in the neighborhood, and I think the plans have much to recommend them.  South Bend is a struggling Rust-Belt town without a college town area; all new development is occurring in surrounding suburbs, etc.  But, for some reason, many of our neighbors cannot be convinced that we need both economic vitality and better housing.    (They want the latter, not the former – despite hours of new-urbanist visioning sessions.)

These disputes highlight the different aesthetics, and, more importantly, different priorities among elites and “regular people.”  I would like to see ND remake my neighborhood into a new-urbanist enclave.  (The university is the largest landowner in the area, so it can probably do this without asking the neighbors’ permission.)  But, a previous generation of planners thought they knew what was best for working class neighborhoods too – and gave us high-rise public housing and urban renewal.  Now, we tell ourselves that we’ve absorbed the lessons of the past.  Are the objections of the townies irrational – or are they a commonsense warning to proceed with caution, not hubris?