Studentification
Introduction
Studentification, a term popularized by geographer Darren Smith, is a portmanteau of student and gentrification, referring to the impact that student population growth has on surrounding neighborhoods. Examples may include the conversion of owner-occupied homes to student rental housing, rental price inflation, patterns of segregation and displacement, increases in nuisance and noise complaints, and increases in numbers of bars, chain restaurants, and other businesses catering primarily to students. The Studentification chapter of this report offers new research using previously unavailable data, and demonstrates how, over the course of the 20th century and accelerating during the late 1960s, “the off-campus distribution of undergraduates spread outward from near the university’s core in College Hill to peripheral regions of the East Side, most specifically the neighborhood of Fox Point.” (Barnes and Petit, 36) The consequences of this spatial and population growth had negative consequences for the residents of Fox Point, a historic immigrant community already impacted by urban renewal and highway routing projects. This pattern, in which the growth of a large institution destabilizes and ultimately displaces working class residents, is unfortunately not an unusual one; what is unusual in this case is the trove of paper records Barnes and Petit have carefully digitized shedding new light on neighborhood transition in the East Side.
Conclusion
Lessons emerge from history, and the learnings from this account can be applied to the ascending themes for IHE anchor work mentioned earlier. The movement toward outcome measures and assessments must integrate issues of displacement, studentification, and gentrification. IHE anchors do not take on this difficult work alone, as pioneering interventions are being generated within other sectors [98]. Anchor engagement work can look to the maturing literature on displacement that offers new conceptualizations of the multi-dimensionality of displacement (physical, social, cultural) and insights on methods for measuring displacement [38,43,99]. Also needed is a deeper understanding of the role of student housing choices in housing submarkets. The variety of local housing market conditions, the difficulty of controlling for relevant other forces, and the range of IHE characteristics, make it difficult to generalize about student housing models, but more can be learned. Research on the direct and indirect, and negative and positive impacts of student housing models on host communities is needed. In addition, IHE need to assess their structural capabilities for undertaking what we see as the sixth era of IHE anchor work, centering social equity. IHE and community cohabitation of place is often characterized by tensions inherent in power differentials. IHE have established partnerships and review bodies of various forms for anchor work. In this case study, an internal institutional body was disbanded, and its recommendations ignored. This suggests community boards may need to get their authority from municipal government. Case studies provide examples of successful and unsuccessful models of community involvement, and the highly individualized nature of anchor work, noted earlier, will be reflected in this feature [18,100,101]. Being place-based is the characteristic that gives anchor institutions potential for meaningful engagement. At the same time, being place-based comes with a responsibility to acknowledge and respect the living history of a place by heeding the interests of less powerful residents [8]. In Hi, Neighbor Memories of Loss and Displacement, the filmmaker, Andrade-Watkins, “asks” John Nicholas Brown, Jr. why it was that he and his fellow white, wealthy residents remained on the East Side while she, and many Cape Verdean families like hers, were pushed from their Fox Point homes [40]. No doubt part of the answer to this rhetorical question lies with forces beyond the campus. Progress by IHE toward social equity will require intentional work around community involvement and community capacity, along with confronting the direct and indirect sources of IHE power and influence. The social equity components of student housing policies should be part of this work.