A building boom on campus (Today's Globe?)

choo said:
"Our city officials don't want this group in the city because in theory the less educated people that keep an eye on them the more they can get away with."

Sorry, but i hate when people say things like this because it sounds so f#$*ing stupid. I am not a fan of the mayor either or their development environment, but do you think its a coordinated plot by the mayor, BRA, and BPS to keep upper middle class families out of the city so they can oversee the greenway. that's really how cynical your view is on everything.

Yes, boston may have a gap, but i know a lot of people, college grads, professionals, middle class, that do live in the city, shop here, go out here. What boston can do is create more a more family friendly URBAN environment. that means tall apartment buildings and condos with safe parks and good schools. I think the real gap comes from the fact that for the last 60 years people equated middle class success with suburban space. Leaving the city to develop nice luxury condos for higher earners and people less concerned about child friendly parks and great schools (childless), and poorer people that relied on public transit to get to lower income service jobs that the middle class demands (via their purchases- see walmart, where everyone complains about the chinese taking over are country and they proceed to buy a bed, couch, tv, bike, and groceries all for $500 while missing their irony).

The current city structure is a confluence of public policy (federal, state, and local) and market based decisions over a 60 year period since WWII. NOT A MAYORAL CONSPIRACY.

It's simplistic, irrational statements and politically motivated conclusions that have no basis in a much more complex reality that is really hurting the country and the city, and its annoying that society is increasingly pandering to the lowest common denominator view like your statement.

Sorry Rifleman, I like many of your contributions to the board, but sometimes statements you seem to abandon reality.

/end rant
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Choo........Ouch. I agree this had nothing to do with a Mayoral CONSPIRACY.
Menino is actually not bright enough to come up with this concept, he just got lucky. Call it TIMING. We could have had a monkey in the office for the last 20 years with the college growth and the insane amounts generated from their endowments that created massive growth across Mass.

You were 100% right and I should rephrase, I should have said GOVT officials don't want educated people voting because they demand transparency and accountability. The way our govt officials run this country is the laws only apply to the middleclass and poor.
The reason for the gap is supply and demand in housing in the city. The less housing the more expensive housing which becomes very expensive for the working stiffs.

sorry for the anti-Menino/BRA posts but- 1) the 60MM tax breaks to Liberty Mutual= political bribes 2) Filenes hole- now they want Suffolk U to bail the city out of the mess they made 3) and the 10MM taxpayers note to a private developer to build luxury condos which are heading for forclosure. These are just a few examples of how the system in this city is gamed. Don?t forget the Greenway with the lack of progress in that area.
It's just very disheartening what the people incharge are doing.

Choo by the way- thanks for reading my posts. In reality- I am pretty open minded, sometimes I get carried away though.
 
We can all agree more middle class and affordable housing is good. I'd like to think that the market has finally begun to turn a corner away from high end condos and college hellholes. I lived in the latter only a couple years ago, and am currently in a neighborhood with a a decent amount of students. I hope one day to be able to afford a respectable place in or around the downtown with a family. Finally we are starting to see more reasonably priced apartments proposed and i hope they get built as such. The idea of the 'innovation district' housing is actually pretty good, i think, although i am somewhat skeptical on how the units will turn out. But some sort of housing for recent college grads, who are comfortable in more close quarters and dont have a lot of luggage (literally, bed, desk, table). This would open up some more middle income housing. I also think the change in parking requirements will do a lot to help depress prices for apartments.

Boston is a very attractive place to live, it needs to be a more attractive (transparent, predictable) place to build.
 
Rifle, my post contained math showing that the percent of students in the city population has not increased markedly in the last 19 years. You replied:

This only deepens the theory in which direction the city is heading. Boston is completly becoming a college town. The only neighborhoods left are the poor ones.
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Students were 18% of the population. Students are 18% of the population. I don't understand your conclusion.
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
Rifle, my post contained math showing that the percent of students in the city population has not increased markedly in the last 19 years. You replied:



Students were 18% of the population. Students are 18% of the population. I don't understand your conclusion.
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I read your post wrong. I still think the numbers don't see the entire picture.
Are those just undergrad degrees or Grad degrees?
Then how did the schools expand so rapidly over the decade with the same amount of students?

If we have the same percentage of students why have these schools continued to purchase anytype of realestate remotely close to the Universities?
Suffolk, BU, BC, MIT, TUFTS, Harvard
 
Then how did the schools expand so rapidly over the decade with the same amount of students?
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They didn't. Go back and look at John's numbers. They increased by less than 1% per year.
 
TheRifleman said:
I read your post wrong. I still think the numbers don't see the entire picture.
Are those just undergrad degrees or Grad degrees?
Then how did the schools expand so rapidly over the decade with the same amount of students?

If we have the same percentage of students why have these schools continued to purchase anytype of realestate remotely close to the Universities?
Suffolk, BU, BC, MIT, TUFTS, Harvard
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To allow for more and better services (new fields, more dining halls, expanded graduate and post grad level research space, more classrooms etc etc...)for students, and for future expansion. Even today those schools don't have enough housing for all there students.
 
TheRifleman said:
Then how did the schools expand so rapidly over the decade with the same amount of students?
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Student enrollment increase does not necessary cause campus expansion. You can probably run a statistical test and find that enrollment probably doesn't have any factor to campus growth. In fact, if someone gives me a site with yearly data on campus size (per sq ft or w/e) and enrollment, I can prove it doesn't.

Look at NEU. Enrollment dropped by 5000 students from 1990-2008, yet NEU undertook the largest expansion in its history from 2000-2008.
 
Dear Boston,

Please send us all your universities and their students, we will welcome them. We have no shortage of vacant land for them to build on.

Sincerely,
Detroit
 
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