Northeastern eyes dorms

TheRifleman: Oh so true!!!!

Admittedly, undergrads can be loud, obnoxious and vomitous (is that even a word?). Did the residents of Mission Hill, most of whom have moved there in the last ten years, ever think of moving to Dorchester or Jamaica Plain, away from the universities? It's not like they need an easy commute to the financial district for work.

As for the "dearly missed St. Ann's...", the church closed due to the sins of the Archdiocese. A community group wanted to buy it and tear it down and build a housing project on the site. Oh sorry, affordable housing is the current PC term.
 
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It's also worth noting that the housing 'the community' is complaining about the 'affordable housing' on Mass Ave was failing financially due to mismanagement and St.Stephens Church (last known as St.Anns before becoming "The Fenway Center at Northeastern") is still open to the community for various functions. I'm tired of the whole 'giving back' gripe from neighborhoods. It's nothing more than extortion to expect private land holders to fork over cash to buy off the neighbors.

If the neighborhood had any brains they'd demand a legally binding cap on enrollment, with a residency on campus requirement, and support the construction of mega dorms on campus in exchange for all the former apartment buildings in the area reverting from dorms back to private housing stock. But that doesn't offer any opportunities for graft.
 
TheRifleman said:
The universities are the only reason Boston doesn't look like DETRIOT.
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It's hard to get this abstract point across to people who are essentially just envious of the kind of wealth it takes to build the shiny new wealthy university buildings in their vicinity.
 
Actually, Northeastern may welcome a binding enrolment cap of 20,000, a tad more than current enrolment. As Northeastern's appeal increases, they will be prevented from inching up enrolment. Higher demand & fixed enrolment = higher caliber students = higher USNews rankings.

As for the hellish Forsyth Building: In my day it was an ugly building on the edge of a drab campus. Today it is an ugly building in the middle of an attractive campus.
 
Wow people, just let the college do what it wants? We are treating these institutions like spoiled children. It's not like Northeaster is just going to up root and move to the suburbs if it doesn't get its way! This is the same bulls hit Harvard is pulling (well, different but similar) in Allston.

Boston needs these colleges but they need to be held accountable.

That said, the city also needs to be held responsible and not let them get away with fucking over neighborhoods. Menino needs to go, fuck him.
 
If the neighborhood had any brains they'd ... support the construction of mega dorms on campus
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Isn't that exactly what the neighborhood is doing -- asking Northeastern to abide by its previous agreement to build such dorms?
 
The neighborhood killed proposals that would have built on top of the orange line and adjacent to the Carter School, thus delaying the construction of new dormitories. Now they are asking for jobs specifically for neighborhood residents and free tuition for neighborhood kids, in addition to funds for 'affordable housing'.

The neighborhood's stalling and looking for handouts greatly contributed to the overflow of students into the neighborhoods. Now the same bastards are coming back to the table complaining about the consequences and asking for more goodies. No one seems to understand that dorms equal less students in private stock, except maybe the few landlords whom actively subvert things at meetings without anyone catching on to their game.

Remember the Grandmarc debacle? A private dorm for multiple universities' students got killed over a lack of 'linkage' and "oh noes teh shadowz!11!". The residents might want students on campus, but the political leadership is angling for money and patronage.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Wow people, just let the college do what it wants? We are treating these institutions like spoiled children. It's not like Northeaster is just going to up root and move to the suburbs if it doesn't get its way! This is the same bulls hit Harvard is pulling (well, different but similar) in Allston.

Boston needs these colleges but they need to be held accountable.

That said, the city also needs to be held responsible and not let them get away with fucking over neighborhoods. Menino needs to go, fuck him.
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How are colleges fucking over neighborhoods?

As far as rowdy kids in the neighborhood, I think the simple solution would be holding landlords accountable for their tenants. Maybe a fine for repeat complaints.
 
Fortunately, we live in a democracy and the voters reelected Menino by a comfortable margin. So the voters get what they voted for.

These neighborhoods were "fucked over" by unparented kids and drug dealers and still would be if the institutions hadn't expanded.
 
briv said:
How are colleges fucking over neighborhoods?
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They are not holding up their end of the bargain by reneging on their own deal with the city to house X # of students.

We've replaced black ghettos with student ghettos. Somehow this is better?

This isn't entirely NUs fault and it wouldn't be fair to put the blame on them. This is a problem with the city government turning a blind eye so they can collect taxes without having to spend on new infrastructure like they would if these kids were sticking around to have families.

This is how these schools are fucking over neighborhoods, indirectly and directly.

TomOfBoston said:
These neighborhoods were "fucked over" by unparented kids and drug dealers and still would be if the institutions hadn't expanded.
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RICH WHITE KIDS GOOD, POOR BLACK KIDS BAD! You are an ignorant fucking ass hole.
 
I don't know how true that is, Van. It seems most of the major colleges in the city have been on a decade-long dorm building spree. This despite the many that propose high density dorm buildings only to be reflexively shot down by the "community".

And I respect you, Van, but I think the poor black kids VS the rich white kids stuff might be counterproductive.
 
Van, I'd report your posts to the moderator except that you are the moderator.

And YES, poor black kids with guns are worse than rich white kids with booze. How many rich white kids shoot each other in Boston.

Get off your liberal high horse and go live in Grove Hall or Meetinghouse Hill.
 
I don't think that's productive either, Tom. Poor black kids with guns? Come on!
 
No briv, it certainly is not productive. But after being called an "ignorant fucking ass hole" by the moderator of this forum, I figured any chance of intelligent debate was impossible.
 
Yes, that was rather knee-jerk reactionary but that's how I see this conversation going.

Briv: No doubt that has been going on and should be. But it seems to me that the city is still giving the colleges preference in development over the needs of the poorer communities.

Should the communities be getting hand outs? No, that is just as bad. But the city should be balancing the needs of the community with that of the colleges.

TomOfBoston said:
Get off your liberal high horse and go live in Grove Hall or Meetinghouse Hill.
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Me and all my douche bag frat bro friends? Take over another neighborhood! It's not a "liberal high horse" to think that the needs of the community should be just as important as a rich college. I really can't stand your racist world view.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Yes, that was rather knee-jerk reactionary but that's how I see this conversation going.

Briv: No doubt that has been going on and should be. But it seems to me that the city is still giving the colleges preference in development over the needs of the poorer communities.

Should the communities be getting hand outs? No, that is just as bad. But the city should be balancing the needs of the community with that of the colleges.
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I really don't know about that. Your argument seems to be more directly against the city than the college themselves. Fact is, developers hardly ever build anything that will help the poorer communities and colleges themselves should not be blamed for that problem. However, NEU needs to build their second dorm, but only when they have the money to do so. Endowment at NEU dropped this year so I believe they aren't lying about the money problem. They should forego their Burlington campus and keep their promise first.

I know the noise is a problem but I don't think it's fair to not allow students to rent houses, etc. Also the real problem isn't about the rich white kids. The problem is the cost of dorms itself. All my friends that rent out apartment are doing so because it is cheaper and you get better amenities. And no they are not rich, and most of them aren't white.
 
Students are as much of a community (universities are a kind of neighborhood when one thinks about it) themselves on campus as they are part of communities off campus. That's something which the city doesn't seem to comprehend. The general view is that students are outsiders to be taxed and relegated to second class citizens when it comes to housing rights. And the city wonders why post graduation many former students quickly flee the city?

Yes the student community, specifically problematic students within neighborhood communities need to be policed as actively as neighborhoods with gang problems. Universities need to enforce a student code of conduct to that point, so to speak, that to be fair their justice must be cruel. But neighborhoods also need to hold themselves (if the place is already a shit hole don't go scapegoating the students or complaining about the lack of dorms when they block construction of them), landlords (absentee assholes who've sometimes never seen their property outside of a MLS picture), and the city (Boston Police & ISD where are you?) itself accountable.

Yes, it's late/early... and there is a certain irony in that one of my university aged tenants (well one of her illegal sublets, whom will be getting a nice call from the legal team i.e. the wife tomorrow) manged to cause an 'incident' at one of my properties to keep me up this late.
 
Excuse me for being blunt, but I think those of you who are claiming that the city and the universities aren't giving the neigborhoods a fair shake aren't paying close enough attention. The bottom line is this: the city mandated the institutions house a higher percentage of students on campus. But just about every dorm that is proposed runs into a buzz saw of community opposition. And the community then demands handouts. The city panders to the idiotic neighborhood groups because menino doesn't like any controversy. The dorm is subsequently not built, and then the community has the audacity to criticize the colleges for not housing more students on campus. It's no surprise that institutions are scaling back on expansion plans now. Most endowments have been hammered over the past three years.
 
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WTH is with all the flaming? Van, you're a moderator and you did not have to start calling someone who didn't even said anything about race, just that the neighborhood would like still be in the same condition that was there in the 80's. You can easily countered back that we don't really know for sure or other forces could have changed the make-up and culture of the neighborhood. You can see by TomofBoston's respond to Briv, he is was (still?) willing to discuss with reason and not just flame.

As for the rich school...

What should Northeastern do? Build the dorms? With what money? Don't just say just build it. University endowments have been taking a beating since the recession started. They wanted to building when times was good, but they were stopped and that money was planned to be allocated to construction have been allocated to some other project that been spent a long time ago.

Realistically, the back action is either make a rule that requires off-campus Northeastern Students to follow a level of conduct similar to on-campus (not sure how that would work, but it's a theoretically possible option) or lessen enrollment until the dorms are built.
 
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