Northeastern eyes dorms

If every college student in the city of Boston and Cambridge lived on campus, who would the landlords get to pay extremely high rents for absolute dumps? You would have a glut of empty, crappy apartments all around Allston, Brighton, Mission Hill, Cambridge and Somerville.
 
Maybe we could actually keep some post-grads in town?
 
mass88 said:
If every college student in the city of Boston and Cambridge lived on campus, who would the landlords get to pay extremely high rents for absolute dumps? You would have a glut of empty, crappy apartments all around Allston, Brighton, Mission Hill, Cambridge and Somerville.
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i think it would force the landlords to actually invest a little money into their properties in order to attract older (yet still young) people.

Either that, or as statler said, at least there would be relatively affordable housing for people out of college who would otherwise be attracted (forced out) by affordability to other cities.
 
palindrome said:
i think it would force the landlords to actually invest a little money into their properties in order to attract older (yet still young) people.
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Absentee land lords aren't in that kind of business. When it comes time to put a lot of money into a property to repair it to habitable standards they either abandon it or sell it off. It's about the easy money to them, not a long term investment or business opportunity.
 
Lurker said:
Absentee land lords aren't in that kind of business. When it comes time to put a lot of money into a property to repair it to habitable standards they either abandon it or sell it off. It's about the easy money to them, not a long term investment or business opportunity.
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So they sell it off and other's put money into it. Either way the result is the same. More dorms increases the housing stock and that decreases the cost of housing.
 
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.



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.
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Funny, you're the only person who has mentioned race in this entire "discussion"
 
I don't see how race figures into this discussion either. Wasn't 'unparented kids' a reference to the students' poor behavior when living away from family for the first time?
 
No, Ron, it wasn't. It was a racially insensitive (if not motivated) cheap shot at a certain segment of the population struggling with hugely disproportional rates of adult male incarceration.
 
I don't have anything to add (at this time), but I am appreciative and amused at the debate the last few pages. It's the last 10 years of my life in 10 minutes of reading.
 
blade_bltz said:
No, Ron, it wasn't. It was a racially insensitive (if not motivated) cheap shot at a certain segment of the population struggling with hugely disproportional rates of adult male incarceration.
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Not to stir the pot further here, but that segment of the population does commit a disproportional amount of crime resulting in that rate of incarceration. It was, however, my experience as a landlord that prior to the college kids over running most of Parker 'Mission' Hill the neighborhood (Mission Main, Haywood, & Heath projects were a different story) was more ethnically mixed in comparison to the rest of Roxbury with the exception of JP. So I don't see where the whole B&W argument is getting thrown out in this discussion.
 
Why is it always B&W with you guys? What about the Yellows? lol jk


Oh but I do want to add one more thing. I'm siding along with the colleges because of one thing. Jobs. First, colleges themselve employs a lot of workers in the city. Second, smart students are very valuable. It's what attracts many businesses and companies to the city because of teh vast resources that a college grad can provide. To me, colleges and university brings more benefits than damages.
 
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...you're also a Husky. But, I totally agree. I'm prone to almost always side with the universities simply because of what they contribute to the city. Honestly, though, I think you're all missing a major point from the article:

To many observers, a 1985 increase in the nationwide minimum drinking age from 18 to 21 worsened the situation, as students were blocked from the bars, and Animal House mayhem spilled into the streets.
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Perhaps it's time for Congress to listen to the Amethyst Initiative?
 
I cannot imagine any world where the drinking age would go back down to 20 or 19, much less 18. I wish it would, however. It seems illogical to me that it's where it is.

From what I remember, there is a penalty of millions of dollars in highway funds for any state that doesn't tow the line by keeping the legal drinking age at 21.

Perhaps if all six New England states along with NY did it at the same time we could show some force or at least share the risks associated with lowering the age.

I don't doubt that more 18/19/20 year olds will die if the drinking age is lowered but I think it's appropriate.
 
Drinking in bars is safer than drinking in basements.

Learning to drink responsibly with your parents before college is a much better idea than learning to drink from frat brothers. Which is why many parents let their college-bound kids drink under their supervision the few months before they head off for school.

And yes, it's some sort of 10% penalty in federal highway funds if a state lowers their drinking age below 21. If the federal government were to repeal this, it'd be interesting to see which states, if not all, changed their drinking age.
 
In all honesty the drinking age should be 16 with the driving age being 18 (operation of a car is far more dangerous than drinking), or set the age at 14 (to really kill that adult novelty) and leave the driving age at 16. Most developed countries have the age set between 16-18.

The horrific crash incidents in the 1980s which resulted in the age being raise were a result of there not being a stigma against drunk driving at the time. I think in today's culture there might be a month or two of idiots hitting trees (and hopefully not other people) followed be a lower incident rate than we currently have.
 
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MADD is just so damn good at fear mongering, though. Unfortunately, most people respond more strongly to pathos than logos.
 
I used to think the drinking age should be 18.

Then I spent a week in an english college. Never seen so much drinking before. Everybody had an open bottle on their nightstand. Every evening was time for drinks at the pub.

With an age of 21, there might be heavier drinking on weekends, but theres very little during the week.
 
jass said:
I used to think the drinking age should be 18.

Then I spent a week in an english college. Never seen so much drinking before. Everybody had an open bottle on their nightstand. Every evening was time for drinks at the pub.

With an age of 21, there might be heavier drinking on weekends, but theres very little during the week.
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The English in general drink every day from the end of work until they pass out.
 
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