1.Quick thread on my @WSJ oped with @jselingo on the what the Covid-19 crisis means for urban universities & cities:
wsj.com/articles/a-cri…
wsj.com/articles/a-cri…
2. The revival of urban universities like NYU, USC, Penn & others was crucial to the broader urban revival.
3. In fact, I have long believed it is universities & surrounding districts, not just proximity to the central business district, that have been prime factors in gentrification.
4. Back when I was going to college, urban universities like cities were sort of down in the dumps. Many were commuter schools. Much more desired were bucolic Ivys & quaint college towns.
5. But then a virtuous circle set in of urban revival & the revival of urban universities.
6. Former NYU president John Sexton liked to say that his university was blessed by a spectacular “locational endowment” to compensate for its more meager financial one.
7. The model spread from NY & LA to cities like Philly, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and many many more. Universities came to be seen as key anchors for urban revival - generating technology & attracting talent, creating 24-7 buzz.
8. Today, greater NY is the nation’s largest college town, with more than 1 million students, followed by Los Angeles with 950k & Chicago with 520K. LA is on par with famed college towns like Austin with college students making up some 7% of its population.
9. More than half of the nation’s students attend college in metro areas with more than one million people.
10. The Covid-19 crisis hits hard at this model of urban universities & cities.
11. The "lockdown" and its economic fallout threaten the fabric of urban life: restaurants and bars, arts and cultural activities, and the career opportunities that big cities offer.
12. It s likely to hit hardest at less well-endowed institutions in smaller and medium-size cities. The University of Akron, a key force in that economic transformation, announced that it was eliminating six of 11 colleges.
13. The impact will grow larger if colleges cannot reopen in the fall. Reopening will be especially hard at urban universities. How to retrofit dorms, dining halls to make them safe? Will students & their parents still fear contagion in cities?
14. We note several things urban universities might do.
15. Urban universities can work with cities to create AmeriCorps-like public service programs, enlisting students to battle the virus and rebuild their communities.
16. Smaller cities often bemoan the brain drain of their talented kids to bigger cities. If they are home, why not supplement on-line learning with actual work & experience battling the virus & rebuilding cities.
17. For students who would rather go back to college in the fall, urban institutions can craft a domestic version of a study-abroad program, where students spend a semester or two at rural colleges that are able to reopen.
18. Such a network of institutions could help to address the urban-rural divide by sharing academic resources, exchanging students & faculty, attracting young talent to rural areas and strengthening smaller rural colleges & universities that are community anchors.
19. Cities will survive the virus. Urbanization has long been a more powerful force than infectious disease. But urban universities must adapt to the challenging time ahead.
