News & Insights
Photo courtesy of: Greg Land
Empty cups in the yard, old couches curbside, and loud music into the middle of the night. If these scenes are familiar, you may find yourself within a campus town neighborhood surrounding any number of colleges across the country.
While the complaints may sound clichéd, the housing conflicts created by large student populations infiltrating traditional single-family neighborhoods are no laughing matter. They affect local housing markets, leading to challenges related to differences in lifestyle and behavior, and in many cases, significantly impacting the supply of owner-occupied housing, diminishing neighborhood character, and straining local resources.
These challenges can be addressed. A study of town-gown communities nationwide, reveals a variety of case studies wherein a school and its surrounding neighborhood(s) have worked together to develop strategies that lessen these housing challenges.
The study was part of the 2017 Strategic Housing Plan for the University of Iowa and surrounding communities. The intent of the study was to analyze town-gown best practices and address university and local housing issues at other flagship and land grant institution communities across the country. The intent was also to devise cohesive housing strategies applicable to the university and its surrounding areas.
Even beyond town-gown communities, many of these strategies are applicable to housing issues experienced in communities of all types and sizes across the country.
While the potential approaches are vast, they generally fall into one of the three categories outlined here.
Many communities have attempted to deal with student-renter conflicts after problems have arisen through reactive strategies. These approaches typically include…
This is an excerpt from an article that appeared in ICMA’s Public Management Magazine. To keep reading, click here.
