A couple of things that are left out of the story: - The area in question is blighted. This isn't an old area like SoHo is old. Think of the worst images of Ne

A couple of things that are left out of the story: - The area in question is blighted. This isn't an old area like SoHo is old. Think of the worst images of New York City from forty years ago. Think of the Charles Bronson vigilante movies from the 1970's. - If you've been to a top school in the past few years you know that they've been involved in an arms race of building facilities. If you want to be a top university in this country you need to be able to attract the top faculty and students. You need the infrastructure. In NYC this is almost impossible given the cost of real estate and overcrowding. Columbia isn't doing this as a capricious act. It needs to expand if it is going to survive as a premier university. This isn't being done to build luxury dorms for rich undergrads. This is being done to provide new research and teaching facilities so that a two hundred fifty year old university can continue into the future. - The businesses in question are the last in the area. Over the last ten years or so there has been a lot of back and forth between the university and its surrounding neighborhood. Some of it Columbia should be very embarrassed (perhaps even ashamed about) but after much squabbling the businesses in the article are the last holdouts. There is a lot being given back to the community by Columbia to make up for taking a larger part of the neighborhood. This includes cash payments, new schools, new community centers and housing for those displaced. - The businesses in question were offered payment much in excess of what their properties are worth. The warehouse company was also offered a swap for real estate in a much more desirable location in the area. It agreed to the swap and then reneged on the deal. The situation sucks but it's the world we live in. It's almost impossible for an institution to grow in the center of a major urban area. At the same time those institutions must grow if the urban area is to remain vibrant for its citizens going into the future. All things considered I think Columbia has been getting a raw deal in the condemnations like the one in the NY Post. It's easy pickings for the paper to rile up it's readers but in the end it only hurts the city as a whole. I'm not part of Columbia but my wife is an alumni and my daughter is a current student there.