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> There’s something unsettling about Yale, about the way it operates, about its very existence. I am a New Haven resident, have been for over a decade and spen
by cmg 5y ago
> There’s something unsettling about Yale, about the way it operates, about its very existence.
I am a New Haven resident, have been for over a decade and spent most of my social time for the 5 years before that in the city. This analysis is quite spot on. I often say that even if you don't go to Yale, Yale comes to you. Yale New Haven Health System is actually the largest employer in the entire state of Connecticut. The University, Health System and Hospital occupy three spots of the top five employers in the city.
Yale is not a campus on its own at the outskirts of the city (like Southern CT State University, or to a lesser extent University of New Haven). Students and residents alike walk next to each other on city streets from one building to another. The University buildings are on major roads downtown. Unlike universities in large cities (NYU comes to mind), Yale doesn't suddenly get lost in a forest of other buildings. It is the city in many regards.
As a result, the Yale Police Department is deputized by the New Haven PD. They carry guns, have their own lockup, and have the ability to operate in pretty much every area of the city, whether officially "Yale" or not.
And the Yale Corporation owns a significant amount of commercial real estate as well, regularly raising rent to drive local businesses out and bring larger chains in. Small restaurants, diners, record and book stores replaced by Barnes & Noble, Urban Outfitters, Tarry Lodge and the like.
Yale doesn't pay taxes on the majority of its property. Instead, it makes a voluntary contribution to the city that is significantly less than the tax value of its properties. Meanwhile, it has a $42 billion endowment that the University proudly says had a 40.2% return on investment over the last year.
And still as the author writes, people are hungry and homeless on the New Haven Green a block away from Yale's historic buildings and fancy shops. The unions of Yale workers along with community residents have fought admirably for Yale to commit to training and hiring more workers from New Haven itself, but the University has pushed back and lied at every opportunity.
The question for many of us isn't about tearing Yale down, though. It is making Yale subservient to the City rather than the other way around. "change has been made by groups instead of individuals" absolutely rings true of every struggle we see here that directly or indirectly involves Yale. It's not about getting Yale to be better on its own - Dunson is absolutely right to suggest that's an impossible task.
- denton-scratch 5y ago> making Yale subservient to the City Oxford has a similar problem. Not so long ago, Oxford University elected its own MP. The University appears to have a stranglehold on the planning committee. During term-time the population of Oxford is dominated by students (the resident population is only about 140,000). I really like this town; but I'd really like it more, if political control were returned to the permanent residents. This isn't going to happen; most of our political leaders and senior civil servants went to Oxford or Cambridge, so those two schools are favoured over their native populations. Incidentally, when I refer to Oxford as a "town", I am referring to the custom that you get to call yourself a city if you have a cathedral and a bishop. Well, the Bishop of Oxford doesn't live in Oxford; the cathedral is in fact the college chapel of Christ Church college; and if you want to visit the cathedral, apparently you need a note from your parish vicar confirming that you are a practising christian. I despise elite Universities. /me graduated at London; colleges like Kings and UCL have elite reputations, but I went to a lesser college, one that no longer exists.
- cmg 5y agoVery interesting! Yale doesn't have a Congressional or state representative (directly, anyway) but take a look at this map [0] and zoom in on Ward 1, in the center. That is pretty much all Yale territory. Two blocks (Chapel to Elm, Church to College) are taken up by the New Haven Green, which isn't residential (though many homeless residents do live at/near it). From College through Park Street, as well as between Elm and Wall Streets are Yale dorms and academic buildings. Chapel to Crown are primarily restaurants, clubs, and a bit of shopping with some expensive apartments above them. People who live there are extremely likely to be Yale-affiliated in some way. 2020 election results [1] show that there are 728 people who are eligible to vote in that ward, of which 173 or 23.76% did. They get one of 30 representatives on the Board of Alders. Another thing about New Haven is that nearly all of the Board is people who relate to Yale in some way, including members of unions. [0] https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=20871be64a704167a2f340229fa6f4a2 https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=20871... [1] https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/article/partial_election_results/ https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/article/partia...