5 ms·

In my opinion, my ideal walkable/livable community is the university town. It has everything you need in walking distance. Most people who work in the community

In my opinion, my ideal walkable/livable community is the university town. It has everything you need in walking distance. Most people who work in the community live in the community. Public transportation is well-used, to the point cars are often outright forbidden. Lots of greenspace, with good wifi through the whole town. Well managed library and IT infrastructure. Very inclusive and welcoming community, as they are arranged around the idea of incorporating new people into the community on a regular basis. I'm one of those lifers that went to college and never left, now entering my 5th year as a professor. That's a lie -- I had 3 years in industry, and I just hated it. I mean, the people were okay, but "the real world" seems to be a euphemism for having to put up with the shitty systems and communities that everyone else has to. But here's the thing (and sorry to rant for a minute), calling academia an "ivory tower" in contrast to the "real world" is an admission that we have to accept the shitty systems and communities past generations have built for us. Because with all of the craziness in the banking sector and tech sector lately, it's hard to convince me that academia is any more divorced from reality than other large industries out there that are trying to run the world. How is academia any more of an ivory tower than silicon valley? And aren't those silicon valley bankers and billionaires the ones who are trying to shape the world in their image, while crashing banks and laying off hundreds of thousands of people? To me, that is a dark tower, and one we should not be trying to emulate at a country scale; whereas my community, the places I walk, the people I work with every day, the relationships I build with them -- that's the real world. Or at least my world. /r Yes academia is a bubble and unique, but at the same time, that's what allows it to be a place where you can have the things you say you want. Is it sustainable? You know, probably not, but at the same time many of these communities are over a century old. I know my University has plans for sustainable growth for the next 100 years. There's surely still work to do to make such communities more sustainable, less costly to manage, and larger and more widespread. But still, the university town is a model that proves we can at least build walkable communities in America. They definitely exist!

Vrondi 4y ago
I am laughing hysterically at this from my university town with four campuses spread out over a hilly landscape, tons of traffic and limited public transportation schedules that would triple commute time for most workers. Things are set up to work for the irregular schedules of students, not professionals (even academic professionals). When I lived 1 mile from my office in town, I would bike instead of use the bus, because the bus didn't run on a schedule that would correspond to any of the 3 largest employers in town, catering to the schedules of students and senior citizens who need to get to mid morning/mid afternoon classes or shopping instead. I've seen university towns like you describe (or university areas of other towns), but that's not even close to universal, and many other university towns in my region are also very lacking in public transit.
nradov 4y ago
University towns are nice little "theme parks" for those who can afford them. In the real world we need things like ports, factories, and warehouses. I will not attempt to defend the bizarre excesses of the tech industry. But over a long enough time scale, tech companies have to either turn a profit or disappear so there is at least some grounding in objective reality. Whereas academia faces no such pressures, and many instructors teaching courses have never even worked outside that environment.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > But over a long enough time scale, tech companies have to either turn a profit or disappear so there is at least some grounding in objective reality. This is exactly what I'm talking about. The US Government subsidizes many industries, to the point where if those subsidies went away, those industries would not be profitable any longer (hence the subsidies). Yet, those industries, like say farming, are called the "real world" because they somehow I guess have a more objective interface with reality? It doesn't make sense. Well here's some objective reality: as a society, as with food, we understand we have to teach people, and there's no profit in that. On the other side, students demand results, and we give them, and earn a reputation for delivering. Colleges that don't deliver go under, and new colleges are formed all the time, so it's not even accurate that there are no forcing functions or grounding in reality. That some universities have been around for a century or more is a testament to their success in the marketplace, not evidence they are immune from market forces. And it's interesting that "profit" is always the measure used when one wants to prove that academia doesn't belong in this world. I mean, yeah, you're right. When you frame the world in terms of profit and loss, anything that makes a loss should just be done away with. Problem is then you end up in a world with no schools, hospitals, parks, community centers, museums, orchestras, art galleries, etc. In the real world, we need those things too.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Farm subsidies are generally stupid, but in the US at least most of those subsidies and price supports have been reduced or eliminated. Today the majority of farms receive zero subsidies. You're not going to get subsidized if you want to grow, let's say, pears or catfish. I don't expect schools to turn a profit. It's fine for them to be a bit disconnected from the real world. The point is that we shouldn't take ivory-tower academics seriously when they speak outside their narrow fields of expertise. The oldest universities tend to be the least subject to market forces. They obtain most of their revenue from grants, donations, and investment (endowment) gains. Relatively little comes from student tuition, and even that is mostly "other people's money". That's not necessarily a bad thing, but when a professor who has always worked in academia gives advice on urban planning I'm going to be highly skeptical.

Vrondi 4y ago

I am laughing hysterically at this from my university town with four campuses spread out over a hilly landscape, tons of traffic and limited public transportation schedules that would triple commute time for most workers. Things are set up to work for the irregular schedules of students, not professionals (even academic professionals). When I lived 1 mile from my office in town, I would bike instead of use the bus, because the bus didn't run on a schedule that would correspond to any of the 3 largest employers in town, catering to the schedules of students and senior citizens who need to get to mid morning/mid afternoon classes or shopping instead. I've seen university towns like you describe (or university areas of other towns), but that's not even close to universal, and many other university towns in my region are also very lacking in public transit.

nradov 4y ago

University towns are nice little "theme parks" for those who can afford them. In the real world we need things like ports, factories, and warehouses. I will not attempt to defend the bizarre excesses of the tech industry. But over a long enough time scale, tech companies have to either turn a profit or disappear so there is at least some grounding in objective reality. Whereas academia faces no such pressures, and many instructors teaching courses have never even worked outside that environment.

ModernMech 4y ago
> But over a long enough time scale, tech companies have to either turn a profit or disappear so there is at least some grounding in objective reality. This is exactly what I'm talking about. The US Government subsidizes many industries, to the point where if those subsidies went away, those industries would not be profitable any longer (hence the subsidies). Yet, those industries, like say farming, are called the "real world" because they somehow I guess have a more objective interface with reality? It doesn't make sense. Well here's some objective reality: as a society, as with food, we understand we have to teach people, and there's no profit in that. On the other side, students demand results, and we give them, and earn a reputation for delivering. Colleges that don't deliver go under, and new colleges are formed all the time, so it's not even accurate that there are no forcing functions or grounding in reality. That some universities have been around for a century or more is a testament to their success in the marketplace, not evidence they are immune from market forces. And it's interesting that "profit" is always the measure used when one wants to prove that academia doesn't belong in this world. I mean, yeah, you're right. When you frame the world in terms of profit and loss, anything that makes a loss should just be done away with. Problem is then you end up in a world with no schools, hospitals, parks, community centers, museums, orchestras, art galleries, etc. In the real world, we need those things too.
- nradov 4y ago
  Farm subsidies are generally stupid, but in the US at least most of those subsidies and price supports have been reduced or eliminated. Today the majority of farms receive zero subsidies. You're not going to get subsidized if you want to grow, let's say, pears or catfish. I don't expect schools to turn a profit. It's fine for them to be a bit disconnected from the real world. The point is that we shouldn't take ivory-tower academics seriously when they speak outside their narrow fields of expertise. The oldest universities tend to be the least subject to market forces. They obtain most of their revenue from grants, donations, and investment (endowment) gains. Relatively little comes from student tuition, and even that is mostly "other people's money". That's not necessarily a bad thing, but when a professor who has always worked in academia gives advice on urban planning I'm going to be highly skeptical.