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Which is at odds with what you were saying in the OP.
So then what are you complaining about exactly?
See my points above. Basically, since campuses are designed to be nearly carfree, they should be built as miniature "walking cities" (European style) not as if they are parks.
Dorms and classrooms in the same building would lead to shenanigans.
Maybe. But you could always have separate entrances, similar to how if you have a second-floor loft you don't need to go through a first-floor business to get in.
I realized another way a more urbanist style would help. Traditionally, because so much of what happens in the dorms is inside, there needs to be Resident Assistants and Resident Directors who essentially police the insides of the dorms. In contrast, campus security polices the outside. But if you build on a more medium-density urban scale, you could make dorms smaller and more numerous - rowhouse or flatlike, and push more of the socializing out into the streets. This means campus security could pretty much handle things themselves, as what's not happening in the open would be close enough to the street to be heard.
Maybe it's a climate thing, but where I went to school, as much of dorm life happened outside the dorm as inside--and RAs and campus police had two different roles (RAs were there to manage lower-level social problems that cops don't handle at all, the campus police were there to take care of the serious stuff) but the police definitely functioned inside the dorms as well as outside.
I agree that most of it has been accomplished. The ringing parking is honestly the best solution. On my own campus most parking was at the edge of the campus, with only campus employees able to park in the few spaces adjacent to buildings.
I just feel like they could have gone the extra mile, and for example:
1. Eschewed towers (which are ridiculously high-density for the settings of most colleges) and used more 3-6 story buildings which were placed more densely.
2. Made buildings setback from paths much more limited, so that they sat directly on "alleys" or at most were pushed back a few feet. As a result, classroom buildings could be set much closer together, and walking commutes shortened.
3. Kept green space to easily usable "parks" - perhaps with a New England "village green" model. In my experience, it's really only the green space directly around the campus centers which is used by students for recreation. The rest is just seen as an impediment to be trudged past.
4. Experimented more with "live/study" models. Although dorms are usually placed near the classroom buildings, they're seldom interwoven as they would be in a real mixed-use neighborhood. Hell, experimenting with dorms on the upper floors, and classrooms below, would be interesting as well.
At minimum, such a system would lead to much shorter walking commutes for students. It would also allow for a denser campus, which would save the university money in terms of having to acquire new land. Given what I know about urban design, and what students found desirable versus undesirable about on-campus housing when I was in school, I think most students would like such a system more as well. And I think paradoxically it would be much easier for schools to police bad behavior if campuses were set up in such a "neighborhood" format.
What is with this mania for increased density, all the time? Good grief! What's wrong with a little, or a lot, of green space? What's wrong with the dorms and classrooms being separate, too? Not everyone wants to "live above the store". One of my daughters went to a college that required virtually all students to live in the dorms. They used to like to go into "town" to get out of the "bubble".
Quote:
Originally Posted by wburg
Maybe it's a climate thing, but where I went to school, as much of dorm life happened outside the dorm as inside--and RAs and campus police had two different roles (RAs were there to manage lower-level social problems that cops don't handle at all, the campus police were there to take care of the serious stuff) but the police definitely functioned inside the dorms as well as outside.
RAs really have no "police" power at all. (My daughter was an RA.) Insofar as crime goes, they are more like "neighborhood watch" people who see and report, period. RAs enforce dorm rules, like quiet hours, things like that. If they see someone committing an actual crime, they report it.
Which is at odds with what you were saying in the OP.
So then what are you complaining about exactly?
It makes sense if this campus is UMass Amherst. Horrible design with towers in the park and arterials on the edges but there are so many people it has good transit and little close parking.
Humbdolt State University (Arcata) was one postwar campus I've seen that looks good, is pedestrian friendly. No clue how good transit is though.
What is with this mania for increased density, all the time? Good grief! What's wrong with a little, or a lot, of green space? What's wrong with the dorms and classrooms being separate, too? Not everyone wants to "live above the store". One of my daughters went to a college that required virtually all students to live in the dorms. They used to like to go into "town" to get out of the "bubble".
Mania? I don't understand what's so strange about it?
I think of it as a mania for low density in the postwar era. Nothing wrong with green space, and the traditional colleges often had quite a bit of green space. The "village green" model as eschaton mentioned seemed to work quite well. But if you have large tracts of green space it makes more annoying to walk to class, walk to meet other college students. And for many college students, walking is the only way they are getting around campus. The university I went to had plenty of green space without creating barriers.
I think the idea of having classrooms and dorms is unnecessary and could have unpleasant surprises.
See my points above. Basically, since campuses are designed to be nearly carfree, they should be built as miniature "walking cities" (European style) not as if they are parks.
Why? They aren't even built like that in Europe, so your Europhile solution would logically be to build them like Universities in Europe. Ironically, that's pretty much how most US universities were built and the tradition is still strongly seen. One would think your Europhilean urges would be sated since they are modeled after bucolic universities such as Cambridge or Oxford.
Your predominant argument seems to be without reason beyond "because it's what Europe does." If you have some argument as to why universities should look like crowded European streets, you haven't really made it. Of course, I very much like the bucolic nature of universities. I enjoyed my years spent banally trudging from class to class, spent sprawled on the grass. I also enjoyed those crowded European streets, but I'm with conventional wisdom on this one. I had more than a few Eureka moments shared with a nice patch of grass, a shade tree, and my engineering books. Sitting on some hard cobblestones while people curse at me for being in the way I just don't feel would work too well for me.
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