New towns from gowns : urban form and placemaking at college campuses

At the beginning of the 21st century, colleges and universities have realized that they need to have more than a well-planned campus and top-ranked academic programs to attract students and faculty. Rather, they need to have a complementary "town/gown" relationship with their host community. The "college town" -a quintessentially American ideal city formcan provide a very high quality of life, both for students of college-age and for faculty, alumni, and retirees who choose to live in these towns. But what if the existing town falls short? In recent years, several universities in North America have sought to remedy perceived deficiencies in their "college towns" by going into the town planning business-planning new neighborhoods, new commercial centers, or even whole new towns adjacent to their campuses. They are quite literally engaged in "placemaking" and they are developing these new neighborhoods and communities in the shadow of fundamentally place-based institutions. Furthermore, as universities seek to expand their physical campuses, they often find themselves entering the field of real estate development-buying up land, developing it, and trying to find the optimal fit between the existing campus, the existing town, and new development.This thesis explores this new phenomenon through profiles of four projects: The Ohio State University and the South Campus Gateway (Columbus, Ohio), the University of Connecticut and Storrs Center (Storrs, Connecticut), Hendrix College and The Village at Hendrix (Conway, Arkansas), and Simon Fraser University and UniverCity (Burnaby, British Columbia).

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Stout, Amanda C. (Amanda Caroline)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John de Monchaux.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44345

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/44345