Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays25
I generally disagree. Downtown's aren't spring-break Florida. Most colleges and college students aren't elitist. It's a downtown so parking next to the coffee shop isn't relevant.
A great downtown (or greater downtown area) is full of lots of types of people doing lots of different things at lots of different times--office workers, shoppers, residents, event-goers, and so on. That helps keep the sidewalks busy and allows are greater variety of retail to thrive. College students tend to be out and about at odd times, so the sidewalks are a little busier at 10:00 am on a weekday, dives can stay open later, and there's more general life.
Since we're talking more about annexes rather than major campuses, this effect is typically muted. But it's still a very positive factor in any downtown. That said, where major campuses do exist, they can help create dense urban districts of their own (ideally ones leavened with enough other uses to stay busy in the summers).
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Something I know from my experience here is that if the large campuses are adjacent to but not in the downtown, the students add to the mix without overwhelming anything. Three large universities are located a short subway ride away from Center City Philadelphia. Two of them are next to each other just on the other side of the Schuylkill, and the third (which has more commuter students) is located about 10 minutes by subway or car north of Center City.
Smaller specialized schools can fit right in. Two of them, one a medical school and the other a school devoted to the visual and performing arts, are located smack in the middle of Center City.
Of course, this probably requires a big enough downtown with lots of residents to work. New York's two are big enough to have a large university (New York University) and a design school (Cooper Union) wedged in between them. Philadelphia has the third-biggest downtown residential population in the country, so the other people who come into it don't define it, not even the office workers.
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