Higher Education and Urbanity in Detroit

[drjeff]

I'll chime in here as a Johns Hopkins alumnus who lived in Baltimore for 8 years. There are a lot of colleges/universities in Baltimore city, but all of them are fairly small. Wayne State alone is probably larger than 3 or 4 of them put together. When I was at JHU, there were a total of about 4000 students. It's a bit bigger now, but only by a couple thousand.

Off the top of my head, here's a list of Baltimore colleges: Johns Hopkins, Loyola College, Notre Dame, U of Baltimore, U of Maryland at Baltimore, Goucher College, Coppin State, Morgan State. The latter two are historically black universities.

However, Johns Hopkins is the biggest private employer in the state of Maryland and gets the most research dollars of any university in the US. Therefore it draws a lot of educated people to the city and surrounding area. This probably contributes more to the city than the actual student population.

[casscorridor]

Baltimore and Philadelphia have struggled in their revival but are really nothing compared to Detroit, for they never reached the level of depopulation so severe as witnessed in the inner-city of Detroit.

Look at a satellite map of Detroit, Philadelphia and Baltimore at the same level. What do those cities have that is missing in Detroit? There are noticeably more buildings, the streets connect, there is a fluid connection between downtown and the neighborhoods. It is clear that there are many residents living in the neighborhoods around Bmor and Philly's downtowns. But thats just not true in Detroit.

Wayne State, although very large, has few students living in the central city relative to the student body, which is mostly commuters. I would say partly due to only recently having dorms, but more to do with the overall decline of the inner-city. Living and shopping and walking the streets of "downtown" is not something many people do in Detroit. Most drive off the freeway ramp and into parking lots or garages, quickly walk into the building/complex and repeat on the way out. And if they don't have an obligation to go downtown, such as school or work, they won't [[besides the occasional sports game or music event or associated trip to Greektown).

Of course some people still live and work and shop in the central city, but those are very few in comparison to how many people don't here in Metro Detroit and how many people DO in other cities. Would having more universities or colleges in the center of the city make any difference?

[iheartthed]

Baltimore and Philadelphia have struggled in their revival but are really nothing compared to Detroit, for they never reached the level of depopulation so severe as witnessed in the inner-city of Detroit.

Look at a satellite map of Detroit, Philadelphia and Baltimore at the same level. What do those cities have that is missing in Detroit? There are noticeably more buildings, the streets connect, there is a fluid connection between downtown and the neighborhoods. It is clear that there are many residents living in the neighborhoods around Bmor and Philly's downtowns. But thats just not true in Detroit.

I'm very familiar with Philadelphia, and while it does remind me of Detroit, there is a big difference between the two cities. The lack of college students in Detroit is only part of it, and not the cause IMO.