Traveling to older cities on the east coast I have noticed how many more universities and colleges are located within the actual cities. In Michigan, our universities tend to be spread haphazardly around, usually in rural areas or small towns.

Take Baltimore for example [[which is often compared to Detroit). They have a student population of over 60,000 at ten or so institutions of higher learning. Most of them are located in/near the center of the city. Now look at Detroit, we have a student population of around 40,000. But only WSU and CCS are located within the central city [[aprox 34,000 students, 32k from WSU).

That is a large difference, and Detroit has been a much larger city than Baltimore until recently. Baltimore's CBD population is also double Detroit's, at around 12,000 and there are many more residents living within a mile of Downtown than in Detroit. It is not uncommon to 50% + vacancy blocks from Detroit's CBD.

Now for a second imagine what our city would be like if UM stayed in Detroit, which alone has has many students as all of Detroit's universities and colleges combined. Or rather if UM-Dearborn was UM-Detroit, with its 8,634 students. Or Eastern Michigan University with its 23,000 students. Or if one of the new-build universities such as Oakland University [[19,000+ students) Grand Valley [[24,500+) or Ferris State [[14,381) or Saginaw Valley [[10,656) was located here. The billions of dollars invested into public universities in Michigan is amazing, but what if even a shred of it was invested into building a second public university in Detroit? Even if just one of those universities was located within the central city, the impact would be unparalleled.

I remember my high school graduating class, and only about 5 or so students out of 500 went to WSU or any college within Detroit. Hundreds went to Western, Central, and Grand Valley. What if they, and the thousands upon thousands like them, instead went to a university within Detroit?! The impact would be thousands of more people living Downtown, hundreds of new businesses, etc. Maybe Detroit wouldn't be so destroyed. Maybe the population loss wouldn't have been so large and rapid. Maybe we would have even seen a rebound. Maybe there wouldn't be so many suburbs. Maybe having more students would have made it worth it to keep/build mass transit.

Just sayin' -- Baltimore is often compared to Detroit has a rough city, but it is actually much more vibrant and livable than Detroit, with much higher density and more residents and students in the central city.