Time to Embrace Boston's Students

A Boston Globe editorial from November 16, 2007 does an exceptional job describing how important the educational and medical community is to Boston. "The area's eight major research universities boast an annual economic impact of more than $7 billion. Universities and their affiliated hospitals include more than one third of the state's 25 largest employers. They compete fiercely for prestigious faculty members, research grants, and the most talented students from around the nation. They are, without a doubt, one of Boston's world-class assets, both economically and culturally."

However this "economic and cultural" importance is often ignored by Boston residents, sure the student populations will destroy the very fabric of their neighborhoods. While Mumbles the Mayor has pushed colleges to build more dorms, he has also reversed himself when it become clear that position is not a popular one.

By the next month the Mayor had done an "about face" his original pro-dorm position and came out against a newly proposed Suffolk University dorm. According to the December 27, 2006 article: "We have been hearing loud and clear that dormitory use is inappropriate for that location. The mayor has heard that," Boston Redevelopment Authority director Mark Maloney said yesterday. "By and large, we do want students to be in dormitories," he added. But, "hearing from so many neighbors about the difficulties of living in a community with Suffolk students, we concluded it was not good for town-and-gown relations."

Local schools including Suffolk University, Emerson College, Boston College and Harvard University all have plans for expansion into the neighborhoods they call home. Perhaps the most troublesome of the Mayor's office and the Boston Redevelopment Authority is there inability to stand up to the neighborhood associations. When Emerson College began the Paramount Center Project and renovations to the Colonial Building there was no protest by the neighborhood, as the location, the former Combat Zone is still an "up and coming area" and the city is happy to have Emerson College fund its resurgence.

For Suffolk University and Boston College however, expansion has been met with great resistance. As recently as yesterday The Boston Globe was reporting that the Boston Redevelopment Authority was asking BC to contain the building of new dorms to the existing campus.

If Boston wants to continue to grow as a city, we need to embrace our student populations. The best way for us to do this is to commit to making the students feel like a part of our neighborhoods, rather then a blight on them. The students of Boston is what makes our city so strong, diverse and unique. It's time the city stands up to the overly vocal few in the neighborhood civic associations and do what's right for Boston.