Surveys
University Expansion and Community Involvement: Balancing Town and Gown
Submitted by Jonathan Sills
Rockefeller University hosted last night's panel discussion When the Big Get Bigger: New York's Universities and Their Neighborhoods, which featured James Traub of The New York Times, Judith Rodin of the Rockefeller Foundation (former President of the University of Pennsylvania), Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, Hilary Ballon Vice-Chancellor of New York University, and Kent Barwick, President of the Municipal Art Society.
The panel was held against the back-drop of the expansion of several of the city's large universities into their neighborhoods - New York University in the vicinity of Washington Square, and Columbia University in Manhattanville/West Harlem. Much of the discussion centered on how these proposals should be managed with community involvement with Judith Rodin offering the University of Pennsylvania's campus expansion as an example. Issues of whether universities were obliged to relate to their neighbors in a certain way, given the linkages between the two, and the sense of mission that universities are there to "do good," were addressed, as was the point that even with a great deal of money and collaboration consensus over the development might not be possible.
A lively Q & A session followed with the audience posing some serious questions to the panelists. Click "post new comment" below to tell us what you thought of the discussion.
Audio Available
To listen to the panel discussion in full on your computer or to download to your mp3 player, click here. A video podcast of the event will be available to watch online on Friday.
The panel was covered by AtlanticYardsReport.com and NY Metro.
Comments
(Post new comment)What is the greater good?
Posted by Mary the LibrarianMonday, November 12, 2007, 10:16pm
Columbia University's expansion into West Harlem will take 17 acres off of the property tax rolls (taxes are only paid on non-mission-related uses, such as retail stores) as well as give them underground property that currently belongs to us all.
Does the good they promise (better paying jobs, possible cure for Alzheimer's) balance what they will receive in exchange?
Is taking both public and private property for this the right thing to do?
Town and Gown: Standard for Balance with Columbia?
Posted by Michael D.D. WhiteSunday, November 11, 2007, 01:25pm
Mine was the first question from the audience, the first part of it being "What Is the Standard for Saying `No' to Columbia in favor of the community?" That is based on the premise that Columbia is not thought of as being automatically entitled to everything that it may want, eminent domain being among a number of other significant and substantial of requests of the university.- Part two of the question is that if the standard for saying "No" to Columbia is set too low and is thereby too overly-generous to the school doesn't that force the institutions competing with Columbia to seek similar accommodations at the expense of their respective communities?
Having listened to Mr. Bollinger's response more than once I don't feel the question was answered and I would like to rephrase the question incorporating, for clarification, pertinent parts of the response.
Mr. Bollinger essentially skipped stating a standard for saying "No" to the university in favor of the community. Without articulating a standard (or saying whether he thought it should be high or low) he said he thought the standard the university was meeting in order to have its "different vision" supersede the community's was, in fact, "high." He did assert that the University vision was more realistic than the community's vision. Respecting a significant ingredient, eminent domain, requested by the university in its envisioned package, Mr. Bollinger equated its use by Columbia with the use of eminent domain for the creation of public streets and parks. The standard for using eminent domain to create streets and parks owned the public and maintained by the government, in accordance with the originally recognized purposes of eminent domain could arguably be the lowest of possible standards, lower than one would likely think might need to apply when eminent domain is being used instead to require the involuntary transfers of private property from one private owner to another private owner when those forced transfers are also contrary to the local community's choice. As he spoke in favor of this concept Mr. Bollinger described the University as a "nonprofit institution trying to do things for the public good" possibly thereby equating it, perhaps without distinction, with the government or the public at least for this purpose.
Mr. Bollinger, pointed out however, that the university proposes to use eminent domain only against a subdivided sector of the community residents constituting commercial enterprises and not against "individuals"- Individuals will be affected by Colombia's use of eminent domain but only to the extent that commercial enterprises they own or work for are involved in the possession of private property Columbia wants. While Columbia's vision involves the removal of everyone residing in the area, not just the businesses against which eminent domain would be used, the technical distinction about the use of eminent domain for this one subdivided sector and not another is possible because those residing in the area will be removed using other mechanisms working through their landlords.
(During the evening there was discussion about whether it was incumbent upon big and powerful institutions, through self-awareness and social consciousness, to exercise self-restraint when their interests conflict with those of the community. If that is so then awareness and ability to articulate a standard for balance is probably that much more important.)
I think Mr. Bollinger's response leaves it that Columbia is to be allowed to override the community for an unarticulated standard that might actually be very low at least when it comes to using eminent domain to involuntarily reallocate the right to own property amongst private sector owners. What Columbia is proposing overall involves big concessions, not only eminent domain, but substantial tailored zoning increases, monopolistic monoculture ownership of seventeen acres, acquisition of public streets, and an extended drawn-out period of construction and "planner's blight" forced upon the community.
That then brings me back to part two of my question: if Columbia is treated too generously and the standard for"No" to Columbia is set too low, won't that force the institutions competing with Columbia to seek similar accommodations at the expense of their respective communities? Can we imagine what would happen if NYU, Fordham, or the scores of other schools in the city were to similarly ask for such substantial concessions over the objection of their communities? And if we imagine that their requests are not to be treated similarly, what message does that send?
Assessing Realism of Alternative Plans for Columbia Expansion
Posted by Michael D. D. WhiteSunday, November 11, 2007, 12:49pm
The Columbia plan which Mr. Bollinger described as more realistic than the community’s plan is predicated upon being able to see far into speculative future decades over which it would be built with bets about the future of science and involves the Jules Vernean construction of a massive common basement referred to as the `bathtub’ (seven stories deep in some areas) which Mr, Bollinger describes as genius. Reference to a vintage science fiction writer to describe this aspect of the Columbia proposal is appropriate in that Columbia’s basement bathtub design reflects urban planning designs that were futuristic more than a half century ago but which were rarely pursued and with no notable examples of success that I can think of. The reality of the community plan is predicated on respectfully treating as material the actually existing businesses whose current economic vitality is measurable by the fact that they are not choosing to sell their land to Columbia.
The Columbia plan would entail an immediate shifting of rights, benefits, and expectations of real estate wealth to Columbia for future use based upon envisionings still much on the horizon. The community plan provides a framework to move forward into the future with steps being taken and negotiated in a familiar and time-tested fashion as the actual future materializes in real-time fashion.
Perception of which plan might be more real is doubtless influenced by the fact that, as with Atlantic Yards, there is substantial money being spent on selective picture-pretty renderings of a speculative future by a well-endowed entity seeking to acquire a vast swath of real estate at prices significantly reduced by the use of eminent domain coordinated with government accommodations of after-the-fact zoning increases. But, pictures and good production values do not equal “WYSIWYG” (What You See is What You Get). Good production values can be deceptively convincing without underlying foundations of truth. For example one need only harken back to another vintage science fiction writer and his namesake’s work, to remember Orson Welles’ broadcast of H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.”
Past and present promises
Posted by Mary the LibrarianSaturday, November 10, 2007, 08:38am
Columbia purchased the former Sheffield Farms pasteurization and bottling plant on W. 125th St. in 1949 to become the anchor for a new engineering campus in Manhattanville. The university did convert the plant to a very specialized lab for the testing of fuel assemblies for nuclear power plants, but the vision of a multi-million dollar (1950s dollars) engineering campus never materialized.
What guarantees are there that this time, after all the controversy and confrontation, after all the demolition and displacement, the new biotechnology campus will actually be built?
What obligations do universities in particular have to build what they promise?
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