From shared-use sports venues to mixed-use campuses, at least in title.

The session was called "Beyond the Books: Creating Sustainable Mixed-Use College Campuses." Sounds like the college campus will get used by folks in the community, right?

Well, it turned out to be useful, but not quite what I had anticipated. Subject matter was more about how the college or university can facilitate off-campus development, of which a major beneficiary will be the college or university.

Cases in point:

• The University of Chicago, whose nominal home town consisted strictly of residential space, no retail, no services
• Tidewater Community College, whose campus was in the middle of a downtown area inhabited strictly by hi-rise office towers (and which totally died evenings and weekends)
• UConn, which felt the need for Storrs to be a real town, with retail, and residential, and market spaces, and all that
• UCSB, which suffered from being imposed on a pre-existing community in such a manner that there was a sharp boundary between "us" and "them".

The planning considerations, the various processes, the techniques discussed all seem likely to apply to any university (like Greenback) which wishes to revitalize its campus and its surroundings. With only a few minutes between sessions though, I can't worry about that now. I'll worry about that tomorrow. Or next week. Or sometime.

Later.