Post-studentification? Promises and pitfalls of a near-campus urban intensification strategy.

Abstract

The concentration of students in neighbourhoods through processes of studentification has often precipitated conflicts with other residents centred on behavioural issues and perceived neighbourhood decline. Dominant policy responses have been exclusive in nature, attempting to restrict where students can live or to encourage them to live in purpose-built student accommodation in designated areas. Drawing primarily on interviews with key informants in Waterloo, Canada, I examine a process of ‘post-studentification’ where non-student residents are instead integrated into student-dominated neighbourhoods through urban intensification, promoted by an alternative policy approach. I outline this process and its links to other forms of urban change. Despite the promise of a more inclusive strategy to mitigate the challenges of studentification, I find that post-studentification is subject to several pitfalls related to local planning objectives, local contingencies and inequalities with respect to class, age and gender.