Regulating the Social Impacts of Studentification: A Loughborough Case Study

Abstract

Now a recognised phenomenon in many British cities, studentification is the process by which specific neighbourhoods become dominated by student residential occupation. Outlining the causes and consequences of this process, this paper suggests that studentification raises important questions about community cohesiveness and that intervention may be required by local authorities if social and cultural conflicts are to be avoided. Detailing the social impacts of studentification in Loughborough, a market town in the English East Midlands, the paper accordingly considers recent housing policies designed to prevent the formation of exclusive ‘student ghettos’. The paper concludes by suggesting that the type of ‘threshold analysis’ utilised in Loughborough may well spread students more thinly across a city, but that the relationship between students and the wider community requires other forms of regulation if town–university tensions are to be effectively managed. Throughout, comparison is made between the Loughborough and other UK university towns where the challenges and opportunities associated with studentification have been differently addressed.