Universities and Cities

Abstract

I N RECENT years many urban universities have decided that life in the city is one of the assets of civilization. Some of them are developing new attitudes toward the potentials of their city sites, toward their neighborhood environments, and toward local urban-renewal policies. It would be incorrect to claim that a permanent peace has ended warfare between universities and cities; the current state of affairs is more like a truce. The war has never been very fierce, and neither party has gained many worth-while objectives. The strategy of the universities has been characterized either by retreat before the advance of the city or by voluntary isolation from it. The tactics of the universities and their scholars have been limited to occasional sallies from their ivory towers to throw fine intellectual dust, verbal pebbles, and occasionally a useful critical rock at the follies of cities. For their part, city officials and most citizens hardly knew that the universities were there. They did little or nothing to preserve and advance educational institutions when they were threatened by physical and social change in the city. Now, during the suspension of hostilities brought about by a recognition of common interests, some urban universities and city governments have begun to negotiate the terms of a limited truce and joint action in city-university renewal. In I959, rapprochement between universities and cities was assisted by the passage of Section I I2, an amendment to the National Housing Act. This legislation encourages a limited partnership between the city and the university in urban-renewal projects of direct concern to both. A city may receive credit for recent acquisition of university land and relocation expenditures near an urban-renewal project as part of its share of the cost of federally aided renewal projects. The Association of American Universities was very active in securing passage of this legislation. Urban universities needed more effective urban-renewal programs in their own back yards. In the ten years before the adoption of Section II2, many urban universities had benefited directly or indirectly from urban-renewal programs. Land cleared in urban-renewal projects was sold for campus