Town-gown relations: A New Haven case study

Keywords: Town-gown, uneven development, payment in lieu of taxes, community benefit agreement, tax exemption, urban geography, New Haven
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 38

Abstract

As globalization and technology makes it easier to connect the world, the competition for every kind of labor has skyrocketed. Enrollment to universities has increased, as dictated by necessity, to compete with the hopes of a place in the middle class. Universities are meeting this call through expansion, contributing to the already existing town-gown tension. This friction is rooted in the unilateral nature of the relationship which manifest typically in one of two ways: increasing student access to community resources or investment in the shared physical landscapes. However, many universities are tax-exempt and often have payment in lieu of taxes programs or community benefit agreements instead. This affects the local economy of the host city, leading to uneven development. In the first case, social capital gets extracted from the community as students use the town as training sites while in the second case, the shared landscapes that get beautified are typically not the areas of the host city that is in disrepair. This study focuses on the latter in the context of New Haven, Connecticut and Yale University. Using ArcGIS, New Haven parcel data is joined with Grand List data to show the university’s footprint in 2007 and 2019, illustrating the growth over that time. This is paired with annual budget data from the university and the host city to contextualize the economic status of each. The study aims to add to existing literature on town-gown strife so to encourage steps towards a more spatially and financially equitable univer“city".