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In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities
In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower the author takes us a journey from Hartford to Chicago, from Phoenix to Manhattan, using the stories of ever-expanding campuses to illustrate the increasingly parasitic relationship between higher education and our cities. As scholar and author Davarian L. Baldwin illustrates, urban planners have used the model of the university campus as a blueprint for the city as a whole. Through conversations with city leaders, low-wage workers tending to students' needs, and local activists fighting encroachment, Baldwin makes clear who benefits from unchecked university power -- and who is left especially vulnerable.
In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower is a wake-up call to the reality that higher education is no longer the ubiquitous public good it was once thought to be. But as Baldwin shows, there is an alternative vision for campus life and urban life, one that centers a more equitable relationship between our cities and our universities.
In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower is a wake-up call to the reality that higher education is no longer the ubiquitous public good it was once thought to be. But as Baldwin shows, there is an alternative vision for campus life and urban life, one that centers a more equitable relationship between our cities and our universities.
213 pages, Hardcover
First published March 30, 2021
41 people are currently reading
2497 people want to read
About the author
Davarian L. Baldwin
4 books21 followersDavarian L. Baldwin is a historian, cultural critic, and social theorist of urban America.
Baldwin was Associate Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College and Professor of American Studies at Tinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
Degrees:
Ph.D., New York Univ. (2001)
M.A., New York Univ. (1997)
B.A., Marquette Univ. (1995)
Baldwin was Associate Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College and Professor of American Studies at Tinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
Degrees:
Ph.D., New York Univ. (2001)
M.A., New York Univ. (1997)
B.A., Marquette Univ. (1995)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
December 3, 2020
To sum up this book in one quote: "The university has shifted from being one small, noble part of the city to serving as a model for the city itself." Baldwin seeks to address the growing disparity between large, influential universities and colleges with the local communities that surround them.
I think the University as a corporation invading and governing community policy decisions is such a fascinating and under-addressed concept in the modern era. The drive for larger profit margins and higher student enrollment are clearly pushing universities out of a space of higher learning and into a much seedier place of backroom real estate deals and grandstanding medical facilities.
While there were parts of this book that had me emphatically nodding along and saying "YES!" , the amount I agreed coincided almost in a near 1:1 ratio of me disagreeing wholeheartedly with other points made or solutions offered. Now let me be clear: that is perfectly okay. I didn't read this book with the thought that I would completely agree and I enjoyed the new perspectives I hadn't considered that this book brought to my attention. However, I wanted so much MORE.
A few such instances include Baldwin hinting at the ways in which universities build their brands/research interests often on the backs of free or exploited student labor. I also thought his one brief sentence on how many universities force first-year students to live on campus or have student meal plans was integral to his belief that universities wish to remain exclusive and keep students safely contained (and therefore not interacting much with the larger city) but these ideas were so glossed over for a focus on race relations that it grew a bit repetitive.
In large part, I think my hesitations with this book stem from how it is formatted. I wish Baldwin had set the chapters up topically, rather than by school. The chapters felt a bit disjointed and like the points weren't being hammered home because it felt a bit all over the place to me. You want to talk about how campus police are affecting larger urban communities? Have a chapter on it and reference the schools that stand out with issues in this area.
I also really wanted statistics and what I was presented with was a lot of anecdotal evidence from residents and university workers about how these universities were interacting well or poorly with their surrounding communities. While all of that is fine, I think a better structure and more statistical evidence would have greatly added to the author's arguments in the book. Otherwise, I didn't walk away agreeing with his perspectives on many things.
Overall, an interesting read. I think the only thing this book did for me is make me more conscious there is a problem with universities acting as governing bodies without much oversight, but the author's arguments did not at all convince me that his solutions are the right ones.
I suspect people who love focusing on problems through a racial lens will thoroughly enjoy this book, but I personally felt it could have been so much more.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I think the University as a corporation invading and governing community policy decisions is such a fascinating and under-addressed concept in the modern era. The drive for larger profit margins and higher student enrollment are clearly pushing universities out of a space of higher learning and into a much seedier place of backroom real estate deals and grandstanding medical facilities.
While there were parts of this book that had me emphatically nodding along and saying "YES!" , the amount I agreed coincided almost in a near 1:1 ratio of me disagreeing wholeheartedly with other points made or solutions offered. Now let me be clear: that is perfectly okay. I didn't read this book with the thought that I would completely agree and I enjoyed the new perspectives I hadn't considered that this book brought to my attention. However, I wanted so much MORE.
A few such instances include Baldwin hinting at the ways in which universities build their brands/research interests often on the backs of free or exploited student labor. I also thought his one brief sentence on how many universities force first-year students to live on campus or have student meal plans was integral to his belief that universities wish to remain exclusive and keep students safely contained (and therefore not interacting much with the larger city) but these ideas were so glossed over for a focus on race relations that it grew a bit repetitive.
In large part, I think my hesitations with this book stem from how it is formatted. I wish Baldwin had set the chapters up topically, rather than by school. The chapters felt a bit disjointed and like the points weren't being hammered home because it felt a bit all over the place to me. You want to talk about how campus police are affecting larger urban communities? Have a chapter on it and reference the schools that stand out with issues in this area.
I also really wanted statistics and what I was presented with was a lot of anecdotal evidence from residents and university workers about how these universities were interacting well or poorly with their surrounding communities. While all of that is fine, I think a better structure and more statistical evidence would have greatly added to the author's arguments in the book. Otherwise, I didn't walk away agreeing with his perspectives on many things.
Overall, an interesting read. I think the only thing this book did for me is make me more conscious there is a problem with universities acting as governing bodies without much oversight, but the author's arguments did not at all convince me that his solutions are the right ones.
I suspect people who love focusing on problems through a racial lens will thoroughly enjoy this book, but I personally felt it could have been so much more.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
January 16, 2022
the organization of this book probably could have been a bit better (centering chapters around schools but then throwing in related examples regardless of timeline was a bit confusing at times -- perhaps organizing by topic would have been clearer, although I enjoyed the regional storylines), but I’m rounding up bc I think every college student should read this. this reframed my view of what relationships between universities and communities could/should be (who benefits / who bears the burdens?) and I’ll definitely be reflecting a lot more on my own actions and assumptions, esp re living in such a college-heavy city.
October 10, 2021
The strongest parts of this book are the in-depth analyses of university cities, which I thought were incisive and thought provoking. I was predisposed to agree with the author beforehand, though I do think that he provides ample evidence for his claims.
The structure of this book (focusing chapters on individual universities rather than distinct subtopics) made it feel a bit repetitive. I was also left wondering how smaller colleges are implicated in these issues, since the author only discusses large universities.
My biggest problem with this book, and what made it fall short for me, was the last chapter, in which the author attempts to provide some solutions to the problem of universities acting like real estate developers and decimating entire communities. His solution to this issue seems to be that universities should still be developers … but just include the community? He says that universities should pay cities for services instead of paying taxes, and he’s really wishy-washy on the police problem (unarmed community safety group would be best, but if we have to have police, train them more—as if more money to campus police will help?).
Clearly there’s some disconnect between his analysis and the solutions offered. My takeaway, which I think comes logically from the first part of the book, was that universities should simply not be allowed to act as real estate developers or function as private corporations that monopolize political power. Why should a university provide housing, when it is a private institution that is not a part of democratic governance? That won’t solve anything.
In short—no more corporatized university, and no more tax breaks/exemptions.
The structure of this book (focusing chapters on individual universities rather than distinct subtopics) made it feel a bit repetitive. I was also left wondering how smaller colleges are implicated in these issues, since the author only discusses large universities.
My biggest problem with this book, and what made it fall short for me, was the last chapter, in which the author attempts to provide some solutions to the problem of universities acting like real estate developers and decimating entire communities. His solution to this issue seems to be that universities should still be developers … but just include the community? He says that universities should pay cities for services instead of paying taxes, and he’s really wishy-washy on the police problem (unarmed community safety group would be best, but if we have to have police, train them more—as if more money to campus police will help?).
Clearly there’s some disconnect between his analysis and the solutions offered. My takeaway, which I think comes logically from the first part of the book, was that universities should simply not be allowed to act as real estate developers or function as private corporations that monopolize political power. Why should a university provide housing, when it is a private institution that is not a part of democratic governance? That won’t solve anything.
In short—no more corporatized university, and no more tax breaks/exemptions.
March 29, 2021
Baldwin looks at how universities take from cities without giving back to the cities as a whole. He looks at how they are large tax-exempt organizations that use city services without paying into them. In addition, in order to expand their urban campuses they often displace marginalized people and then create walled cities that the people they kicked out are not allowed to access. This also often results in policing of the communities surrounding the campus to "protect" the students from the people who actually live in the city. Each chapter focuses on one particular issue using one major university as an example. Although Johns Hopkins wasn't one of the universities he focused on it pretty much comes up in every chapter, which was very relatable to me as someone who lives in Baltimore and has seen all these issues play out in this city. He does also provide some examples at the end of universities who are trying to be better neighbors and truly integrate themselves into the cities they are a part of to give a sort of blue print on where universities can and should go from here.
February 23, 2021
informative read on 'hedge funds that conduct classes' and how their nonprofit status exempts them from regulation in their private urban development schemes that affect the public space..
March 22, 2021
I started this book feeling a bit defensive, but mostly agreeing with the premise and curious which direction this argument would go. Dr. Baldwin covered a lot of ground, but it also left me with a lot of questions about the broader relationships between universities and the cities they inhabit throughout the country. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower is an excellent qualitative and almost ethnographic work that gets into very specific detail about how the universities mentioned manipulate their capital and tax-exempt status for private benefit, but it seems vulnerable to a cherry-picked argument.
Dr. Baldwin presents his argument in profiles. He begins with an examination of Yale and the way it has, in his words, come to "swallow" New Haven. It is the largest single employer, one of the largest landlords, and has come to provide almost all medical care (and insurance, by virtue of being such a large employer). He offers a terrifying glimpse of the repercussions of this when it collides with a university mental health policy that is arguably illegal in its breadth of definition of "harm to self or others" when students, faculty, and staff cannot access adequate care that is not provided by their school/employer. In an unfortunately common situation where a graduate student experiencing what is described as moderate suicidality cannot access treatment without seeing a university provider using their university-owned health insurance, he is admitted involuntarily to a university hospital where he is treated by--get this--one of his own professors. And this care team then reaches out to his advisor for information about his academic performance, sharing information in a way that sounds like it violates the spirit of both HIPAA and FERPA by keeping that information only within its own university system. While university-provided student health insurance is becoming much less the norm in the wake of the Affordable Care Act, this is still a huge concern for faculty and staff, to which I can personally attest. He also talks a lot about unjust labor practices in this first chapter.
In the second chapter, Dr. Baldwin examines Trinity College (where he is currently on faculty). He focuses on the public access and public benefit relationships with the surrounding community, and how the university routinely overpromises in that regard. From ice rinks to concerts to day care centers, the university time and again made promises to the community it did not keep. The capstone example is a magnet middle school that Trinity developed as part of its Learning Corridor, a project that came at huge community expense, and never paid the dividends it promised:
When houses needed to be demolished to complete the project, Perez used the third-party Lemquil Realty or bought them through SINA so that owners wouldn't jack up the prices after realizing the properties were for Trinity. Dobelle and Perez promised the community that 50 percent of the slots at the middle school would be reserved for kids from the 06106 and 06114 zip codes. It never happened. The student split ended up being 50 percent from the suburbs and the other half from Hartford more broadly.
In chapter three, Dr. Baldwin takes on the eminent domain projects of Columbia (that dealt a devastating blow to Harlem) and NYU (which took a completely different tone when dealing with an affluent white community, but still culminated in the same result). In a manner nothing short of insidious, Columbia was able to buy up parcels in the surrounding neighborhood and leave them vacant for years in order to establish the community as a "blight" and then seize it under eminent domain, even as a private institution as long as it promised a public benefit. And instead of having an independent review determine if the neighborhood had been blighted, Columbia was able to pay for the blight study itself. But the public benefit it promised was assuredly vague--neuroscience research, etc. It dismissed out of hand the idea that it owed anything to the community from which it seized the property, saying "We are trying to do things that help the world more broadly. The community is not everything." And despite consulting a community advisory board that voted 73-22 against the expansion project, Columbia pushed ahead full steam and devastated Harlem.
Chapter four gets into a topic that feels perhaps the most timely: police brutality and overreach by campus police departments. Focusing primarily on the University of Chicago, with nods to other institutions. UCPD has one of the largest private security forces in the world, including 100 sworn officers and a "legion" of private security guards. And despite being offered jurisdiction extending well beyond campus boundaries, this private force (along with most university police forces) is exempt from federal oversight, including the reporting of Terry stops and other data required under the Freedom of Information Act. Even after a University of Cincinnati police officer killed Samuel DuBose during a routine traffic stop in 2015, universities have resisted their police departments being required to report this information. And yet as campus police encounter people suspected of committing crimes, students are typically referred to university administration for discipline, while community members (often people of color) are processed through the criminal justice system. And while the murder of George Floyd and resulting uprising has made it politically unpopular in the last year to start up or expand a campus police force, little has been done to shrink the power of those that already exist.
In the fifth and final chapter, Dr. Baldwin turns to Arizona State University's downtown campus and the insular community it created that closed off revenue streams for the small businesses that it relied on to pay the majority of property taxes in the area as it sheltered large corporations from having to pay any through a complex web of contracts and tax breaks. Most alarmingly, they even leased out their public land to private corporations like State Farm, exempting them from property taxes in exchange for direct payments to the university that the state had no jurisdiction to place any spending restrictions on. The entire downtown campus project reeks of for-profit real estate investment couched in a pretense of offering some higher education. Dr. Baldwin so sharply highlights the way even the language used by administrators and developers on the project gives away its neocolonialist motives.
For the epilogue, Dr. Baldwin takes us across the border to Winnipeg to demonstrate what responsive community engagement can look like for a university (and it is dreamy). He offers six recommendations for "building a better urban future" including city-enforced payments in lieu of taxes, community benefits agreements, community-based planning and zoning boards, just and equitable public safety, fair labor practices, and profit sharing of athletic revenues. Only the last of these felt to me under-supported by the book, and overall, I found these suggestions extremely insightful and appropriate.
Overall, I do have to acknowledge that I feel like there is some significant overgeneralization at play. But even in their own individual contexts, these are stories worth telling, and having now lived in eight states, I can attest that all of the universities in the towns and cities where I have lived have erred much closer to the profit-seeking models described in the bulk of this book than the engaged model of the University of Winnipeg presented at the end. These concerns are substantial and all of us who are part of these university communities need to take note.
Much appreciation to PublicAffairs and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for the review.
Dr. Baldwin presents his argument in profiles. He begins with an examination of Yale and the way it has, in his words, come to "swallow" New Haven. It is the largest single employer, one of the largest landlords, and has come to provide almost all medical care (and insurance, by virtue of being such a large employer). He offers a terrifying glimpse of the repercussions of this when it collides with a university mental health policy that is arguably illegal in its breadth of definition of "harm to self or others" when students, faculty, and staff cannot access adequate care that is not provided by their school/employer. In an unfortunately common situation where a graduate student experiencing what is described as moderate suicidality cannot access treatment without seeing a university provider using their university-owned health insurance, he is admitted involuntarily to a university hospital where he is treated by--get this--one of his own professors. And this care team then reaches out to his advisor for information about his academic performance, sharing information in a way that sounds like it violates the spirit of both HIPAA and FERPA by keeping that information only within its own university system. While university-provided student health insurance is becoming much less the norm in the wake of the Affordable Care Act, this is still a huge concern for faculty and staff, to which I can personally attest. He also talks a lot about unjust labor practices in this first chapter.
In the second chapter, Dr. Baldwin examines Trinity College (where he is currently on faculty). He focuses on the public access and public benefit relationships with the surrounding community, and how the university routinely overpromises in that regard. From ice rinks to concerts to day care centers, the university time and again made promises to the community it did not keep. The capstone example is a magnet middle school that Trinity developed as part of its Learning Corridor, a project that came at huge community expense, and never paid the dividends it promised:
When houses needed to be demolished to complete the project, Perez used the third-party Lemquil Realty or bought them through SINA so that owners wouldn't jack up the prices after realizing the properties were for Trinity. Dobelle and Perez promised the community that 50 percent of the slots at the middle school would be reserved for kids from the 06106 and 06114 zip codes. It never happened. The student split ended up being 50 percent from the suburbs and the other half from Hartford more broadly.
In chapter three, Dr. Baldwin takes on the eminent domain projects of Columbia (that dealt a devastating blow to Harlem) and NYU (which took a completely different tone when dealing with an affluent white community, but still culminated in the same result). In a manner nothing short of insidious, Columbia was able to buy up parcels in the surrounding neighborhood and leave them vacant for years in order to establish the community as a "blight" and then seize it under eminent domain, even as a private institution as long as it promised a public benefit. And instead of having an independent review determine if the neighborhood had been blighted, Columbia was able to pay for the blight study itself. But the public benefit it promised was assuredly vague--neuroscience research, etc. It dismissed out of hand the idea that it owed anything to the community from which it seized the property, saying "We are trying to do things that help the world more broadly. The community is not everything." And despite consulting a community advisory board that voted 73-22 against the expansion project, Columbia pushed ahead full steam and devastated Harlem.
Chapter four gets into a topic that feels perhaps the most timely: police brutality and overreach by campus police departments. Focusing primarily on the University of Chicago, with nods to other institutions. UCPD has one of the largest private security forces in the world, including 100 sworn officers and a "legion" of private security guards. And despite being offered jurisdiction extending well beyond campus boundaries, this private force (along with most university police forces) is exempt from federal oversight, including the reporting of Terry stops and other data required under the Freedom of Information Act. Even after a University of Cincinnati police officer killed Samuel DuBose during a routine traffic stop in 2015, universities have resisted their police departments being required to report this information. And yet as campus police encounter people suspected of committing crimes, students are typically referred to university administration for discipline, while community members (often people of color) are processed through the criminal justice system. And while the murder of George Floyd and resulting uprising has made it politically unpopular in the last year to start up or expand a campus police force, little has been done to shrink the power of those that already exist.
In the fifth and final chapter, Dr. Baldwin turns to Arizona State University's downtown campus and the insular community it created that closed off revenue streams for the small businesses that it relied on to pay the majority of property taxes in the area as it sheltered large corporations from having to pay any through a complex web of contracts and tax breaks. Most alarmingly, they even leased out their public land to private corporations like State Farm, exempting them from property taxes in exchange for direct payments to the university that the state had no jurisdiction to place any spending restrictions on. The entire downtown campus project reeks of for-profit real estate investment couched in a pretense of offering some higher education. Dr. Baldwin so sharply highlights the way even the language used by administrators and developers on the project gives away its neocolonialist motives.
For the epilogue, Dr. Baldwin takes us across the border to Winnipeg to demonstrate what responsive community engagement can look like for a university (and it is dreamy). He offers six recommendations for "building a better urban future" including city-enforced payments in lieu of taxes, community benefits agreements, community-based planning and zoning boards, just and equitable public safety, fair labor practices, and profit sharing of athletic revenues. Only the last of these felt to me under-supported by the book, and overall, I found these suggestions extremely insightful and appropriate.
Overall, I do have to acknowledge that I feel like there is some significant overgeneralization at play. But even in their own individual contexts, these are stories worth telling, and having now lived in eight states, I can attest that all of the universities in the towns and cities where I have lived have erred much closer to the profit-seeking models described in the bulk of this book than the engaged model of the University of Winnipeg presented at the end. These concerns are substantial and all of us who are part of these university communities need to take note.
Much appreciation to PublicAffairs and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for the review.
December 31, 2024
equitable urban development is so far away… this book ended on a decidedly optimistic note after chapters of gentrification, police brutality, lost legal battles and undemocratic occupation by universities so idk how to feel
I also think his proposed solutions to help begin tackling the problem of univerCities destroying communities are not really in line with the problems he outlined and it was lowkey a plug for his own organization (which in fairness seems like it does good work)
Universities should pay property tax not just payments in lieu of taxes and what good are community benefit agreements or community planning/zoning groups if they don’t have veto power over a university and their expansion efforts?? and don’t even get me started about more training for campus police🤮 like okay yes he says they should be unarmed (duh) but that was weird to me
I also think it was fun that he threw in student athletes should be paid even though this book wasn’t really about that at all - seems like a good fund source for community programs I guess
I also think his proposed solutions to help begin tackling the problem of univerCities destroying communities are not really in line with the problems he outlined and it was lowkey a plug for his own organization (which in fairness seems like it does good work)
Universities should pay property tax not just payments in lieu of taxes and what good are community benefit agreements or community planning/zoning groups if they don’t have veto power over a university and their expansion efforts?? and don’t even get me started about more training for campus police🤮 like okay yes he says they should be unarmed (duh) but that was weird to me
I also think it was fun that he threw in student athletes should be paid even though this book wasn’t really about that at all - seems like a good fund source for community programs I guess
February 3, 2025
I am so glad someone has put my complicated thoughts around universities as gentrifiers to paper. I’m specifically thrilled about the inclusion of ASU being a glorified real estate developer under the direction of Michael Crow. If universities don’t start getting their heads out of their ass and actually bargain with city residents with good faith, we are going to enter a post-apocalyptic city model with everything being about “social innovation” and sanitized out of any real character. We may already be there.
As for the content, the interviews were a great vehicle and I really appreciated the years-long research it took to complete this book. Some parts were a bit disjointed and disorganized but overall a great read for anyone who is or has been a college student or any city resident.
As for the content, the interviews were a great vehicle and I really appreciated the years-long research it took to complete this book. Some parts were a bit disjointed and disorganized but overall a great read for anyone who is or has been a college student or any city resident.
May 8, 2025
So interesting to read this in the aftermath of Trump's humiliating showdown with Harvard. Of course that idiot bully is a paper tiger, so the slightest amount of pushback defeated him, but it's not for nothing that the wealthiest academic institution in America stared down a would-be dictator to protect its riches and sovereignty. Especially in contrast with Columbia, whose moral weakness is perhaps its greatest legacy. It makes sense for an organization that deliberately impoverished surrounding neighborhoods to gobble them up for cheap to also try and seek compromise with a fanatical tyrant waging war on the concept of public good. An infuriating but fascinating read!
July 14, 2021
The chapter on Columbia and NYU filled in details on sorry stories I already knew. Rapaciousness coupled with sanctimony is a truly noxious combination.
July 23, 2021
My alma mater is the University of Rochester, whose primary River Campus is located in Rochester, NY, along the banks of the Genesee River. Across the river is a predominantly Black and poor/working-class part of the city, which is connected to the River Campus via a pedestrian bridge. When I started my freshman year in 2004, rumors about "the 19th Ward" were all over the place, ranging from the standard "scary ghetto" warnings to some pretty wild, lurid stuff. UR is an extremely pricey school and a lot of us were white kids who had grown up in the suburbs and subsequently lacked the cultural context to see this bullshit for what it was.
Fast-forward another ten years and I was now working for UR and living in Rochester as an actual resident, not a transient student. I learned that across the bridge was in fact two neighborhoods: the 19th Ward and Plymouth-Exchange (PLEX). I became friends with people who lived in PLEX and visited frequently, often biking home at night. The area certainly had its issues, but I never felt unsafe or experienced any problems. Something else I learned was how ambivalent the people were about UR's encroachment into their backyards. Between 2010 and 2015 UR opened a second pedestrian bridge, built a massive student dorm complex, and completed the Brooks Landing Project, which consists of a high-rise dorm, a new hotel (marketed primarily at UR guests), and a small strip mall with space for both UR offices and private restaurant/retail. I actually worked in these offices for five years and bike commuted. The Subway is still there and quite popular, but the indie coffee shop owned by 19th Ward residents is not.
Another big real estate endeavor was College Town in the whiter, more middle-class neighborhood of Upper Mount Hope, which was already the home of UR's enormous Medical Center.
The University of Rochester is New York State's eighth largest employer, yet these projects are small fry compared to juggernauts like Columbia, NYU, UChicago, and Arizona State, whose real estate conquests are chronicled in detail by Davarian Baldwin (along with a smaller school, Trinity College). This isn't hyperbole - as Baldwin observes, the discourse ominously echoes the white supremacist colonization rhetoric of yesteryear. Land inhabited by communities of color is handwaved as "empty" or untamed and occupied mostly by "thugs" and criminals (read: "savages") and lazy natives who don't use it properly. This justifies an invasion: entire blocks condemned as "blighted" and bulldozed (thanks to Columbia's bribes) and an influx of new settlers displacing the original residents. "[Michael] Crow then uttered a phrase that I heard over and over from many in the Phoenix elite: 'There was nothing down there.' In the same way Columbia University called West Harlem a 'dead zone.' Crow then described the downtown Garfield area 'basically a failed neighborhood.'" (A notable exception to this socioeconomic divide was the wealthy Greenwich Village, but even they couldn't stop NYU.)
Though Rochester is (disappointingly) never mentioned, the case studies detailed in In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower mirror UR and Rochester so closely you practically just need to change names. Besides the gentrification threat (entire streets near Brooks Landing are now occupied entirely by overpriced student rentals), there is the lack of taxes paid by such massive non-profit organizations (which deprives struggling municipalities of necessary funding), controversy about armed security guards patrolling off-campus (magnified in Rochester by Daniel Prude and the RPD's subsequent abuse of protestors), and the ongoing racial disparities between town and gown that are only exacerbated by negative stereotypes surrounding poor urban Black and Latino people. The need to "protect" students is often used to justify university overreach into the public sphere, even when the statistics reveal other students (such as rapey frat boys) are by far the bigger threat. As Baldwin notes, these private security forces are "serving a public function but without public oversight," which promises even less accountability than the miniscule already afforded by conventional police officers.
Baldwin and other critics characterize universities as essentially "hedge funds that conduct classes." The fundamental problem seems to be we have these wealthy and powerful institutions that don't fit the traditional business-government dichotomy and have become something of a wild card getting out of hand. Many are private organizations, yet have nonprofit status and provide the vital public services of education, research, and healthcare. Economist Richard Florida promoted the notion of a "creative class" supplanting industry as the dominant economic force, yet by their nature colleges and universities require a different paradigm than profit-driven business. In the epilogue Baldwin praises the University of Winnipeg as a example of how a university can expand ethically. "The major import of this example is that the leadership embraced an institutional vision of sustainability that addressed not just environmental issues but also social, economic and cultural matters," he said in an interview, in which he goes on to outline UWinnipeg's housing options, community spaces, and in-house dining service, Diversity Foods.
Rochester is a microcosm of these forces: a city whose former manufacturing powerhouses (Eastman Kodak, Xerox, Bausch & Lomb) have all either severely downsized or left, leaving a depopulated, mostly Black/brown city encircled on all sides by predominantly white suburban sprawl and with only a major university as a significant employer. The University of Rochester definitely has an enormous role to play; the question is whether they can fulfill it in a manner that benefits and uplifts the entire community, not just UR and its wealthy stakeholders. As someone who is still a loyal alum, I certainly hope so.
(Side note: the University of Rochester's highly prestigious Eastman School of Music is actually located downtown, but I don't know enough about it to comment.)
Fast-forward another ten years and I was now working for UR and living in Rochester as an actual resident, not a transient student. I learned that across the bridge was in fact two neighborhoods: the 19th Ward and Plymouth-Exchange (PLEX). I became friends with people who lived in PLEX and visited frequently, often biking home at night. The area certainly had its issues, but I never felt unsafe or experienced any problems. Something else I learned was how ambivalent the people were about UR's encroachment into their backyards. Between 2010 and 2015 UR opened a second pedestrian bridge, built a massive student dorm complex, and completed the Brooks Landing Project, which consists of a high-rise dorm, a new hotel (marketed primarily at UR guests), and a small strip mall with space for both UR offices and private restaurant/retail. I actually worked in these offices for five years and bike commuted. The Subway is still there and quite popular, but the indie coffee shop owned by 19th Ward residents is not.
Another big real estate endeavor was College Town in the whiter, more middle-class neighborhood of Upper Mount Hope, which was already the home of UR's enormous Medical Center.
The University of Rochester is New York State's eighth largest employer, yet these projects are small fry compared to juggernauts like Columbia, NYU, UChicago, and Arizona State, whose real estate conquests are chronicled in detail by Davarian Baldwin (along with a smaller school, Trinity College). This isn't hyperbole - as Baldwin observes, the discourse ominously echoes the white supremacist colonization rhetoric of yesteryear. Land inhabited by communities of color is handwaved as "empty" or untamed and occupied mostly by "thugs" and criminals (read: "savages") and lazy natives who don't use it properly. This justifies an invasion: entire blocks condemned as "blighted" and bulldozed (thanks to Columbia's bribes) and an influx of new settlers displacing the original residents. "[Michael] Crow then uttered a phrase that I heard over and over from many in the Phoenix elite: 'There was nothing down there.' In the same way Columbia University called West Harlem a 'dead zone.' Crow then described the downtown Garfield area 'basically a failed neighborhood.'" (A notable exception to this socioeconomic divide was the wealthy Greenwich Village, but even they couldn't stop NYU.)
Though Rochester is (disappointingly) never mentioned, the case studies detailed in In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower mirror UR and Rochester so closely you practically just need to change names. Besides the gentrification threat (entire streets near Brooks Landing are now occupied entirely by overpriced student rentals), there is the lack of taxes paid by such massive non-profit organizations (which deprives struggling municipalities of necessary funding), controversy about armed security guards patrolling off-campus (magnified in Rochester by Daniel Prude and the RPD's subsequent abuse of protestors), and the ongoing racial disparities between town and gown that are only exacerbated by negative stereotypes surrounding poor urban Black and Latino people. The need to "protect" students is often used to justify university overreach into the public sphere, even when the statistics reveal other students (such as rapey frat boys) are by far the bigger threat. As Baldwin notes, these private security forces are "serving a public function but without public oversight," which promises even less accountability than the miniscule already afforded by conventional police officers.
Baldwin and other critics characterize universities as essentially "hedge funds that conduct classes." The fundamental problem seems to be we have these wealthy and powerful institutions that don't fit the traditional business-government dichotomy and have become something of a wild card getting out of hand. Many are private organizations, yet have nonprofit status and provide the vital public services of education, research, and healthcare. Economist Richard Florida promoted the notion of a "creative class" supplanting industry as the dominant economic force, yet by their nature colleges and universities require a different paradigm than profit-driven business. In the epilogue Baldwin praises the University of Winnipeg as a example of how a university can expand ethically. "The major import of this example is that the leadership embraced an institutional vision of sustainability that addressed not just environmental issues but also social, economic and cultural matters," he said in an interview, in which he goes on to outline UWinnipeg's housing options, community spaces, and in-house dining service, Diversity Foods.
Rochester is a microcosm of these forces: a city whose former manufacturing powerhouses (Eastman Kodak, Xerox, Bausch & Lomb) have all either severely downsized or left, leaving a depopulated, mostly Black/brown city encircled on all sides by predominantly white suburban sprawl and with only a major university as a significant employer. The University of Rochester definitely has an enormous role to play; the question is whether they can fulfill it in a manner that benefits and uplifts the entire community, not just UR and its wealthy stakeholders. As someone who is still a loyal alum, I certainly hope so.
(Side note: the University of Rochester's highly prestigious Eastman School of Music is actually located downtown, but I don't know enough about it to comment.)
September 17, 2023
Very important content in a very digestible format. I think the most novel point Baldwin is trying to hammer home is how these examples of universities plundering from their municipalities are not at all unique.
I think coming from an evil school that is mentioned in the books numerous times, even the campus organizing against said evils takes on a very isolationist bent. Many times, people frame why something is horrible based on its abnormality—the object of scrutiny must be uniquely terrible in a way that is considered too far by its peers. Baldwin is making a case for ending the ivory tower based on the regularity of its abuses. His argument hinges on the revelatory premise that something wrong can also be something seen as natural, common, or inevitable. More than anything else, I appreciate how this book clarifies that the oppressive property and labor relations outlined in each chapter are the normal ends of university expansion.
As a result, Baldwin’s final question is how more schools can take on abnormal efforts, such as the ones outlined in the last chapter. As someone who is (finally!) done with academia forever, it’s an interesting time to finish this book and be left with that final question. However, I am encouraged by the number of efforts he described that overlap with city planning efforts, and know there is always a role for alumni support in student campaigns. I will be thinking more about how this looks for me as I “leave” school, but still care about this topic. So basically, I’m saying I would recommend this book even if you are like me and procrastinated on reading it while you still had an .edu address. 😊
I think coming from an evil school that is mentioned in the books numerous times, even the campus organizing against said evils takes on a very isolationist bent. Many times, people frame why something is horrible based on its abnormality—the object of scrutiny must be uniquely terrible in a way that is considered too far by its peers. Baldwin is making a case for ending the ivory tower based on the regularity of its abuses. His argument hinges on the revelatory premise that something wrong can also be something seen as natural, common, or inevitable. More than anything else, I appreciate how this book clarifies that the oppressive property and labor relations outlined in each chapter are the normal ends of university expansion.
As a result, Baldwin’s final question is how more schools can take on abnormal efforts, such as the ones outlined in the last chapter. As someone who is (finally!) done with academia forever, it’s an interesting time to finish this book and be left with that final question. However, I am encouraged by the number of efforts he described that overlap with city planning efforts, and know there is always a role for alumni support in student campaigns. I will be thinking more about how this looks for me as I “leave” school, but still care about this topic. So basically, I’m saying I would recommend this book even if you are like me and procrastinated on reading it while you still had an .edu address. 😊
March 4, 2022
Baldwin's work looks at how universities have helped hollow out and suck resources out of cities in an almost predatory fashion. As opposed to the old notions of the ivory tower tucked away from the rest of society, over the last 30 years, universities have transformed to one of conquering their surrounding space and driving out their neighbors through use of buying up property and driving up rents, fencing it off, and/or force by largely unaccountable university police forces. Baldwin divides up the chapters by looking at individual schools and the relationships with their neighborhoods/towns, such as UChicago and Bronzeville, Trinity College and Hartford, NYU and the Lower East Side, Arizona State and Phoenix, and more. Cities have increasingly turned to "Meds and Eds" (hospitals and universities) to bring jobs and tax revenue back into their coffers, yet universities operate as "non-profits" and suck up much more resources than they provide, with only low-wage jobs and control/destruction of neighborhoods as results, no matter the promises.
At points, when one takes into account the student debt crisis and the steady elimination of full time (let alone tenure) teaching jobs in universities, it really does seem like they have become systematic ponzi schemes, which someday may bring a long-time-coming collapse.
At points, when one takes into account the student debt crisis and the steady elimination of full time (let alone tenure) teaching jobs in universities, it really does seem like they have become systematic ponzi schemes, which someday may bring a long-time-coming collapse.
January 19, 2022
4.5! please read
a few personal notes are that (1) i would be curious about what switching chapters 1 and 2 could have done to the structure and (2) i loved the emphasis on contemporary journalism (esp local and student journalism) as primary source and would have loved to have that relationship analyzed further in a methodological sense. baldwin had a difficult task in whittling down his research into one book; there is so much here and the incredible effort he put into this shows. i rate this so highly because it has given me a lot to think about. the fact remains that i am a university student (and will be for a while) and it is imperative for me to think consciously of the system that i live in and how i can contribute to envisioning a more inclusive and equitable way of living right now.
again, please read
a few personal notes are that (1) i would be curious about what switching chapters 1 and 2 could have done to the structure and (2) i loved the emphasis on contemporary journalism (esp local and student journalism) as primary source and would have loved to have that relationship analyzed further in a methodological sense. baldwin had a difficult task in whittling down his research into one book; there is so much here and the incredible effort he put into this shows. i rate this so highly because it has given me a lot to think about. the fact remains that i am a university student (and will be for a while) and it is imperative for me to think consciously of the system that i live in and how i can contribute to envisioning a more inclusive and equitable way of living right now.
again, please read
December 16, 2021
a very comprehensive run down about the integral role urban universities/predominantly white institutions play in extracting resources from their surrounding communities for the sole purpose of building wealth and global prestige. Baldwin also does a great job illustrating how universities use disingenuous placating, loopholes, and lying to acquire land and side step the need for community imput or approval.
November 12, 2025
an entire chapter just shredding his institution😝
February 16, 2023
I’m starting to feel like a part of the problem even though I’m broke as hell
February 5, 2022
I listened to the unabridged 9-hour audio version of this title (read by Wayne Carr, Bold Type Books, 2021).
Modern universities in America are big businesses and exert an outsize influence on the surrounding communities, which, in a way have become company towns. This is particularly true in urban areas, where the control exerted by major universities has turned them into de-facto city managers. Such universities tend to view areas beyond the campus boundaries as either prime real estate for expansion projects or as trouble spots to be curbed and cut off from the campus. The author uses the term "univer-cities" for cities thus affected.
In some cases, universities are viewed as saviors of cities where they are located (such as Yale saving New Haven, formerly a factory town). But, it's also possible to view the relationship as exploitative. Universities tend to gobble up properties surrounding them and turning the areas into upscale housing and businesses that are beyond the reach of original tenants. Smaller cities, as well as larger ones (Phoenix, Chicago, NYC's Harlem & South Side neighborhoods) have been negatively-impacted.
Most people view universities as employers of faculty and other instructional staff. In reality, the bulk of workers at a university are custodial and other low-wage service providers. Universities often grow to become the area's primary employer, changing the labor market and dictating wages.
Additionally, major universities maintain their own police forces, which influence, and on occasion directly intervene in, policing of the surrounding areas. Often, under the guise of traffic flow-control and safety, universities isolate themselves from the surrounding communities, which helps to create an adversarial relationship. Physical fences/walls and gates are less common at American universities than in other countries, but invisible walls, brought about by unfriendly architecture, perform the same functions as moats and drawbridges.
In short, the author believes that modern universities, with their swollen management ranks, external tech & business relationships, and sizable endowments, are no longer ubiquitous forces for good they once were. Their tax-exempt status can create unfair competition for other businesses. These factors necessitate a re-examination of tax policies and other federal and municipal regulations to turn university-community relationships more equitable.
Modern universities in America are big businesses and exert an outsize influence on the surrounding communities, which, in a way have become company towns. This is particularly true in urban areas, where the control exerted by major universities has turned them into de-facto city managers. Such universities tend to view areas beyond the campus boundaries as either prime real estate for expansion projects or as trouble spots to be curbed and cut off from the campus. The author uses the term "univer-cities" for cities thus affected.
In some cases, universities are viewed as saviors of cities where they are located (such as Yale saving New Haven, formerly a factory town). But, it's also possible to view the relationship as exploitative. Universities tend to gobble up properties surrounding them and turning the areas into upscale housing and businesses that are beyond the reach of original tenants. Smaller cities, as well as larger ones (Phoenix, Chicago, NYC's Harlem & South Side neighborhoods) have been negatively-impacted.
Most people view universities as employers of faculty and other instructional staff. In reality, the bulk of workers at a university are custodial and other low-wage service providers. Universities often grow to become the area's primary employer, changing the labor market and dictating wages.
Additionally, major universities maintain their own police forces, which influence, and on occasion directly intervene in, policing of the surrounding areas. Often, under the guise of traffic flow-control and safety, universities isolate themselves from the surrounding communities, which helps to create an adversarial relationship. Physical fences/walls and gates are less common at American universities than in other countries, but invisible walls, brought about by unfriendly architecture, perform the same functions as moats and drawbridges.
In short, the author believes that modern universities, with their swollen management ranks, external tech & business relationships, and sizable endowments, are no longer ubiquitous forces for good they once were. Their tax-exempt status can create unfair competition for other businesses. These factors necessitate a re-examination of tax policies and other federal and municipal regulations to turn university-community relationships more equitable.
May 24, 2021
I’ve been waiting for this book since I first heard Baldwin describe the project at the Albuquerque meeting of the American Studies Association in 2009. It didn’t disappoint. Using a combination of archival research and participant observation/scholarly reportage, Baldwin offers four (really five) case-studies of universities’ transformation of urban space. These five - Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut (Baldwin’s home institution,) NYU’s 2031 Plan and Columbia’s West Harlem landgrab, the University of Chicago’s moves into Bronzeville, and Arizona State’s downtown campus, are well chosen, and Baldwin deftly links universities’ roles as developers, landlords, and employers and explains how they’re related and what it all means for campus workers and the future of the meds and Eds model of urban development. This is an eminently readable book, well-written and well organized, and it’s both a useful synthesis of a great deal of scholarly and movement work on universities’ imperial presence in US cities and an impressive, engaged, and valuable contribution to that literature in its own right.
January 1, 2022
Baldwin makes a convincing argument that university expansion in cities (starting during white flight and enduring into the back-to-the-city movement of young white professionals and many cities' "meds and eds" development campaigns) has been advertised and in many ways uncritically accepted as a public good with community benefits. Via case studies of several large universities, he takes this assumption apart and shows how disingenuous those promises of public benefits are, and how "community acceptance" is far from universal and often engineered by powerful capital. His examples offer a wide range of ways that administrators claim to be expanding their real estate for the good of the neighborhood while physically building literal walls, turning the backsides of buildings to the community, adding private police forces to public streets, and putting up "not open to the public" signs.
This is underscored especially by the final chapter on a counterexample where university administrators and faculty are working hard to make public service via campus expansion not bullshit. Baldwin's own recommendations at the end seem a bit too broad and moderate next to the University of Winnipeg story, which is rooted in very community-specific examples of the school working with and for its neighbors. I'm curious too who his policy recommendations are aimed at, when it's clear that university development and community policing interests are so closely aligned with those of powerful players in city politics.
There is a lot in here that I wish were expanded on - he includes stories of universities monopolizing health care, exploiting student, contractor, and contingent labor, leasing tax-free property to big corporations, and more that don't get an in-depth treatment. But he also states that the issue in general has been under-explored in both higher ed and urban planning fields, so this book is definitely best thought of as an introduction to the problem.
This is underscored especially by the final chapter on a counterexample where university administrators and faculty are working hard to make public service via campus expansion not bullshit. Baldwin's own recommendations at the end seem a bit too broad and moderate next to the University of Winnipeg story, which is rooted in very community-specific examples of the school working with and for its neighbors. I'm curious too who his policy recommendations are aimed at, when it's clear that university development and community policing interests are so closely aligned with those of powerful players in city politics.
There is a lot in here that I wish were expanded on - he includes stories of universities monopolizing health care, exploiting student, contractor, and contingent labor, leasing tax-free property to big corporations, and more that don't get an in-depth treatment. But he also states that the issue in general has been under-explored in both higher ed and urban planning fields, so this book is definitely best thought of as an introduction to the problem.
November 28, 2024
Cui bono?
I’ve lived in and around university campuses for most of my life, so I thought I had a reasonable understanding of how “meds and eds” affect real estate prices and the lives of local residents whenever they want to expand their physical presence. But In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities, by cultural studies scholar, urbanist, and historian Davarian L. Baldwin, showed me that I had seen only the tip of the iceberg.
Baldwin uses case studies in Hartford, New York, Chicago, and Phoenix to critique how educational institutions obtain land for new buildings, bring their police forces into surrounding neighborhoods, interfere with community activist networks, and undermine the local economy—all while talking up their relationships with the cities around them. He sketches out how institutional leaders use the language of “opportunity” and “community building” to generate support for their projects, then (more often than not) abandon those feel-good initiatives once the spotlight has moved on. Longtime residents—frequently communities of color—are left without resources and locked out of the shiny new school facilities that have taken over their streets.
Baldwin’s careful documentation of insidious institutional and city politics is a devastating attack on the 21st-century university (he also recounts earlier town-gown clashes to show that these conflicts have a longer history). His concluding policy recommendations are commendable ones. They are, however, unlikely to come to fruition, given the immense amounts of money at play for schools that have grown from relatively straightforward educational institutions to landlords, R&D centers, property developers, and so much more. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower is a sobering read for anyone who has seen the expansion of a university in their city and wondered: who stands to gain?
I’ve lived in and around university campuses for most of my life, so I thought I had a reasonable understanding of how “meds and eds” affect real estate prices and the lives of local residents whenever they want to expand their physical presence. But In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities, by cultural studies scholar, urbanist, and historian Davarian L. Baldwin, showed me that I had seen only the tip of the iceberg.
Baldwin uses case studies in Hartford, New York, Chicago, and Phoenix to critique how educational institutions obtain land for new buildings, bring their police forces into surrounding neighborhoods, interfere with community activist networks, and undermine the local economy—all while talking up their relationships with the cities around them. He sketches out how institutional leaders use the language of “opportunity” and “community building” to generate support for their projects, then (more often than not) abandon those feel-good initiatives once the spotlight has moved on. Longtime residents—frequently communities of color—are left without resources and locked out of the shiny new school facilities that have taken over their streets.
Baldwin’s careful documentation of insidious institutional and city politics is a devastating attack on the 21st-century university (he also recounts earlier town-gown clashes to show that these conflicts have a longer history). His concluding policy recommendations are commendable ones. They are, however, unlikely to come to fruition, given the immense amounts of money at play for schools that have grown from relatively straightforward educational institutions to landlords, R&D centers, property developers, and so much more. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower is a sobering read for anyone who has seen the expansion of a university in their city and wondered: who stands to gain?
March 18, 2022
This book is important and contains wonderful content. Upshot: urban universities exploit their tax exempt status to make money to the detriment of the communities in which they reside. He gives fantastic examples in NYC, Hartford, Chicago, and Phoenix; gives descriptive explanations of the problems; and offers potential solutions. I left this with a newfound disgust at the reach of urban campuses and their money-making ventures.
That said, despite the strong content, I wish it had been better written so as to make a stronger case for itself. The second half was far better than the first in this regard, but the structure of it made the argument feel weak and underdeveloped at times. For example, in a section rightfully criticizing urban colleges for implementing unreasonable “the outside community is dangerous” messaging, despite higher and more severe crime on campus, he prefaced the entire criticism noting how gang violence is severe and there are regular shootings in the surrounding community. I can parse that as separate from his argument, but a stronger editor and structure would’ve made this work truly standout. A number of structural or situational problems like that made me frustrated at the lack of linearity and clarity. If you can get past the first two chapters, it improves dramatically and readers will learn and come away with a lot of food for thought.
Overall strong content, certainly worth the read for those interested in higher education, and a must-read for anyone working at or with an urban university.
That said, despite the strong content, I wish it had been better written so as to make a stronger case for itself. The second half was far better than the first in this regard, but the structure of it made the argument feel weak and underdeveloped at times. For example, in a section rightfully criticizing urban colleges for implementing unreasonable “the outside community is dangerous” messaging, despite higher and more severe crime on campus, he prefaced the entire criticism noting how gang violence is severe and there are regular shootings in the surrounding community. I can parse that as separate from his argument, but a stronger editor and structure would’ve made this work truly standout. A number of structural or situational problems like that made me frustrated at the lack of linearity and clarity. If you can get past the first two chapters, it improves dramatically and readers will learn and come away with a lot of food for thought.
Overall strong content, certainly worth the read for those interested in higher education, and a must-read for anyone working at or with an urban university.
January 4, 2023
Like most left-wingers, I’ve had a developing interest in urbanism in the past few years, and Baldwin’s work on the role of the university in restructuring their respective home cities adds quite a few worthwhile bits of thought to that growing fascination. Baldwin looks at various North American cities and their respective Universities, especially in a post- and post-post white flight urban environment. The nature of their profitability, their role as private police forces and especially their obsession with real estate shows the quite hostile aspect of the “Ivory Tower” in the urban setting. Always displaying, rarely placating the locals of an urban area- Baldwin argues that universities are not neutral players in cities, either, they are willing to manipulate or even bypass local politics too. Baldwin masterfully utilizes interviews with locals, administrators and everyone in between as his main source. This is an especially useful book- the model of ASU resembles that of my own university, though at a much smaller scale- that is, a core, more rural campus, and an ever expanding downtown presence, hostile to locals. However, it is nowhere near as influential in local politics as many of these universities.
June 21, 2024
like 4 stars. this compelling analysis of the influence of mass mobilization of academia into communities under the guise of progress was really quite good. i found the audiobook overall to be a quite cogent delivery of academic material that is sometimes hard to consume if you are not reading it with your eyes. it was punchy and clear and had interesting case studies that exposed me to things i didn't know about upper echelon universities across America and beyond. that being said, it sometimes felt that the chapter by chapter approach was kind of chaotic or lack cohesivity. i felt that you almost needed to read every chapter in order in order to get it (which is not always accessible or feasible with an academic text). additionally, it felt difficult to mitigate the statistical data alongside the ethnographic approach (i think this is not a failure to how the two were blended but rather just a reflection of the medium through which i read -- it is hard to jump from statistic to picturing communities to ethongraphic interviews without seeing the variance in front of my eyes, at least for me). i thought this was, writ large, really well narrated and really well done. i quite enjoyed it.
February 9, 2026
This book helped to confirm a lot of the ideas that I had felt while working for a university. While I was a lowly peon, making various maps for the university; I still had played a small role in the university’s pursuit of gobbling up property. These properties were but rectangles on a screen to me when developing. Sold to me from higher ups as just dilapidated homes and former off-campus student housing. Still, nothing ever set right. And as I actually began to tour the neighborhoods and research more. I came to find that the neighborhoods being bought up had more character and importance than what I had been told.
This book does a great job detailing various universities around the continent and their shady tactics. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the various community organization and the thoughts of those who rallied them. Also appreciated is the author’s interviews with faculty of universities who may not disagree with the tactics employed.
Overall, a great introduction to the predatory nature of universities and how they are growing more and more like parasites in our cities. Siphoning off community and culture in the name of profit and student amenities.
This book does a great job detailing various universities around the continent and their shady tactics. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the various community organization and the thoughts of those who rallied them. Also appreciated is the author’s interviews with faculty of universities who may not disagree with the tactics employed.
Overall, a great introduction to the predatory nature of universities and how they are growing more and more like parasites in our cities. Siphoning off community and culture in the name of profit and student amenities.
May 9, 2023
In "In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower," Davarian Baldwin chronicles how universities have been establishing themselves as unchecked sources of economic, real estate, and police power in cities. Too often, they are not "good neighbors" and instead fuel displacement of residents and local businesses--and have a large footprint beyond the campus themselves, one that the cities are often unable or unwilling to govern. His chapters bring analysis to life with interviews of those involved or affected, but the chapters can often feel like somewhat repetitive case studies or separate articles rather than cohering as a whole (despite all the shared themes).
June 21, 2024
Really helpful for me as I prepare to go back to academia, especially considering there was a whole chapter on UChicago. Reminded me of the importance of knowing the history of the neighborhood I’m going to school in and understanding how the University has shaped the landscape around it. I’m particularly reminded of the importance of not being in total awe of the glitz and glamor and asking myself “who did the City and the University sacrifice in order to give students these luxuries?” A question that links the fight against gentrification/development to the fight for divestment from war profiteers.
November 26, 2021
I give the author credit for his research but, at the end of the day, would students (or your son or daughter) rather attend college in a dangerous and/or neglected neighborhood or one that the institution is investing in? The real question is: should educational institutions be spared paying real estate taxes on their land-spreads, leaving declining numbers of private residences to carry an ever-increasing load?
“Urban” is not synonymous with “shabby,” and stagnant rents are not realistic.
“Urban” is not synonymous with “shabby,” and stagnant rents are not realistic.
May 19, 2022
Saw the author as part of a panel at the national bargaining conference and liked his perspective. Definitely recommend to everyone in higher education or a college town because these institutions have serious power in their communities not all of which they deserve. (Is there another book out there about all the collegiate cover-ups?) So, beware of UniverCities. On the surface they may seem like a good idea, but all those tax breaks have to come from somewhere and payments in lieu of taxes do not make up the difference by a long shot.
April 29, 2023
This is a spectacular investigation of his American universities encroach upon urban communities in the name of development. It's especially appalling when you understand that these institutions carry the non-profit status that makes them avoid paying taxes. Baldwin does a brilliant job exposing institutions like Trinity College, NYU, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Arizona. What's especially good about this book is the epilogue which offers models of how to do things differently, the most promising of which is the University of Winnipeg.
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