Transcript Studentification’: a guide to opportunities, challenges

Structure of Seminar
Part 1 - Darren Smith
Contextualisation of issues and trends PBSA
Part 2 - Jonathan Hale
The Loughborough Case Study
Purpose-built
student accommodation (PBSA):
‘saviour’ and/or ‘sinner’?
Dr Darren P. Smith
Reader in Human Geography
University of Brighton, UK
London
30th June 2008
Context: the breakdown of ‘town and gown’relations?
Dramatic rise of student populations (<
mid-90s)
No urban policy to accommodate rising
numbers of students
• Students accommodated in unregulated /
unplanned ways by private sector (HMO)
Results = Studentification
• ‘[Studentification is] the social and environmental changes caused by
very large numbers of students living in particular areas of a town or
city’ (Macmillan English Dictionary, 2003).
Studentification: A Guide To Opportunities, Challenges and Practices
• Commissioned / published by: UniversitiesUK/SCOP
• Funded by: DfES & ODPM, LGA
• Launched: UUK conference January 2006
• Parliamentary launch: 27th June 2006
The response: addressing the ‘challenges'
The dispersal of students away from
existing over-concentrations & planning
(Leeds, Loughborough, Nottingham)
Halting the intensity of concentrations of
students
• The proliferation of purpose-built student
accommodation by the private sector (Unite,
Opal)
• The refurbishment / upgrade of universitymaintained / -managed student
accommodation (UPP)
The scale of PBSA?
9% of students accommodated in PBSA
(King Sturge, 2008)
• 120,000 students in PBSA (Mark Allan, Unite,
2008)
– 40,000 students reside in Unite PBSA
• UPP - Refurbishment of University
accommodation
Nottingham (2009/10)
• Students living in Nottingham (33,967)
– PBSA (22,716)
– HMO (11,251)
The
‘second-wave’
of
studentification?
Purpose-built student accommodation
The solution to:
• enhance the quality and management of student
accommodation
• regulate the behaviour of some (anti-social)
students
• solve refuse collection issues, etc
• (re)turn student areas to family housing
• control student leisure & recreation spaces (i.e.
bars)
• reduce use of private vehicles and on-street parking
• circulate information leaflets and enhance
communication with students about behaviour, etc
• Increase electoral voting, etc...
A more critical perspective of PBSA?
Is PBSA addressing the challenges or
displacing the challenges of
studentification?
Are the intentional outcomes being
realised?
What are the unintentional
consequences of student
accommodation?
A changing context of opportunities
A changing private rented / HMO market
• Credit crunch (40% reduction in access to
mortgages)
– Pressures on student HMO for other social
groups seeking to rent? (right-to-rent)
• Housing Act (licensing)
• Use Classes Order?
• Areas of Housing Mix (AoHm)
• HMO Action Zones (Nottingham)
• Student accommodation included in Local
Housing Strategies/LDF
• Changing preferences of students
The unintentional effects of PBSA
Studentification continues to
unfold (students do not want
PBSA?)
Over-supply=destudentification
(which social groups replace the
students)
Gentrification of student areas
The first-wave persists and is unfolding
An international phenomena
Town and Gown Association of Ontario
(TGAO)
Carlton Residents Group, Melbourne
Destudentification
Definition (?) – ‘the decline of
a student area due to the
out-migration of student
landlords and students’
- ‘We want the student’s back!’
(e.g. Coventry, Birmingham,
Brighton)
- ‘We don’t want the asylum seekers
or the migrant workers’
Recognising the opportunities
Engagement with the politics
of studentification
•APPG for Balanced and
Sustainable Communities
•Councillors Campaign for
Balanced Communites
•NUS
•National HMO Lobby
PBSA - ‘Getting it right’
More effectively ‘protect’ and ‘nurture’ balanced
communities = student populations
The mission for providers of student
accommodation:
Woven into economic regeneration schemes
Matches the preferences of students
Provides affordable rents and high-quality student
accommodation
Integrated into established communities in sensitive
ways
Does not ‘ghettoise’ students in gated-communities
Managed in effective ways (refuse, car parking, noise
nuisance, volunteering, active citizens, green transport)
Is this happening?
Student accommodation to address deeper challenges?
Childless cities and towns (Peter Hall, 2007)
Lack of family or affordable housing (housing
crisis)
Increasing segregation of society
Proliferation of gated communities
‘Ghettoisation’ of social groups
Breakdown of community cohesion
Decreasing levels of social capital
Deterioration of urban environment
Homogenisation of built environment with ‘private
sector footprint’