Having a university benefits cities and downtown areas. Usually they receive a boost from having universities located anywhere in the general vicinity, but environmental and economic opportunities are maximized when universities locate in the metropolitan downtown area. Hear that, Santa Cruz?

This article refers to the educational disadvantage to University of Buffalo students from not locating the school downtown. The same thing is true of the University of California Santa Cruz, where I spent a year interning with the public relations department, trying to defend chopping down a second growth redwood forest so the university could expand. However UCSC, and universities like it, would benefit by relocating into buildings in the downtown area to both preserve the environment and to enrich the community.

Santa Cruz, in particular, is dying for a tax base, economically hemorrhaging a little more every year. Though the university doesn’t pay property tax, they could pay rent for downtown spaces and increase the density of consumers downtown, dollars that are otherwise spent on campus. Lots of universities face opposition from the surrounding community when they plan expansion. Expanding into the community itself is a wiser course of action and benefits more parties than sprawling on the outskirts of town.