School Phone Ban, Architecture Nobel Prize, Real Urbanist Train Fantasy, & More
Around the College Towns: Links and commentary related to urbanism and higher ed for the week of March 1 - March 6.
Note: This is my weekly Around the College Town links round-up article. Every Friday, I will provide links and some commentary for stories or things I have read for that given week on urbanism and higher ed. I try to find things that have fallen through the cracks rather than the big events. Subscribe for free and without a Substack account (only an email).
Education News
Ban Phones in Schools?
Belgium has recently banned phones in schoolscall, and a writer argues that the rest of Europe should follow suit. Likewise, in the US, a Teacher made a similar case about phones and limits to screens in class. Professors like Jonathan Haidt have been ringing the alarm bells over smartphone usage externalities on youth development for years now.
It seems like there is finally a movement to curb usage in various places around the world. But the practicality still remains elusive for educators and practitioners. What do you think? Should we ban phones in schools? Or something else?
Everybody Hates Their College Town
I have covered my annoyance and disbelief with how much locals in colleges seem to hate the students and colleges they live around. This topic certainly provides never-ending content for me here.
Columbia, SC, home to University of South Carolina, recently voted to ban student housing downtown. The council is now looking to ease that by allowing limited number of housing. Students living downtown could still walk to campus, meaning fewer cars. But local residents are not convinced, and believe the students are detrimental to the small college town—a sentiment I struggle to understand.
But I cannot just blame locals for disliking the colleges or their students. It seems even students have an aversion to housing themselves. At Texas Tech student leaders made a resolution opposing a student housing project right across the street from the university.
The students’ complaint is that it is unsafe for other students to walk across 19th Street to campus. I agree! It is unsafe to cross this terrible stroad right built like a motor speedway right next to a college campus. My question is why not try to fix that street? Banning housing doesn’t make an unsafe street safer.
Other Higher Ed Links
Speaking of Texas Tech, they are getting a massive upgrade to the stadium and sports facilities. Incredible.
College sports are big business: two universities called off a merger after disagreements over sports leagues. This seems like a bad decision.
Community college president does a super commute on a taxpayer dime. Just absurd to do this.
USC has released an opinion survey about campus protests. Most agree that disruptions to classrooms and learning are too much.
OpenAI Launches Higher Ed Research Group. Here is the full list of participants. A lot of expected, but some unexpected:
Caltech
California State University system
Duke University
University of Georgia
Harvard University
Howard University
MIT
University of Michigan,
University of Mississippi
Ohio State University
University of Oxford (UK)
Sciences Po (France)
Texas A&M University
Boston Children’s Hospital
Boston Public Library
Urbanism News
The Nobel Prize for Architecture Goes To…
The Pritzker Architecture Prize is sort of like the Nobel Prize of architecture. It is given to the architect “whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.” It is a big deal in the architecture world.
This year’s prize was awarded to the Chinese architect Liu Jiakun. It is cool to see a Chinese architect win the award, but I must say that I do not love his buildings. They are not terrible; I am just not excited about them. I can appreciate merging traditional Chinese vernacular with Western sensibilities. I just don’t think it always works well.
Click through the photos to see the range of Liu’s work. I am going to China in the summer, so perhaps I can see some of these buildings up close to have a better feel for their possible majesty. What do you think?
Americans Moving to UK
Last week I asked where everyone jumping ship in US higher ed is going. This week I may have gotten my answer beyond just higher ed: FT reports a record number of Americans have applied for UK citizenship.
6,100 US citizens applied last year, the most since records began two decades ago and 26 per cent more than in 2023. Overall applications for UK citizenships were up by 6 per cent to 251,000, another record.
Now, this news certainly goes beyond higher ed. It shows that some Americans are just fed up with the direction of the country. People have long given up on us here, like urbanist YouTuber Not Just Bikes. I guess I do give people moving credit for actually keeping their word, as these things are often just hollow threats for social media clout. I will be interested to see if the trend gets more Americans thinking about urbanism like it did for me.
Other Urbanism (& More) Links
A small US-based startup successfully landed a rover on the Moon.
Is It Easier to Be Homeless in Suburbia? An interesting question explored by the Michigan Enjoyer.
Former OKC star helping the city build a new stadium. He will always be a legend in my hometown.
Slate has an article chronicling the rise of bland white houses. What a bummer this bland trend is.
Around Substack
Despite their religious roots, elite universities have become mostly secular institutions. But students can still certainly have their own religious beliefs.
at explores the religiosity at top American universities and the politics around these numbers.
at writes about how AIs can be used as mentors. Perhaps everyone in the future can have their personal Plato.The huge chasm, again, is between liberals and conservatives. A liberal college student is thirty points more likely to be a never attender than a conservative one. Among conservative college students 32% attend weekly compared to 8% of liberal college students. That’s how big the God Gap is - about 400% on college campuses.
at has an essay on the urbanism and housing situation of Crested Butte, Colorado. It sounds like a beautiful place that suffers from the same problems as much of America:Just as cranes allow us to build structures that would be unthinkable without them and microscopes allow us to see new worlds invisible to the naked eye—multidimensional latent spaces extend the reaches of our own interiority and intuition, even if they do not possess it, empower us with new mental strength as we collectively go through a cognitive revolution.
on writes about Li Ziqi, a Chinese influencer who shows rural life in China. Her stuff reminds me of the same American romanticism about giving it all up and moving to the countryside, (even tapping into the same Trad Life stuff that has been gaining popularity lately).If the mountain village had been built out at the same density as the downtown, it could house four times as many people as it currently does. Instead, the condos and hotels are spread out and surrounded by driveways and parking lots… To save itself from a housing shortage, The Town That Wouldn’t Die doesn’t need to move mountains—it just needs to build more like the original mountain town it fought to preserve.
The internet has devoured Liziqi’s world. She has become a rural icon for a generation alienated from the land, her videos offering an aesthetic salve, a balm for the digitally overwhelmed. She represents a longing—particularly among urban Chinese—for a reconnection with a mythical, pastoral past. It is a potent fantasy. But, like all fantasies, it tells only part of the story.
Finally… This Scene is Real and It’s Spectacular
Speaking of fantasies of the Chinese countryside: There is a (semi) viral video going around that looks like an urbanist fantasy created with AI but it is a real place in Guilin, China. The high-speed rail train is whizzing by, onlookers are relaxing on a grassy hill with friends and family, taking in the scene. Off in the distance is a small, walkable village under a majestic mountain range shadowed by the setting sun. What a sight!
The user in the r/highspeedrail subreddit shared that the exact location is 阳朔山水列车 (Yángshuò shānshuǐ lièchē) or the Yangshuo Landscape Train. It costs ¥37 (about $5). I will have to try to stop in on Guilin when I go to China!