| Proximity to major urban institutions presumably generates positive and negative externalities that can contribute to, or detract from, a neighborhood's residential appeal. This study will investigate the impact that urban universities have on local neighborhood housing markets during the 1980s. The study will answer three questions. First, does proximity to a university in an urban area produce systematic, significant impacts on neighborhood housing markets, in terms of average monthly rental payments and average housing unit values? Second, do public and private universities in urban areas have different impacts on neighborhood housing markets? Lastly, how does a university's partnership activities or campus development objectives reveal themselves as impacts within surrounding neighborhood housing markets?; The main research questions are evaluated through quantitative and qualitative research methods. The quantitative portion of the study purposively draws from the “Urban 13” a sample of five public universities with espoused “urban missions” and pairs each selection with a private university in the same city. Three ordinary least squares multiple regression models are used in the analysis. Each model utilizes two university dummy variable specifications that separately flag census tracts adjacent to either of the selected public or private institutions in each city. The qualitative case study focuses on Wayne State University in Detroit and interprets the statistical findings through specific university activity and inactivity during the 1980s.; The study finds that the characteristics of neighborhoods abutting universities are significantly different from neighborhoods citywide. In addition, neighborhood adjacency to both the public and private institutions produced statistically significant effects during the 1980s, albeit dissimilar. Proximity to public universities generally decreased monthly rental payments and had mixed-effects on housing unit values. But proximity to private universities consistently demonstrated positive impacts on these indicators. In the case of Wayne State University, proximity to the University was associated with smaller changes in rents and larger changes in housing values when compared to neighborhoods citywide. These effects likely resulted from several specific university activities and inactivity, including: rising enrollments; delaying the construction of new student housing; the community development goals of a university-community partnership; extensive campus development; and widespread land speculation. |
