How many students will actually BUY downtown?
Started a response to this question but I felt the question was deserving a post of its own
However, you raise a good point “how many students will actually BUY downtown?” A damn good point
First off, Students are not my priority for residents for many of the reasons you’ve cited now and in the past, graduates are. Students are nice because bodies bring bodies but Graduates are a retailers best demographic
This leads to what I’ve been advocating for for years. A residential recruitment campaign with HARD TARGETS
I believe that between 5 and maybe up to 10% of the graduates of downtown campus’ could potentially choose a downtown location in which to live. I’d like to see a residential recruitment campaign that would target a number of 5% of the students of each of these faculties and track its success rate of residential recruits.
Years ago, with the help of Dario Silvaggi (one of the current owners of Whitestar which I find noteworthy) I came up with a residential recruitment campaign based on what I learnecd at one of the International Downtown Association conferences and applying it to Windsor
Actually wrote a post on this almost 4 years ago
https://scaledown.ca/2007/10/05/living-in-the-core/
We need to sell to graduates that a downtown residence will save them a half hour of drive time every day, it will save them money that they have to spend on gas and cars (CAN ANYONE SAY ZIP CAR????) and then show them all the wonderful “new” and current things to do with that time and money
I called the campaign.
Downtown Windsor: The time of your life
The time to enjoy our parks
the time to bike or walk the riverfront
the time to ice skate
the time to learn
the time to listen to the symphony or other concerts at the riverfront, Chrysler theater, Capital, or Caesars
The time to watch live theater or other shows
the time to taste our restaurants
the time to enjoy a cafe culture
etc…
etc….
etc……
I maintain that we should set a fixed target and then each year measure and study why graduates did or did not choose downtown as their place to live
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And by the way, my post 4 years ago predicted a bit of doom and gloom. I’m happy to be wrong about Windsor’s bright future
What ever happened to that whole “live and work downtown” program that Francis talked about during his re-election campaign???
Graduates would be the key and not just 1st or 2nd year students…we know what happened to those neighbourhoods around the UofW!
But until we stop widening roads; get some retail; it just won’t happen. It is far too easy to get to the suburbs in 15 minutes.
Also the city has to start catering to residents who already live downtown. Make is easier to live downtown without hassles and make it aesthetically pleasing. As it is interesting to see nice pedestrian streetlamps in new subdivisons while downtown areas get aluminum poles and the paving bricks ripped out and not put back (THANKS LAZY ENWIN WORKERS!!).
I also say quit promising the moon when in reality the city will sell a rock (IE: urban village..no wait an arena…no wait an urban village….no wait canals…no wait an urban village….no wait an aquatics center).
I just don’t see graduates buying too much without incentives for refurbishing existing houses. Too much money, too much hassle for students with the usual debt load.
Your optimism counters my pessimism so we can meet somewhere in the middle. I think residential studies would be a very smart thing for the city to do. As long as they follow up on it.
BTW: Perhaps bars like White Star can train their bouncers to react positively when issues arise so that they don’t let people fall, hit their heads and then drag the semi-consious individual around the corner and leave them there. People such as this do a HUGE dis-service to our downtown. (I know, I witnessed it with out of town guests…not a pretty sight).
Dave, I think the first step is measuring.
I come from an automotive background where I was taught, if you can’t measure it, you can’t control it
I’d like to see a list of how many graduates of students who were primarily in programs in the downtown campus.
Each year measure of those students who chose to live in the downtown after one year and who didn’t
A simple survey (surveymonkey) to find out why those who did did and why those who didn’t didn’t
Use that information to set realistic targets. Lets say that out of 1000 graduates only 30 choose downtown to live. Then lets set the next year target at 50-60 and track one by one how we progress
People look for large sweeping initiatives when what we need is to work on these people resident by resident
We need to do the same with casino workers and city hall workers. A lot of these strategies to recruit the potential new residents can be overlapping.
The city hall workers are useless to work on. Since over 50% of them already live in the county (where taxes are cheaper..Surprise, Surprise!) luring them to live downtown is a waste of time and money. They aren’t budging.
We need to set our sights on newcomers, graduates (as you propose above) and those who are on the fence when thinking of living downtown. That is why incentives are needed. Gentrification in this small city won’t happen without it. It is too easy to live elsewhere with little negativity associated with it (driving distance and time are small factors here).
Lets face facts. Living downtown at this time is more cumbersome than living in suburbia. Until incentives are used to offset the difficulty in living downtown, no one will do it.
I do like your idea of tracking people are just starting to buy.
I think in this case its important to point that while some of the faculties would be moving downtown. Those students would still have some courses on the main campus. Considering most of the University culture and services are still tied to the main campus, the ability to attract students to live downtown will be limited. Further, if one looks at the economics of the area surrounding the university I don’t think you’ll find the type of businesses that we are looking for in our downtown. Students are poor. They will not be the impetus of economic revitalization. You will need to provide a reason for graduates and young professional couples to live downtown. For that to occur, they will need to work downtown.
That is really the key. Live and work downtown. Gentrification.
Jody, to clarify, my assertion is that from attending several sessions on downtowns and university campus’ on a variety of specialized issues such as residential recruitment campaigns, gentrification, “Town and gowns”, benefits of downtown campus’ to the school and benefits to the downtown, I was given this information. When I go to these conferences, I’m a sponge for information. I even found there’s an art to it where if you’re organized you can even gain information from multiple sessiosn scheduled at the same time.
Now I can’t quote sources and statistics specifically but during those sessions these were made readily available. WHen looking up links at the time, I found nothing to challenge those assertions
I learned that statistically, graduates of downtown campus’ are more likely to choose a downtown location to live. ALso that when trying to recruit residents to a downtown, targeting graduates was one of the best bangs for your recruitment dollar
That being said, I think this is consistent with your comment, While downtown campus’ beneficially affect residential recruitment, to what extent is largely dictated by the downtown. the variation is large
I can’t remember numbers exactly but to the best of my recollection Downtowns without campus within or adjoining them could. For the purposes of this conversation I’d feel confortable using numbers like an increase in residential recruitment from 2-5% of graduates to 5-10%.
The reasoning for the first increase is that graduates sspent 3-4 years downtown where they normally have fond memories. Think Rob Lowe in St Elmo’s fire
Now, whether we hit 5% or 10% is a tremendous difference. you still have natural attrition of the population for reasons of aging Windsor’s population shrinking, sprawl, no family amenities etc…
The difference between growing graduates 5% or 10% could theoretically mean the difference between the overall population growing or shrinking
This is why shelving the Comunity Improvment Plans. They called for a number of actions that would make a difference
1. A market rate housing study that would tell builders what the. Jim Yanchula taught me that one way of looking at it would be to try to identify what builders are prepared to build and what customers are to pay for. That its government’s role to bridge that gap
2. Graduates are one of the most sought after demographic for retailers
Cool story on this point. that in the tv show Seinfields 2nd or 3rd season it did not have enough viewers to warrant renewal. However the viewers they did have were the best target market for products so they made an exceptioin to the renewal and the show went on to be one of the most celebrated sitcoms. I believe graduates are
3. I was always horrified at the thought that that government was willing to spend 300 million widing our EC rowe expressway so that 20,000 additional of our populace could live out in the county. Why not spend a small fraction of that providing reasons for people to live downtown so that they don’t even need an expressway to drive on. Widening highways to deal with a sprawl issue makes about as much sense as loossening your belt to deal with a weight problems
Short answer, University will give us a natural boost of about 5% but if we dedicate some resources, time and money we can significantly leverage this news for more
BTW, on my 3rd point, I love it when a social benefits to society result in economic benefits. Many times people think the two are mutually exclusive. Better quality of life through simplicity
I once spoke before WECEC and told them how I thought they hurt our auto industry while achieving nothing with aggressively pursuing ever risinb CAFE standards. That the more important factor that went ignored was TVM’s or Total Vehicle miles travelled
That every gain attributed to CAFE standards was negated by an increase in total vehiclle miles travelled. That if we would have focused a tenth of their energy on sprawl instead of mileage we’d save gas used many times over. All this while increasing the standard of living for the average worker
I maintain that the guy who drives around in a hummer but lives in a walkeable neighborhood is more virtuous than the guy who drives a prius but has to drive everywhere he goes
Talk about a “Lesser-Of-Two-Evils” argument! And I maintain that it’s much more humane to murder someone with a bullet to the head than drawing-and-quartering someone!
Owning a gas guzzler that rarely gets driven is not a lesser of two evils in my book, its a personal choice that achieves virtually the same result if not a better result than sprawl. I’m not a fan of becoming environmentally friendly by simply creating a scarcity of resources which has never been shown to work, I like doing it by increasing quality of life through simplicity
I’m trying to get my head around recruiting grads to live in our downtown. I’m not sure we have the employment opportunities to attract them to stay. I’ve seen some of the work Workforce Windsor Essex has done around surveying University students and what they plan to do when they leave school, it’s not very encouraging.
I think we get caught in the chicken or the egg conundrum.
I am becoming more and more a fan of the urban village concept.
Jody,
Back when I graduated from U of Windsor, the school’s population was around 60% from outside of Windsor. That could mean the county, but more were from further afield.
The survey from a couple of years ago showed University grads were less likely to stay in Windsor after graduation.
So we’re stuck relying on a highly transient population to solve the problem of downtown.
Of course, those who are from Windsor may stay, but then we could be canablizing other parts of the city to service downtown. But I’m not convinced that Windsor is retaining the home grown grads as the city is a net exporter in terms of population.
Stats Canada has numbers to show Windsor’s population has declined over the last five years. People are voting with their feet.
I realize your comments were directed at Jody but since its my post and part my blog, I will try to politely comment
“The survey from a couple of years ago showed University grads were less likely to stay in Windsor after graduation.”
I would say thats consistent with the fact that the University campus location is one of the worst areas of the city and absent of downtown
“So we’re stuck relying on a highly transient population to solve the problem of downtown.”
I gotta say, I’ve never quite heard relying on higher education and graduates for the future of downtown framed in this manner.
You are definitely right that this population is highly mobile but as evidenced by Red Piston, they will choose a downtown location provided the conditions are right.
I think every location that exists is ] “Stuck” relying on university graduates for their future. By recruiting more in our downtown we can compete with these other locations. BY providing conditions in which to recruit them it has been proven by countless other examples that they can be recruited.
“Of course, those who are from Windsor may stay, but then we could be canablizing other parts of the city to service downtown”
Most thinking and data is supporting that concentrating those creative forces in close proximity is yeilding more positive results. It is one of the primary subjects of Richard Florida’s studies and his article “the world is spikey”
http://www.creativeclass.com/rfcgdb/articles/other-2005-The%20World%20is%20Spiky.pdf
“Stats Canada has numbers to show Windsor’s population has declined over the last five years. People are voting with their feet.”
I wholeheartedly agre with this statement and the decision for universty campus is the first one that can reverse this trend.
I mean no offence but I get a feeling that you kinda know this stuff and that you are some how really “reaching” to find a way to oppose something to fill some perceived void of some sort of devils advocate. Only because this type of information has been out there for a decade as evidenced by the data supporting so many other university’s moving towards a downtown campus. After over a decade of this, you can pretty much say that the chance of this being some sort of fad has passed.
There’s a wealth of information I can forward you to regarding how downtown campus’ help the university’s and the city their in. the supporting data for so many other city’s decisions to have downtown campus’ etc….
Ahhh, but thats the beauty of graduates. They’re the next generation
as an Entrepreneurs son I grew up being taught about accumulating property, that you worked hard to be able to buy and pay off the building your business was in, your home and to buy adjoining property etc..etc… I’m still beholden to this thinking, sometimes to a fault.
The businesses of the future are not tied to bricks and mortar. Thats why I’ve been going to SXSW festivals interactive media sessions. To transition the future, businesses no longer need be tied to bricks and mortar. The last downtown business to start up over Villains Beastro is the red Piston
RED PISTON INC.
374 OUELLETTE AVE., SUITE 803
WINDSOR, ON
N9A 1A8
T: 519.916.1005
T: 408.648.1022
They make apps. they could be anywhere but they chose downtown Windsor.
Not only do the businesses of the future need be tied to the bricks and mortar of any one location but their customer base need not be either. How many ebay based businesses are there now? Thousands?
I think the downtown can attract them simply by being a hub that brings creative people together. Thats part of what the urban village is about. More and more data is backing up the fact that when you put universities, development commissions, tourism bureaus and creative minds such as artists, local independent business owners in a closer proximity to each other the results are nothing short of AMAZING. Its like 1 + 1 + 1 = a million opportunities
Thats what I started but failed to complete with 48hour flickfest. I went on to a music video contest which was then supposed to follow with contest for the best interactive (internet) marketing campaign for a music video. By putting musicians , film makers and interactive media people together, I was hoping to actually create an economic development opportunity from what essentially has been a part time hobby for many. The example I use is the video’s by OK GO,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA
There’s no reason why the people in this city can’t produce, market and sell a product like that video.
Its not our job to create the job, only create the conditions in which others create jobs. The downtown university campus and downtown revititalization is a big part of that