We’re a university town. There are a few who want desperately for us to be something else, but those wants scarcely matter. The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is a vital part of Whitewater. Our campus – yes, our campus – improves life for all of us.
Thousand of students receive an education that’s part of the American Dream. Others, not students or faculty, receive cultural and economic benefits from the campus.
The economic benefits are important, as much as the cultural ones. Economic well-being isn’t selfish – it’s the hoped for foundation of a good life that makes good works possible. Prosperity is a good.
We’d collapse economically without the campus. Even if the education of a new generation doesn’t matter to some, one would think that self-interest would impose restraint against anti-student agitation.
It hasn’t. There are men in Whitewater who speak about students the way other men speak about rats. When did being young, and looking for an education, become such a source of contempt and consternation? It should be a source of pride for our community that we have our own campus.
Ticketing residents based on how many cars are at a house, or taking pictures of supposed code violations near the university, is self-destructive. No one doubts that America’s economy has slowed. Even in better times, Whitewater has had a higher poverty rate than surrounding communities. The effort of attracting retail to our downtown, or anywhere else in our small city, will be especially vulnerable to recession. Keeping existing businesses going will be difficult.
This is hardly the time to exacerbate our reputation as an enforcement-loving, restriction-favoring town.
When developers and homeowners provide housing for students, they’re responding to a market need. They didn’t create this need; they shouldn’t be badgered for offering housing solutions that neither the city nor state has provided.
Some are concerned about the supposed power of a few local developers. I am not similarly worried. In any event, if the market were more open, with fewer restrictions, then we might be able to attract more developers to dilute the influence of those now building here. If anti-market groups fret over the power of developers here, then they should look to their own actions. Having made Whitewater inhospitable to growth, they now unfairly criticize those who are willing to build and take risks here.
Best options: End enforcement of regulations like the one involving the number of cars in a driveway, and thereafter loosen zoning restrictions to permit optimal use of properties in each neighborhood. (I’d eliminate many of our zoning restrictions, but few are ready for that.)
I’m not looking to curry favor with the college community. I’ve mentioned before that I am not affiliated with the campus. Although my readership has grown month-after-month, I don’t think that I have that many campus readers. I know, too, that many students will take political or social views that aren’t libertarian.
I’m unconcerned; they don’t have to agree with me to deserve a better shake than our (dependent) town gives them.