Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science
In one key respect I haven’t really
got the standing to weigh in on the Fairmount Properties debate. I live in
Earlville, where proposals to build anything of any sort are sorely lacking.
Still, I’ve worked in Hamilton since 1986, have a stake in the way Colgate
makes decisions and pursues its goals, and have taught a seminar on “urbanism”
for the last several years. That course considers the social sources of viable
communities and the ways seemingly mundane choices and activities shape and
reshape our cities.
And besides, keeping quiet has
never been my forte. So here goes.
I’ve never
been a NIMBY type, nor have I ever been part of the BANANA (Build Absolutely
Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) Brigade. Change and renewal can be good for a
community when done right, and when they reflect and serve the needs and wishes
of large segments of the community. A critical mass in a town or village—a
certain amount of density—can be essential, particularly in a rural village
that has to contend with the many forces drawing people and commercial activity
away to The Bright Lights of Syracuse, and beyond.
And—here’s
a view that I know many will dispute—Hamilton really does need help. Pleasant
as it is in many respects, as college towns go it’s a fairly poky little joint sorely
lacking in a variety of areas. (I know: Mr. Earlville – look who’s talking. But
anyway…) If Fairmount proposed to replace the old Wayne’s World with commercial
space and housing for the broader
community—crucially, for a mix of incomes and household types—I would
probably support the idea. Hamilton does need to be more open to change than it
has typically been: a few years ago the idea of widening the sidewalk a few
feet where Lebanon and Broad Streets come together, across the street from the
Colgate Bookstore, touched off an almost-comical level of contention. Other possible
developments that might have enlivened the village have drawn almost reflexive
opposition over the years.
But the
Fairmount/Colgate proposal, to the extent that we even know what it will be, is
seriously unsettling for at least three big, and interrelated, reasons. It is a
bad idea to concentrate students in the center of the village; that idea is
part of a larger Colgate strategy that harms the village far more than it
helps; and it reflects a style of governance that suggests we will see many other
bad ideas in the future.
Concentrating
a large number of students, their guests, their loud music, their broken
bottles, and their carousing within staggering distance of all the town’s bars
and its one liquor store is such a bad idea that it falls into the “What were they thinking?” category. As noted,
I don’t live in Hamilton, but I recall several nights on which I’ve driven
through the village on my way home from late flights into Syracuse, and have seen
what sorts of hell are routinely being raised. Colleagues who do live in the village can describe that
particular Colgate scene far better than I can. On this issue the Hamilton
Police are right on target: the proposal is a bloody brawl just waiting to
happen. Yes, it’s true that many, perhaps most, of our students don’t fit the profile
sketched out here – thank goodness -- and yes, it’s true that the others who do
fit it live on the hill and around the village already. But the proposed new
residence is a good bet to become Party Central, and precedent suggests that
some of those affairs will turn ugly. What the village might gain depends upon
the sorts of retail businesses willing to set up shop below a dormitory, but
the biggest likely effect is an additional boost to the beer-and-pizza sector
of the local economy.
That brings
up the second point, which is the larger vision that the University seems to be
pursuing for the village. Here, Colgate gets things exactly wrong. Jane Jacobs
wasn’t writing about Hamilton by any means, but she was right in observing that
vibrant communities derive their vitality from the fact that people want to be there—people who
pursue diverse agendas and activities at a variety of times in a variety of
ways. Communities that offer those many day-to-day uses, particularly where
there is a broader pool of social and economic resources, are likely to thrive.
Those that become over-specialized and one-dimensional will not. If there are
decent places to shop for daily needs, if there are a variety of services (How about catering! Right next to the movie
theatre… oh, yeah -- sorry…)—in other words, if there are good reasons for
all sorts of people to come to the center of the village on a regular basis to
do all sorts of things, Hamilton will do just fine.
But concentrating
a large group of students in the center of Hamilton is about as un-diverse as
it gets in terms of the ways people use public space. Similarly, Colgate’s
agenda of turning the village into a Potemkin version of The American College
Town largely, it would seem, for the benefit of visiting parents is a poor way
to attract a diverse and reliable stream of everyday activity. Many notable
college towns are indeed sorta cute: Princeton in particular has suffered a
large number of Cutesy attacks, with Cutesy typically winning by several
touchdowns. But those sorts of attractions survive and retain their interest
because they grow up on the foundations, and in the nooks and crannies, of a viable
city and region. Using cutesy as a starting point is to confuse cause and
effect: it’s a lot like pushing on one end of a string.
Hamilton’s
problems have a lot more to do with the general economic weakness of its
surrounding area than with any lack of a fine-arts center or a shortage of
students in bar district. Colgate cannot revive the region by itself, but it
could help Hamilton develop the sorts of businesses that would offer something every
day to our neighbors in these parts of Madison and Chenango counties. The area
is not wealthy by any means, but Hamilton would have surprisingly little
competition as a kind of regional market town. A place to buy a shirt or a pair
of shoes, a pharmacy—it would all be pretty mundane, but it could be the basis
of a more viable community. As matters stand, Colgate has been taking away the
reasons why people from around the region might want to come to town. Then, our
administrators wonder why retailers are not lining up for our vacant
storefronts.
The final
issue is governance: who decides what Hamilton should be, whose interests are
to be served, and who gets a place at the table when those decisions are made? I
will admit that while I had heard rumors about the future of the old Wayne’s
location I had not realized Colgate was so deeply involved. But the way the
proposal came to the surface was telling: a meeting that, according to the Mid-York Weekly, was expected to deal
with preliminaries was instead confronted with a full-blown proposal—one that
may be opened to a little discussion now that the developer and University have
seized the momentum, but one for which no changes are contemplated in the
immediate future. That sort of now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t,
take-it-or-leave-it proposal, rolled out during the downtime of summer, is
becoming a hallmark of this administration.
I don’t
know: perhaps when it comes to making Hamilton a viable multi-purpose village
again, all the relevant ships have long since sailed. Perhaps our
administration will have second thoughts about the dormitory idea and the
steamroller tactics used to promote it so far. Stranger things have happened,
although I can’t quite recall when. But the basic point is that while Colgate’s
and Hamilton’s interests line up in some respects, they aren’t identical. A
long, complex, and inclusive conversation is in order as to just what
Hamilton’s strengths and weaknesses might be, and about a variety of visions of
what the town could become. The Fairmount/Colgate approach not only raises real
concerns about that future; it also leaves many of us pessimistic as to whether
that essential conversation can ever take place.
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