<p>JHS: The delicate social ecology is of course on their minds. I think there are two camps about this. One thinks Hyde Park is decent, and that maintaining the status quo is important. They want students to go out to places like 53rd for dinner from time to time or to walk up to the Coop for shopping. However, others see it as highly criminogenic and generally unattractive in terms of retail options, and would prefer a setup akin to that of Yale and its relation to inner city New Haven. That is, a very cloistered campus (potentially partially gated along the lines of Burton Judson), and bordered immediately by trade up establishments like Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Au Bon Pain, Dean & Deluca, Trader Joes, etcetera, so that students can reap both the convenience and safety of not having to mix with the local environment. An unspoken presumption behind this of course is that local citizens will not be able to afford to shop at most of these stores and they will be effectively only used by university affiliates. This simultaneously has the effect of deflecting a lot of charges related to the presence of students by community members: gentrification, noise issues, parking problems, messing with their store choices, as it becomes clear what part of the town belongs to whom. The fact that the University invested early in a quad structure and adhered to the existing street grid system creates boundaries that keep such an investment strategy perennially on the table. </p>
<p>Unalove: U of C students aside due to the inherent selection effect, most people do not find Hyde Park cute. You have to bear in mind that it is ultimately a black ghetto to the majority of those who work downtown (save perhaps for the cluster of buildings along Lakeshore Dr.), only marginally better than, and all to close to, Cottage Grove. While I think this is an extreme characterization, when you compare it to living in even the seedier parts of the loop Hyde Park does come up far short. As a result, it lacks the critical mass of monied buyers to maintain the shopping outlets mentioned above. Arguably the biggest problem is that young families of professionals refuse to move in, since whatever they gain in rental savings is washed out by the fact they would have to pay private tuition to avoid the neighborhood public schools. Indeed, the lab school gets the generous funding it does from the University endowment since without the tuition breaks afforded to faculty children, you would see very few professors living anywhere near the university. I laughed at Barack Obamas Democratic debate contention that his kids would clearly go to public school if were not for the fact that the lab school was on the way to Michelle Obamas office.</p>