HomeMy WebLinkAboutSame As It Ever Was: Housing at Texas A&M UniversityCITE
VINCENT B. CANIZARO
SA
HOUSING AT
"College Station is like
an old pair of shoes,
It's ugly to look at, but
S
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
to build a
landscape of the m nd
r
P
o
h
q
F
b
R
d
b
d
ir
k~
m
p~
bt
n}
in
th
w
re
ne
gi~
ap
bh
Bc
im
CITE
in a
sur-
housing,
quality, and Iocatio In the
tmmediare need t
area of si
was not a financial
Rudder feared
development ~'1~
been a cow college with about
dents because there wasn't any
anybody tn live.''5
Through the t970s
mg starts proliferated,
enrollment. As developers
keep up with demand~
to hedg~
market in College Station is more com-
petitive, and higher-quality complexes are
being built, but the attitude and }and-
scape of laisse faire paternalism remains
firmly m place.
A different kind of paternalism was
associated with late-19th-century compa-
ny towns -- regimented townscapes built
in or near industrial sites by employers to
maximize workers' comnlitlllent to their
jobs. The campus ideal is associated with
the belief [ stand
i~z loco parentts
who sent
responsibility nos only for the students'
educations but their value
tcall
glma, but it has
scape more like that of the company
town. The re{rove for rapid and poor
quality construction in College Station's
bleak landscape of the cmnpany town
Both are the result oi' the maxmaizadon
of ' reduces the
quail
low,
the
· land-
: real and
living,
remote location and bad architecture.
But such compensation works only up to
of Vir~
students
that of lais*
profit. In this
Uni-
"What