Is that because they drink too much, have too many bicycles or are transitory?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"More student flats ‘would destroy communities’ "
(5 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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I must say that when I lived in student's ville the local shops were not kept alive by the local old folk... It was always a queue of students grabbing a snack/drink/whatever that were the majority of the queue.
Posted 9 years ago # -
'Exponential growth' - I wonder if the journo can show us the exact formula....
Difficult one. Students good for local businesses (I'd agree) even if they are transitory.
Protecting 'community'? As has been discussed here before, if you're talking of tenements and the like then there's not necessarily as much interaction or feeling of 'community' (living in Comely Bank and Trinity I didn't really feel a 'community' as such, whereas I really really do in Duddingston, and definitely in Porty nearby).
Complaint seems to be of students wandering down the streets in the wee small hours being drunk. Surely the council could bring in measures to counter that specifically if they are forced(?) to allow up to 50% student population within 800m of uni?
When I went to uni back in the olden days there were residences dotted all over campus, or in their own little ghettos. Does that not happen anymore? Is it a consequence of private housing provision becoming the norm?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Students good for local businesses
It's a bit of a chicken and the egg situation, depending on what sort of "local" businesses they are supporting. No doubt the Tescbury Loxpresses get a lot of good business from students (or people who are living their lives in the manner of your stereotypical student - their main stock appears to be alcohol, snacks and convenience food) who might be less inclined to trek further to find bigger supermarkets. But are those sort of shops really doing anything good for the local economy?
I think any community needs a balance of socio-economic and demographics to support a good range of truly local businesses. If you end up with 60% of any one grouping I think you will find the businesses that remain/arrive will be heavily geared towards that majority group.
Of course it all depends what you define as local. Is it local if it's in Edinburgh? Sometime you have to go pretty far to avoid the chain shops and supermarkets find that niche local business where you ideally want to spend your money.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Hmm. Lots of places within 800m of campuses.
On the one hand, keeping students where you can see them and vaguely regulate how much they're being ripped off for housing is useful, but so is allowing some of them to disperse and start residentially integrating themselves into non-student society, aided by the odd visit from an upstairs neighbour asking them to pipe down a little or the occasional request from less-mobile co-stair-inhabitants requesting that bicycles not be chained on the inside of the banisters and so on.
Further to kaputnik above, there is a notable lack of usefulness to the stock profile of the former-Blockbuster-Sainsbury on Bernard Terrace/Clerk Street, and to some extent the Middle Meadow Walk branch. The former-WmLow-Tesco on Nicolson Street seemed to undergo a marked decrease in general-purposeness with each till-zone remodelling, though the former-Flip-Tesco on South Bridge looked to be worse for actual student infestation when we moved away in 2010.
Posted 9 years ago #
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