(University) cities:  imagined?

This paper explores the phenomenon of university town in Poland and Europe. More specifically, the paper illustrates cultural base of conflicts and debates connected with cooperation between city and university, and methods of it researching and solving. It is argued that there is a significant difference between visions of the university produced by humanities and sciences. In recent years, this difference has also emerged in several universities which locate campuses and student communities outside the city. Such a process is a result of the geographical, economic, social and cultural promotion of higher education in the end of 20th century. Enlarged student populations should be integrated into communities characterized by much the same styles of life, modes of consumption, inherited cultural capital and “good taste”. Students are dispersed to different parts of towns and cities. Process of studentification generate gentrification in the middle of the city, but it has also a positive impact on city dwellers and local communities. In many ways, these young communities signified lucid exemplars that the city-university relations seek to engender. The paper concludes by considering some possible issues of cooperation characteristic to the university town.
 

This paper explores the phenomenon of university town in Poland and Europe. More specifically, the paper illustrates cultural base of conflicts and debates connected with cooperation between city and university, and methods of it researching and solving. It is argued that there is a significant difference between visions of the university produced by humanities and sciences. In recent years, this difference has also emerged in several universities which locate campuses and student communities outside the city. Such a process is a result of the geographical, economic, social and cultural promotion of higher education in the end of 20th century. Enlarged student populations should be integrated into communities characterized by much the same styles of life, modes of consumption, inherited cultural capital and “good taste”. Students are dispersed to different parts of towns and cities. Process of studentification generate gentrification in the middle of the city, but it has also a positive impact on city dwellers and local communities. In many ways, these young communities signified lucid exemplars that the city-university relations seek to engender. The paper concludes by considering some possible issues of cooperation characteristic to the university town.