It’s nice to know East Lansing city officials are keeping students in mind while making its rental buyback program a No. 1 priority. But it’s hard to believe its intentions are good ones.
If a city government is moving to push students out of town, it doesn’t really send a positive message that they are welcome in East Lansing. Instead, the message they hear is the polar opposite.
It seems the chief problem that has eaten away at student-city relations for countless years is still alive and well in East Lansing. City leaders want to live in a hip town complete with a college atmosphere, but they don’t want the students to be included in that environment. It doesn’t work that way.
The proposed program involves the scheme of the city buying back rental properties and marketing them as single-family housing units. City officials hope the plan will create more diverse dwelling areas that already are dense with renters. Many of the city’s rental properties can be found in predominantly student-populated areas.
While it is a good thing to promote neighborhood diversity and enrichment, it is an atrocious thing to attempt to rid the city of its chief inhabitants.
It’s no secret MSU could prosper without East Lansing, but East Lansing could not without MSU.
There are many potential problems that could plague the city if its leaders succeed in pushing students out of the downtown area to the outskirts.
If more students are forced to live in the city’s outer areas, that will mean more students will be forced to drive to campus.
More students driving to campus means more traffic on East Lansing streets and more students looking for parking spaces. The result is unneeded traffic congestion and chaos.
The downtown area also will miss the students who walk its streets and spend money on weekends. Unlike family-oriented adults, students spend their money no matter what the state of the economy is. Instead of walking down Grand River Avenue and into the new Gap store, students forced to drive to their destinations would just as likely venture to the Gap store at Meridian Mall.
It would be unwise for the city to push revenue out. There wouldn’t be anything to keep businesses going.
If city officials are concerned with a dwindling number of families living in East Lansing neighborhoods and attending the city’s schools, perhaps they should explore other ways of dealing with the problem. East Lansing should become more competitive with local municipalities to attract families to the city.
We applaud the city’s effort to buy rental properties that have received numerous housing code violations and are run-down. But keeping those buildings from being accessible to students isn’t the best way to go about cleaning up the city.
There already are rental number caps according to the area and number of inhabitants. The balance of students and permanent residents needs to be maintained, not weighed down.
The city shouldn’t take away student living space near downtown if it isn’t prepared to create more in its place. East Lansing is home to all Spartans.
