Welcome to mini East Lansing. This quickly growing junior-size city is located on a plot of land shared by the college town and Bath Township. It comes complete with thousands of apartments, pools and basketball courts that can be converted to ice rinks, volleyball courts, exercise rooms, a private movie theater, tanning salons and stocked game rooms.

Wait - that's not all.

Coming soon, in front of the Village at Chandler Crossings and Crossing Place apartments near you, is a 48,000-square-foot development that is geared to house a pizzeria, grocery store, coffee shop, hair salon, sports bar and Laundromat. There even is the possibility for a bank, video store and restaurant to move into the new complex.

With all these great amenities going up on East Lansing's Northern Tier, students will soon not have to venture far from the safety of their gated communities to carry on with their daily lives.

But Northern Tier residents and resident wannabes beware: mini East Lansing might not be as safe as you think. Despite all the amenities and nearby businesses sprawling about, the junior-sized collegeville has yet to install suitable sidewalks, proper street lights or slow down increasing traffic volumes with lower speed limits.

And don't forget the loads of late-night drivers, who swerve their vehicles up and down Abbott Road going to and from the Northern Tier and downtown parties and bars.

The bottom line is that East Lansing's Northern Tier seems to be growing at out-of-control rates - and attracting more and more Spartans away from dwellings nearer to campus.

With students scattered so far from campus, it's hard to see how they can be engaged in university life. The college lifestyle is supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Students should be aware they have their whole lives to live in gated, cookie-cutter communities.

And with students' poor voting records, one worries that living farther from East Lansing will only contribute to their apathy toward the city's political atmosphere.

But perhaps good could come out of the migration in the city's housing market. Landlords who own less-than-ideal housing nearer to the downtown area will be inspired to clean up their aged properties and lower rental prices to compete with the more modern communities.

Financial issues aside, Northern Tier developers, along with East Lansing and Bath Township officials need to ensure dangerous conditions don't contribute to the loss of life which was the case in October. Two women died after being struck by a car during early morning hours.

Those responsible need to make sure safety issues are being addressed as rapidly as the area is growing.