Vlog on the impact of students on the city of Groningen

Students have an increasing impact on the city of Groningen. They support the local economy and create a vibrate city life. This process of 'studentification' also has downsides. Students have to compete in finding an appropriate living space. Moreover, differences in daily rhythms lead to conflicts with other citizens.

In this vlog (in Dutch), Ward Rauws stresses the difficulties for public authorities in guiding the development of student towns. He explains studentification as a self-organizing process in which no-one has direct responsibility. Nevertheless, the collective effects of individual actions of actors, such as students, entrepreneurs and landlords, are very real and not always desirable.

In responding to these effects, Rauws suggests local governments to broaden their set of interventions. Next to legal rules and to zoning new areas of student housing, city planners can also support student initiatives that foster contact with other citizens, stimulate experiments with alternative mix-housing projects, and develop better bike and public transport connections between university locations and peripheral neighbourhoods and villages. This way a variety of possible, more balanced, development trajectories is opened up, allowing the city and its inhabitants to learn about what works best.

The video is part of a series of vlog in which young academics explain about their research. Earlier videos includes topics such as intelligent bacteria , robots in love and the benefits of speaking a dialect for your health .