[wburg]

Drexel and USC, plus USF, UC Davis Extension, and a cluster of campuses within a mile or two of the "grid" like McGeorge in Oak Park or UCDMC's med school are all there, but their effect is hard to see because they aren't visibly a "university." But once one gets into the community, there are a lot of graduates of these programs, and they form close connections. I went to a USC event at the Citizen a year or two ago, and the president of the University noted that the main USC campus in Los Angeles represented something like a $1 billion per year portion of Los Angeles' economy.

It should be noted that Sacramento's situation (our regional educational institutions are far from downtown) is not a unique situation. In the Bay Area, the best-known schools are Stanford and UC Berkeley, both well outside San Francisco. USC and UCLA are both in the Los Angeles city limits, but a long way from downtown. In the 19th and early 20th century, educators felt the best place for a college was in the "groves of academe" well outside of city centers, so they put their campuses in remote, country locations.

There are also small private schools in the community, but they tend to be in suburban locations. I gave a talk last week at the Art Institute of California up off Gateway Oaks (talking about local art history) and while they are theoretically close to downtown, because they're a commuter campus in an office park, they don't have as much college "feel" and are detached from much of city life But what if you moved that art school into the Railyards, in one of the Shops buildings or new construction alongside 6th/7th? Or off of Richards Boulevard near the Green Line? What kind of medium-sized school would enhance the city? A school of design and architecture? Industrial/vocational technology? Engineering? I'm thinking more along the lines of University of the Pacific in Stockton, which is well-known and well-respected university, but only has about 7000 students. Another recent example is Los Angeles FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising) which opened up in a part of downtown Los Angeles that looked more sketchy and abandoned (aside from during rush hour) than any part of downtown Sacramento, with 7500 students.

I think CSUS is working on an expansion of on-campus housing, kind of a "student village" campus on the southern end of their parking lot near Folsom Boulevard, which also has the advantage of proximity to the Light Rail line, plus there is also a student-oriented apartment complex planned a bit south of Folsom and 65th.

Bringing the subject back to transit, students tend to use public transit, especially if (like UCD, CSUS and community colleges) their tuition includes a bus pass that lets them ride for free. Once people learn to use transit they tend to be more comfortable using it later in life. They also tend to ride bikes, and downtown Sacramento is a cyclist's paradise!