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Symptoms of Studentification

RISE OF PROBLEMS
Social Problems
01 Anti-Social Behaviour: endemic low-level ASB, including noise nuisance, minor vandalism, evacuation.
02 Crime: high rates, especially burglary.
03 Insurance: owners pay top premiums for house, contents, vehicle insurance.

Environmental Problems
04 Squalor: surrounded by litter, rubbish, flytipping.
05 Dereliction: neglect of houses and gardens, development of houses and gardens.
06 Street Blight: letting boards, flyposting, grilles.

Economic Problems
07 Distorted Retail: orientation towards a very specific market, manifest in the particular range of lines in shops, and the range of retail outlets (especially increased numbers of pubs, take-aways and letting agencies).
08 Fluctuating Market: from high demand (term) to low demand (vacation).
09 Casualised Employment: local employment becomes increasingly seasonal (term) and part-time (evening).

Generic Problems
10 Carparking: obstructs pavements for pedestrians, and access by emergency vehicles, cleansing, buses, and residents.
11 Services Overwhelmed: not only disproportionate demands on public services like cleansing and policing, housing and planning, but also indirectly the drain of resources away from provision in other areas [and neither students nor landlords pay Council Tax or Business Tax].

DECLINE OF COMMUNITY
12 Decimation: student demand gives rise to high property prices and low amenity, encouraging emigration and making immigration almost impossible, with the result that there are fewer elders (retaining past memories), fewer adults (present activists) and fewer children (the community’s future).
13 Disruption: most owners and occupiers are absentees (hence disengaged), the young and the old especially are isolated (losing their peers), and the neighbourhood loses its social capital or ‘community spirit’ (its social networks, social norms and social sanctions).
14 Distress: deep and rapid changes are felt acutely: the population imbalance itself is stressful (public oppression, private isolation), the declining amenity is alienating (fear of crime, revulsion from squalor, exclusion by the economy), and residents feel anger and despair at their disempowerment.
15 Services Underwhelmed: school closures (ironically, reducing education).

National HMO Lobby
June 2005

National HMO Lobby
email: hmolobby@hotmail.com website: www.hmolobby.org.uk