town-gown controversy

This news story is the latest drama amongst my Northwestern friends on facebook.  Long story short, there is a law in Evanston that prohibits more than 3 unrelated people from living together.  This "brothel" law, as it has been called, was put into the books way back when the city was trying to prevent "houses of prostitution" (as the article so delicately calls them) from coming to town...or so the story goes.  The law has been around quite some time, and the city of Evanston has never really enforced it...until now.  Apparently, some hard partying went down in the fall, the Evanstonians complained, and now the city is retaliating against the students.  (The relationship between NU and the city of Evanston has always been tense.  Many people claim it is because Evanston is bitter that NU doesn't have to pay taxes.  There would be no Evanston without NU, so quit whining.)


I truly do feel for the students in this case.  Yes, maybe they were a tad disruptive. But hey, don't the people of Evanston know they are living in a college town?  What do you expect?  Besides, it's not like we are even a party school.  It is hard enough to find off-campus housing close enough to campus to be within safe walking distance, which isn't even all that safe sometimes. (And don't think about having a car...parking? Yeah right!)  Now, the larger apartments and houses which make up the majority of the housing that is blocks away from campus will be off limits to students?  Where are they supposed to live?


Let's put a personal spin on it.  When I was a senior living in Evanston, I was living in an apartment that was technically in violation of this law.  We had a 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment that was located 2 blocks away from campus.  There were 4 women living there.  In order to get around this law, our landlord only put 3 names on the lease.  Why did I live with so many people?  Well, some of the roommates were going to be away for some semesters as part of their degree requirements.  We simply couldn't afford the place with only 2 or 3 people.  We paid over $1,800 a month, and it was a pretty small apartment.  (Not to mention, it was kind of a dump.  If you ask my parents, this is putting it nicely.)  The majority of our neighbors were also students.  We made nice with those that weren't and everything was fine.  (Our downstairs neighbor was a riot.  He was a musician that had to be up early Sunday mornings to play the organ at church.  When we introduced ourselves and gave him our contact info in case we ever got too loud, his reply was "if you are ever playing loud music late on a Saturday night, don't worry about it...I'll just return the favor and blast organ music very loud early Sunday morning".  We never had a problem!)  Most of my other friends lived in similar situations.  Students were the majority population in the 4-5 block radius spanning NU's mile long campus.  It is what was available, it was what everybody did.  I can understand why the students are in an outrage.  This probably has put a major crimp in next-year's housing plans for a large population of the student body.

Home sweet former home.  Our kitchen window is at the top.  (Google couldn't take a better photo from the front of the building because the road was closed.)

It will be interesting to see how this story develops in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned...I know I'll be reading the Daily to see how it unfolds.  And if you want a humorous take on the situation, read this article in the Gawker.  Want to know my favorite quote from the article?  


"Trying to stop college kids from partying is like trying to keep bears from shitting in the woods. If you push them out of their housing, they're just going to find new, inventive, and more annoying places to do gravity bong hits and drink too many Jell-O shots. And if there are fewer students in each apartment, that just means more room for kegs and the stands that accompany them."  


So funny, and yet so true...