OT: Stanford expansion plans - Printable Version

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OT: Stanford expansion plans - TreesAndBirds - 11-06-2017



http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/11/06/stanfords-expansion-plans-stir-debate-in-congested-palo-alto/

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - Trevmiesterj - 11-06-2017

Quote:Stanford aims to add about 40 football fields

This could certainly help recruiting.

On another note, how long will the Stanford Shopping Center be able to stay viable as shopping malls continue to shutter all over the US?

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - French Rage - 11-06-2017

Their store margins are probably better than your average shopping center based on the number of luxury stores.  I remember going there my first day as a grad student and wondering what the hell they were supposed to have that I could use.  (A couple days later I discovered the San Antonio shopping center and that made more sense.)

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - martyup - 11-06-2017

Stanford's empire is expanding, just like . . .

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - 81alum - 11-06-2017

This insatiable appetite for physical expansion makes me wonder how land-challenged universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, U Chicago etc. manage to keep up without tripling their size every couple of decades.  Leland Stanford Sr. gave the university a priceless gift by dedicating so much land--but given the surrounding infrastructure there is only so much development that can be supported before the University becomes surrounded by a ring of gridlock.  Certainly building more housing on campus should be top priority since it reduces the problem; I am skeptical about creating more buildings that will employ more employees from off-campus.

One wild card in Stanford's future--the long term implications of high speed rail if it should ever get to Palo Alto--but who knows if that will ever happen.  Certainly Palo Alto opposes it and its long term fate after the retirement of Jerry Brown looks very uncertain.  But the prospect of faculty taking the train to campus from LA is intriguing, as is a 20 minute commute from San Francisco.  At best, a generation away.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - gocard14 - 11-06-2017

The backlash against a university that has been a major driver of The industry that has made the Bay Area an economic juggernaut dumbfounds me. 99.9% of the country would kill to have Stanford in their backyard, and would greet the influx of 10k new highly educated, tax paying and economy driving residents as a godsend.

We get that infrastructure in the bay is taxed already. The solution is to upgrade infrastructure, not to block growth.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - 82lsju - 11-06-2017

the additional housing over the years has probably been a net reducer of traffic.  Back when I was an undergrad most undergrads spent a year off campus due to too few dorms.  Now it seems the only undergrads who live off campus choose to do so.

I think the same has also been true for graduate housing.

The faculty/staff housing at El Camino and Stanford ave was certainly a brobdingnagian benefit to those who live there.

Adding more on campus living accommodations seems like a good thing to me.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - Goose - 11-06-2017

My problem with Stanford's expansion plans, past and present, is that it is not clear to me how these new buildings are producing more graduates than before. A 4 fold expansion in sq ft has produced no similar rise in graduates. Much, if not most of the expansion has been in research and lab space. That would be great if it were effective. However, the result I have seen so far has been a vastly underutilized set of buildings that are poorly maintained after they are built. I am not at all opposed to expansion once it is clear that we are using what we have fully and wisely.
It would appear to me that lots of the building occurs because many successful people want to donate money to Stanford, and they want their name on it. An endowed chair doesn't have the same flash as a building, and nobody wants to turn down money.  So we get another building. It is not really a planned event, it is a target of opportunity. Some of the building was undoubtedly necessary to replace and augment older structures. However, what we have now is all out proportion to what Stanford can use effectively, IMHO.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - BostonCard - 11-06-2017

It sure looks like the graduate population has increased over time...



I would imagine that for post-doctoral scholars, the increase is more dramatic since once upon a time graduate students could go straight to a faculty position.  Now, in a lot of disciplines, a post doc is de rigeur and many post-graduates do more than one post-doc before getting a faculty position.  Also, labs are increasingly reliant on post-doc Labor.

BC

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RE: The Roman Empire growth-to-fall meme - Redrum - 11-06-2017

We'll know for sure if it applies if we lose Big Game on our turf.  "Barbarians at the gates" for real.

At 45th reunion couple weeks ago, walking and driving across campus at on the north/west sides was disorienting.  Buildings, BIG buildings, plunked down where there used to be open land and oak forests.  My entire walk to the Oregon game was a continuous "What the hell is THAT building..."

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - TreesAndBirds - 11-06-2017

(11-06-2017, 02:45 PM)Goose link Wrote:My problem with Stanford's expansion plans, past and present, is that it is not clear to me how these new buildings are producing more graduates than before. A 4 fold expansion in sq ft has produced no similar rise in graduates. Much, if not most of the expansion has been in research and lab space. That would be great if it were effective. However, the result I have seen so far has been a vastly underutilized set of buildings that are poorly maintained after they built. I am not at all opposed to expansion once it is clear that we are using what we have fully and wisely.
It would appear to me that lots of the building occurs because many successful people want to donate money to Stanford, and they want their name on it. An endowed chair doesn't have the same flash as a building, and nobody wants to turn down money.  So we get another building. It is not really a planned event, it is a target of opportunity. Some of the building was undoubtedly necessary to replace and augment older structures. However, what we have now is all out proportion to what Stanford can use effectively, IMHO.

+1

Re 99% of the country wanting Stanford in their backyard....that is very likely true. Of course 99%'of the country would probably build hotels and condos along highway 1 and develop the foothills with large housing complexes. Just because Stanford has done tremendous things doesnt mean that more moderation/limits isnt appropriate. There is no shortage of jobs in the area, so the fact that Stanford can bring more jobs isnt quite as important as it was 50 years ago. We have different issues now than we used to have, and different issues than much of the rest of the country has. There is a reason that just about every city in the country other than in Northern Cal is bidding for Amazon's new HQ. We're in a different situation.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - CompSci87 - 11-06-2017

(11-06-2017, 02:31 PM)eric link Wrote:the additional housing over the years has probably been a net reducer of traffic.  Back when I was an undergrad most undergrads spent a year off campus due to too few dorms.  Now it seems the only undergrads who live off campus choose to do so.

I think the same has also been true for graduate housing.

The faculty/staff housing at El Camino and Stanford ave was certainly a of exceedingly large proportions benefit to those who live there.

Adding more on campus living accommodations seems like a good thing to me.

FWIW, I spent my entire grad school career off campus due to lack of housing. That was back in the 1980s.

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Re: RE: The Roman Empire growth-to-fall meme - stupac2 - 11-06-2017

(11-06-2017, 03:00 PM)Redrum link Wrote:My entire walk to the Oregon game was a continuous "What the hell is THAT building..."

If makes you feel any better, that happens to me too and I'm not even to my 10th reunion. The new art built next to Cantor looks nice, though!

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - washingtonismoney - 11-06-2017

Anti-NIMBY here, there, and everywhere.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - Mick - 11-06-2017

(11-06-2017, 10:57 AM)81alum link Wrote:This insatiable appetite for physical expansion makes me wonder how land-challenged universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, U Chicago etc. manage to keep up without tripling their size every couple of decades.  Leland Stanford Sr. gave the university a priceless gift by dedicating so much land--but given the surrounding infrastructure there is only so much development that can be supported before the University becomes surrounded by a ring of gridlock.  Certainly building more housing on campus should be top priority since it reduces the problem; I am skeptical about creating more buildings that will employ more employees from off-campus.

One wild card in Stanford's future--the long term implications of high speed rail if it should ever get to Palo Alto--but who knows if that will ever happen.  Certainly Palo Alto opposes it and its long term fate after the retirement of Jerry Brown looks very uncertain.  But the prospect of faculty taking the train to campus from LA is intriguing, as is a 20 minute commute from San Francisco.  At best, a generation away.

I think we'll have teleporting before we have high speed rail into Palo Alto.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - Mick - 11-06-2017

(11-06-2017, 02:51 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:It sure looks like the graduate population has increased over time...



I would imagine that for post-doctoral scholars, the increase is more dramatic since once upon a time graduate students could go straight to a faculty position.  Now, in a lot of disciplines, a post doc is de rigeur and many post-graduates do more than one post-doc before getting a faculty position.  Also, labs are increasingly reliant on post-doc Labor.

BC

In 1970, there were 8.68 million undergraduate college students.  By 2010, there were just over 21 million undergraduate college students.  Ivies and Stanford haven't budged much.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - Mick - 11-06-2017

(11-06-2017, 03:53 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:Anti-NIMBY here, there, and everywhere.

I don't know about anti-NIMBYs but there sure are a lot of NIMBYs once a nice area reaches a certain population.  At that point, significant efforts are made to keep people out.  I remember moving to Santa Cruz County in 1974 when I was 11.  There were about 150,000 people in the county, and not one of them wanted anyone else in that county.  They had a derogatory nickname for people (usually tourists) arriving from over the hill ("Valleys"), despite the fact that they provided so much county income.  But at that time, Santa Cruz County only issued 28 residential building permits per year, my dad got one of them.  Today, there are 262,000 people in Santa Cruz county, and I'm sure that's 261,000 too many for some of them.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - Goose - 11-06-2017

(11-06-2017, 02:51 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:It sure looks like the graduate population has increased over time...

I would imagine that for post-doctoral scholars, the increase is more dramatic since once upon a time graduate students could go straight to a faculty position.  Now, in a lot of disciplines, a post doc is de rigeur and many post-graduates do more than one post-doc before getting a faculty position.  Also, labs are increasingly reliant on post-doc Labor.

BC

Yes, more graduate students, but not anywhere close to a factor of 4. Not even a factor of 2. There are certainly more post-docs, as you point out. However, I am quite confident that a graph of "square ft. per student/postdoc" will show a dramatic increase. From what I can tell, there is no question that postdocs have much nicer facilities than they in, say,  the 1980's. I don't think that is bad. I do question whether the "research product per sq foot" is as great as it should be.
It is also true that Stanford no longer needs large facilities for computers, which were previously required. As I try to write this post, it becomes clear this is a complex topic. Stanford has always built new buildings, but the rate has increased dramatically. I just don't want Stanford as a university to forget that those inside the buildings and what they are doing is more important than the buildings themselves. I am afraid that is happening/has happened.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - 2006alum - 11-06-2017

(11-06-2017, 02:45 PM)Goose link Wrote:It would appear to me that lots of the building occurs because many successful people want to donate money to Stanford, and they want their name on it. An endowed chair doesn't have the same flash as a building, and nobody wants to turn down money.  So we get another building. It is not really a planned event, it is a target of opportunity. Some of the building was undoubtedly necessary to replace and augment older structures. However, what we have now is all out proportion to what Stanford can use effectively, IMHO.

+1. One of the things I've noticed about Stanford these days, even compared to a decade ago, is that there are a lot of buildings that aren't very well utilized and that, for lack of a better word, feel vacant. The new Old Union rarely ever feels crowded. Lots of empty seats and conference rooms all over the place. The grad student barpub, Ray's, behind Mirrielees, is almost never even close to full, unless it's for a specific event. The new GSB complex feels a bit more like a Dubai real estate boondoggle than an efficient use of space. The ground floor of the Alumni center is basically just a ton of open hallway space and comfy couches scattered about. Almost every common area in the new law school building is largely just open atriums without any highly functional use beyond sitting between classes. Etc. etc.

Other than just making things fancy and big, none of these spaces seem very well utilized. Meanwhile, my memory as a student is of very crowded seminar rooms, extremely old classroom space in Main Quad and Encina, and a tiny, cramped one-room double in Stern. It seems like some really odd choices of real estate to me, because none of the new space seems dedicated to classrooms or teaching, at least for the Arts & Sciences.

My largest beef with university expansion is that I think it's led to the rise of a brobdingnagian bureaucratic administrative staff that tends towards mission creep away from the core mission of research and teaching. I'm presenting at a university where it feels like there are more administrators than faculty, and one wonders what % of student tuition actually goes toward someone teaching them something rather than filling out the staff of the office of [services/feelings/needs/inclusion/accommodations/paper-pushing].

(11-06-2017, 10:57 AM)81alum link Wrote:This insatiable appetite for physical expansion makes me wonder how land-challenged universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, U Chicago etc. manage to keep up without tripling their size every couple of decades. 

I'm an alum of two of those five, including one of the British Unis. In terms of core colleges, Oxbridge basically doesn't expand much in terms of the colleges themselves; they've worked that way for 1,000 years and they're still top of the league tables, so why change things? They add new colleges from time to time, but after a big expansion after the war, there have been few new colleges in the last several decades. Where there has been more change, much like at Stanford, it's been in the academic departments and graduate divisions, where they are adding fancy MBA buildings, research labs, etc. It's just demolishing old things and building new ones, or expanding on a smaller footprint.

I know Harvard and Yale much better than U Chicago - for those two, again, the expansion has been in research and grad programs (where there's even more money to be made). Yale has a brand new School of Management building that stands out like a fancy glass sore thumb compared to the neogothic old campus. They've also added two new residential colleges, a new dorm building for the law school, and a new medical campus in West Haven a few miles west of downtown New Haven, so they're expanding similarly to how Stanford has, just in a more geographically scattered fashion. But land is relatively cheap in New Haven, and Yale owns a ton of it, so expansion is actually probably easier there than in Palo Alto, where nearly everyone is rich and entitled and will show up to a city hall meeting to dish their two cents.

Harvard essentially bought a brobdingnagian chunk of the relatively poor Allston neighborhood across the Charles with RMBS-boosted pre-housing crisis bloated endowment funds, and the project has remained half-built after stalling out post-financial crisis when the endowment collapsed and funding dried up for nearly a decade. They're finally getting around to completing it, and it's largely medical and STEM research and lab buildings. They also recently completed some new law school buildings, though basically on the same footprint as the existing campus.

In short, the universities I'm familiar with are also expanding, just on smaller footprints and in less geographically dramatic fashion. Unlike Stanford, all four are embedded within civic urban spaces, so they can't always clear whole blocks the same way Stanford can, and when they do, it's often on land where there was already an extant structure. 

(11-06-2017, 03:50 PM)stupac2 link Wrote:[quote author=Redrum link=topic=17921.msg210997#msg210997 date=1510005640]My entire walk to the Oregon game was a continuous "What the hell is THAT building..."

If makes you feel any better, that happens to me too and I'm not even to my 10th reunion. The new art built next to Cantor looks nice, though!
[/quote]

+1000. I had my ten-year last fall and between the roundabouts, the bike lanes across White Plaza, the Meyer pit, and the new law school and law school dorms, 80% of my daily undergrad commute across campus is nearly unrecognizable from a mere decade ago.

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Re: OT: Stanford expansion plans - CompSci87 - 11-06-2017

Throw in the fact that Stanford is building a satellite campus in Redwood City where Ampex (and later Mid-Point Technology Park) used to be:

https://redwoodcity.stanford.edu/

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