The Role of Biogeography in Education

Abstract

Urban change, university growth, and partial cultural realignment within the student-youth community contiguous to the Boulder campus of the University of Colorado have all contributed to the development of a youth ghetto. As an analytical framework for community analysis, a five-part ghetto model is applied to the community including (1) spatial enclave, (2) minority status, (3) inferior status, (4) lack of choice, and (5) social disorganization. Increasing importance of non-students in the youth ghetto combines with substandard housing, drug abuse, and rising crime as all-important ingredients in a ghettoization process that has resulted in urban blight for most neighborhoods adjacent to the Universty, and community disfunction (University Hill Riot, May 21-23, 1971). As a stabilizing force the University and the larger community are the likely candidates to initiate measures to effect a reversal in the trend. Until this is done the future of both remains uncertain.