Trejbal: Does Virginia Tech need more residence halls?
Town-student friction in Blacksburg
By Christian Trejbal
Trejbal is a member of The Roanoke Times’ editorial board. He is based in the New River Valley.
An old issue has re-emerged in this year’s Blacksburg Town Council race. Some people, when they are being polite, call it the “town-gown divide” or the “student-neighborhood interface.” Mostly, though, it’s “those damn, drunken Virginia Tech kids making noise all night.”
It is not a new problem, and it is not unique to Blacksburg. Any small town with a college in its midst runs into the same issues. Students move off campus into neighborhoods where full-time residents live. Conflicting lifestyles clash. Locals try to sleep at night, and students stay up late reveling. Students try to sleep in, and locals wake up early to mow their lawns and let their children scream outside.
Both sides have good reasons to be upset, though neither side likes to admit it.
October 9, 2011 - 10:07 AM
Oh, good God, Christian.
The “town” of Blacksburg is only on the map because of Virginia Tech.
“Townies:” Get over yourselves.
Vendors: Stop selling your wares to those drunks and see how long you last.
Upset? Not hardly, have lived here about 6 years along a main drag for students coming and going. The worst I’ve had was some minor trash and a few empty beer cans in my yard (and mailbox..lol). For the most part the students are fine, respectful and once in a while acting…young. That is if you don’t count the drunk kid who decided my living room couch was really his bed! And even he wasn’t so bad, just highly disoriented! Didn’t even call the cops, just firmly ‘guided’ him out. I guess he got home cause there was no report of a missing student!
#1 Gosh, George, why don’t you read the piece instead off blasting off a knee-jerk reaction to Christian? Christian was pointing out that this is one topic in the council race. Do you have some evidence Christian made this up?
And if you DID read it, exactly how did you miss this part?
“Locals, Blacksburg succeeds because Tech is there. Jobs, high-tech businesses and a vibrant arts community all make the town a great place to live. Tech exists only because there are students who want to attend.”
I don’t think #1 read this.
I’ve lived on both sides of this, both as a student and as a townie. While a student, I tried to be a good citizen of the area once I moved off campus. I actually registered myself as a Blacksburg resident, making everything official, so I could vote locally, pay taxes locally, and be a part of the full-time community, and not just a long-term tourist. I’ve rented apartments, townhouses, and houses too, and generally had very good relationships with neighbors, students and townies alike.
The only bad experience I can recall was living in a house near campus, where 3/4 of the neighbors were students, several of whom would party. One neighbor in particular would have loud outdoor gatherings a few times a month, and considering my work schedule and my wife’s schedule, it made for tough sleeping. We talked with them about it a couple times, and they were usually ok with taking it inside after 10 at night to keep the noise down. The only real problems we had after that was trash, several Solo cups and beer cans would be on our side of the fence, so I just returned them to the other side when I found them.
The only time I would really see a major issue would be if a community with no student-occupied housing started having homes turned into student rentals, and as a result students started hosting regular parties and causing traffic and/or safety issues for the long-term residents. The other issue is that frequently, student rental homes are not well maintained like surrounding homes, as the students don;t work on the landscaping or exteriors of the homes usually. So the only times those seem to get attention is when something is in disrepair and the owner has to fix it. For whatever reason, apartments don’t seem to have that issue since they have grounds crews to take care of those items. But rented single-family homes, you can almost always tell a student rental from an owner-occupied house by the way the yard looks.