Getting Hartford to 140k people

[HartfordTycoon]

why would anyone not want to be a college town? all the major cities are college towns, some more than others, but they all have a large student population.

I agree, it just seems like a few times some people got defensive on here when that was mentioned as what really has made the difference in some places. And we actually do have a sizable student population in the region, just not in the city itself. So that is another challenge, getting the college kids to come to and even live in the city.

[runawayjim]

I agree, it just seems like a few times some people got defensive on here when that was mentioned as what really has made the difference in some places. And we actually do have a sizable student population in the region, just not in the city itself. So that is another challenge, getting the college kids to come to and even live in the city.

what colleges are in hartford's city limits or right on the border? i know of the university of hartford, trinity, st joseph's college, and the uconn school of business. i know U of H is on the western side bordering west hartford. are there sections of hartford where there is a lot of student off campus housing for these schools or are they mainly on campus students?

we have johnson and wales, brown, and risd, which have large off-campus populations, and i know PC has about 1000-2000 off campus undergrads. this doesn't count the commuters to other schools who live in the city... URI, RWU, and RIC.

[HartfordTycoon]

what colleges are in hartford's city limits or right on the border? i know of the university of hartford, trinity, st joseph's college, and the uconn school of business. i know U of H is on the western side bordering west hartford. are there sections of hartford where there is a lot of student off campus housing for these schools or are they mainly on campus students?

we have johnson and wales, brown, and risd, which have large off-campus populations, and i know PC has about 1000-2000 off campus undergrads. this doesn't count the commuters to other schools who live in the city... URI, RWU, and RIC.

That's pretty much all of the shcools. Trinity is the only college in Hartford completely, UofH is partially in Hartford, most on campus students actually live in Hartford due to the placement of the dorms on campus. We also have Uconn Law School and Rensselaer at Hartford in the city. Central CT State in New Britain about 10 minutes away. Hartford will also soon be home to the CT Culinary Institute going into the old Hastings Hotel and Conference Center on Farmington Ave which I think will be a great catalyst. Also, Goodwin College in East Hartford has some ambitious plans, they are building a new campus with dorms on the CT River in E. Htfd across from Downtown and trying to develop 4 year degree programs as they are currently a 2 year commuter school. I think there is a lot of potential there.

As for a section where students live I would say no. However, I am not really in that loop. There may be a good amount in the West End. I don't know where the college students live who don't live on campus.

[HartfordTycoon]

Yes, Providence shares that problem of the lack of glory in it's parks. Having a lot of park land though is certainly a postive for the city, the photos I've seen of Bushnell Park are wonderful, a large central park is a big positive for the city, something Providence is going to have to build from scratch when the 195 re-location project is complete in 2012.

Even with land taken for parks and the airport, I'm sure like Providence, Hartford is not lacking in surface lots, and underutilized buildings that can be put to use for expanded housing.

Providence also has a second downtown in Olneyville that contributes to its density, Olneyville was literally Providence's second downtown, but it fell into disrepair when it was severed from the real downtown by not one, but two highways (Route 95 and Route 6/10). The two downtowns and the areas between them created a large urban density. Is there any area outside of Downtown in Hartford that could see dense growth with midrise housing and a retail district to support it?

If we had a second downtown I would say it's Asylum Hill. I like to call it our Midtown though. There is all sorts of room for growth in Asylum Hill and there are already a few skyscrapers in the neighborhood already so I think mid and high rise growth, with active uses at the bases is what I would prefer to see as far a growth there. Asylum Hill is where The Hartford and Aetna have their global HQ's, and will also be home to the Connecticut Culinary Institute soon, so I think there's tons of potential there. It is also the neighborhood that connects Downtown with the West End and West Hartford Center.

[MadVlad]

Imagine all the residents/students that Constitution College would bring to Constitution Plaza.....

[redbaron]

As for a section where students live I would say no. However, I am not really in that loop. There may be a good amount in the West End. I don't know where the college students live who don't live on campus.

The West End is the most dense area for college students, especially with the Clemens Place Apartments, proximety to UofH, Uconn School of law and St. Joe's

[Luca Brasi]

UConn Law School campus is located in the West End. Its a nice campus with stone gothic buildings in the middle of one of Hartford's premier neighborhoods

[Cotuit]

just thinking here, but we also have a larger college population than hartford, which counts in the census.

College students aren't counted in the census, they are supposed to be residents of their home states as far as voting and taxation and such. College students who live off-campus are in a kind of grey area, many go back home in the summer and are counted as dependents by their parents in their home state, so they would not count in the census. Though some of the things used in the estimating methodology would lead to counting off-campus college students.

[HartfordTycoon]

College students aren't counted in the census, they are supposed to be residents of their home states as far as voting and taxation and such. College students who live off-campus are in a kind of grey area, many go back home in the summer and are counted as dependents by their parents in their home state, so they would not count in the census. Though some of the things used in the estimating methodology would lead to counting off-campus college students.

I'm not sure about that. I know there was a big deal about an undercount last census in Hartford, primarily due to mistakenly not counting what I believe were on campus students at UofH. They were off by like 3,000 and that's why the census count was like 121k for Harford when it should have been 124k.

[runawayjim]

College students aren't counted in the census, they are supposed to be residents of their home states as far as voting and taxation and such. College students who live off-campus are in a kind of grey area, many go back home in the summer and are counted as dependents by their parents in their home state, so they would not count in the census. Though some of the things used in the estimating methodology would lead to counting off-campus college students.

i'm not so sure about that. when i was in college during the 2000 census, we were told to inform our parents not to count us in the household for the census and we even got our own census forms to fill out. and i lived on campus. we were residents of the town the school was in as far as the census was concerned.

[Carter711]

College students aren't counted in the census, they are supposed to be residents of their home states as far as voting and taxation and such. College students who live off-campus are in a kind of grey area, many go back home in the summer and are counted as dependents by their parents in their home state, so they would not count in the census. Though some of the things used in the estimating methodology would lead to counting off-campus college students.

The Census actually follows the concept of 'usual residence' which is counting a person at the place where the person lives and sleeps most of the time. This is not necessarily the person's legal residence. So students living away from home while at college are counted where they are living at college.

[uconn99]

The Census actually follows the concept of 'usual residence' which is counting a person at the place where the person lives and sleeps most of the time. This is not necessarily the person's legal residence. So students living away from home while at college are counted where they are living at college.

I don't believe college students are counted in census either. If that was the case, Windham/Willimantic would have around 28,000 people because of Eastern and Storrs/Mansfield would be close to 35,000.

[runawayjim]

I don't believe college students are counted in census either. If that was the case, Windham/Willimantic would have around 28,000 people because of Eastern and Storrs/Mansfield would be close to 35,000.

Mansfield Population Data

Storrs Population Data

i don't know if they're always counted separately, but here's the thing... storrs is only uconn's campus and direct surroundings. technically, it's part of mansfield (although i'm not sure if it's part of those numbers for mansfield or separate). but there's your population of over 30k. i don't know how many people live in mansfield without the students, but i'm pretty sure it's not that high. i went to uconn... i know for a fact that we were counted as residents of storrs/mansfield as opposed to our hometowns (although our hometown counts might've been off had our parents counted us in the data).

[uconn99]

Mansfield Population Data

Storrs Population Data

i don't know if they're always counted separately, but here's the thing... storrs is only uconn's campus and direct surroundings. technically, it's part of mansfield (although i'm not sure if it's part of those numbers for mansfield or separate). but there's your population of over 30k. i don't know how many people live in mansfield without the students, but i'm pretty sure it's not that high. i went to uconn... i know for a fact that we were counted as residents of storrs/mansfield as opposed to our hometowns (although our hometown counts might've been off had our parents counted us in the data).

Storrs population numbers are included in Mansfield's overall numbers. Storrs isn't on its own, it together with Mansfield, Mansfield Center, and Mansfield depot make up the town of Mansfield's 21,000 residents. Mansfield is bigger than you think, it is actually one of the largest towns by square miles. If Coventry has close to 13,000 people, Mansfield certainly has 21,000 on its own without UConn. If Storrs population was mainly made up of UConn students, then that would leave Mansfield with less than 10,000 residents which is way off.

The same goes for Windham/Willimantic. Windham has a population of close to 23,000. Eastern is located in Willimantic with a student dorm/housing population of around 4500. Willimantic has around 16,000 people leaving around 7,000 in Windham, North Windham, Windham Center, and South Windham.

[runawayjim]

Storrs population numbers are included in Mansfield's overall numbers. Storrs isn't on its own, it together with Mansfield, Mansfield Center, and Mansfield depot make up the town of Mansfield's 21,000 residents. Mansfield is bigger than you think, it is actually one of the largest towns by square miles. If Coventry has close to 13,000 people, Mansfield certainly has 21,000 on its own without UConn. If Storrs population was mainly made up of UConn students, then that would leave Mansfield with less than 10,000 residents which is way off.

The same goes for Windham/Willimantic. Windham has a population of close to 23,000. Eastern is located in Willimantic with a student dorm/housing population of around 4500. Willimantic has around 16,000 people leaving around 7,000 in Windham, North Windham, Windham Center, and South Windham.

all i know is that we filled out census forms as residents of storrs

[HartfordTycoon]

STUDENTS

Boarding school students - Counted at their parental home rather than at the boarding school.

College students living away from home while attending college - Counted where they are living at college.

College students living at their parental home while attending college - Counted at their parental home.

Census Methodology

Here's our answer. So now we know for a fact that college students are counted where the school is. So the hypothesis that Hartford has lower population due to a less college student housing in the city is correct.

[MadVlad]

I'm pretty sure that students that live in dorms are indeed counted for census purposes....

[drc72]

Stamford will be the largest, and there's a good reason: it is almost double the actual size of the other cities. I simply has more room, and not as many of the problems that the other cities have. If Hartford keeps building all the units downtown, it will definitely grab second....

I can see Stamford becoming the largest city. How many sq miles is Stamford?

[fivedayrental]

Stamford is 51.2 sq mile, but 14.3 sq miles of it is water

[havok100]

I'd be interested to hear what you saw as positives after being away from Hartford for so long. You mentioned the redevelopment of downtown and the riverfront...what in particular did you find to be the most different from 8 years ago (was 1998 the last time you were in Hartford)?

Where did you stay while here last weekend? What did you do? What other negatives did you see besides peoples attitudes?

SOCOM my family lives in the fairfield ave area south of trinity. Most of the families that owned, sold and moved to the suburbs. It was a fairly middle class area. The area has changed, my parents told me there was a shooting two houses down. It seems that when they destroyed most of the projects in the area, those people moved to the nicer areas of Hartford. The southend and southwest end. You can still see signs of hope, but I have noticed a great change. The streats near Trinity college, Henry, Harwich, Newbury, are not what they used to be. I used to deliver the Hartford Courant and would play in the nieghborhood. Now you have lots of people "hanging out" if you now what I mean. The attitude of the people in the city started to change for the worst around 1994.

The area that has changed the most is near the Convention Center and Marriot, I hardly recognized it. The civic center looks great with the new tower and retail. I also drove by the new library. it is good to the city trying to clean up.

[mikel]

Most of the University of Hartford students are counted as West Hartford residents, which hurts Hartford.

[drc72]

Stamford is 51.2 sq mile, but 14.3 sq miles of it is water

36.9 sq miles is pretty big. Over double the size of Hartford and Providence

[runawayjim]

36.9 sq miles is pretty big. Over double the size of Hartford and Providence

it is... and if most of stamford wasn't very suburban in nature, it would have the potential to be a very large city. but like most of fairfield county, it suffers from sprawl.

[Jerry2]

36.9 sq miles is pretty big. Over double the size of Hartford and Providence

That's about the size of Worcester as well. Hartford is actually the densest city in all of CT...I believe? Bridgeport is larger in land area and Stamford always looked like a large office park to me...nothing inviting at all....WTS...I still think there is room to create more density in the city...maybe in the North Meadows or by the Brainard Airport area. The North Meadows just seems like it's a perfect candidate for new urbanism initiatives to take place...

1.)Commercial-Already in existence-check

2.)Street grid and utilities installed-check

3.)Convenient access-check

4.) Too many surface lots and zero housing-check

It seems like a perfect place for the creation of a premier area. I'm planning a trip soon after I get back from Florida and Puerto Rico. Leaving tomorrow...Will report back on my views from an outsider's perspective on all the new development (positive/negative etc.) I plan to stay for the weekend in Hartford and plan to do the whole city.....I was going to go cheap at the Red Roof Inn in the N. Meadows...but then thought @ splurging at the new Marriott next to the Science Center construction....anybody have any recommendations? I'm familiar with the area...but it's been awhile. Thanks..

[MadVlad]

Careful around that Red Roof Inn, it should be safe, but I've been there a few times for .. ahem.. various reasons and there can be some shady people hanging around. Anything Downtown should be fine, the Hilton or Crowne Plaza might be less expensive than the Marriott.

On a side note, I always thought that Windsor Street would be a great place to start a new neighborhood. If someone started from the bridge near Rensselaer and bought up lot after lot heading north, they could create their own neighborhood. Think of a long row of 6 to 10 story apartment buildings, not out-of-this-world upscale, but like 1000-1100 a month rent lining Windsor Street. It would be awesome in my book....