Winona Daily News

The city’s proposal to limit rental properties to 30 percent on any block has been discussed as a matter of property values vs. property rights, or one of student misbehavior vs. student autonomy, but no one is crediting the city with at least trying to address the larger ramifications of the decay of Winona’s inner city. Ceding the city center over to the landlords and students is not the best policy, for it assumes that the current demand for student housing � and the current flight of single-family home owners � will continue ad infinitum.

That is unlikely for three reasons: academic trends, demographic trends and global trends in energy production.

First, the assumption that the number of students living off-campus will only increase is worth questioning. From an academic standpoint, it certainly isn’t desirable; the trend is in the opposite direction.

Research shows that students who live on campus are more likely to graduate; they are much more likely to have informal contact with faculty, which can improve their academic performance and make them more satisfied with their college experience. Research also shows that students who live on campus make better use of their time (since they don’t do all the buying and cooking and cleaning, etc.) and develop a better sense of themselves as students. In addition, the money that landlords are currently harvesting from the students of WSU could be captured for the university’s benefit � a fact the university can’t help but notice. Given all this, is it likely that the current abnormally high off-campus housing rates will continue into the future? Or are more units like the East Lake dorms a probable scenario?

Second, middle-class Winonans assume that they will continue to value what they value now: the typical large home on the large suburban lot. But in fact this represents a middle-class value only so long as children are in the picture. The trend for the older baby boomer population is in the opposite direction: Empty nesters want smaller houses served by public transportation and close to crucial services such as shopping and health care. The demographics are undeniable: Most of us will soon be old, and we won’t want to mow that acre of lawn and we will be unable to drive at night. Where will we live, then? We are already seeing the answer in places like the Kensington or Washington Crossing. But the viability of such developments, or of continued downtown house ownership, is much reduced when the

surrounding neighborhood becomes a slum, which is essentially what is happening.

Finally, the willingness on the part of Winona’s middle class to abandon the city core to its fate is based on the assumption that their automobile-dependent, energy-guzzling lifestyle will continue into the foreseeable future. This assumption is becoming very hard to defend, both from the supply angle and from the environmental consequence angle.

Whether you follow peak oil scenarios � which claim that we have reached the peak or highest point of oil production worldwide � or you read the very disturbing climate change predictions which claim that runaway global warming has already begun, leading to possibly lethal consequences for our civilization � it is clear that we will soon have to start figuring out better ways to get to work and cheaper ways to heat our houses. Our lifestyle is trending one way, while our resource base and the health of our environment are trending the opposite. There will be a reappraisal of what is affordable, and it will come sooner than most people realize.

Winona’s downtown neighborhoods were designed for the energy-efficient, socially compact lifestyle of the 1890s. Most people got around on foot or by streetcar. Shopping districts were dispersed in neighborhood corner markets (many of the storefronts of these neighborhood stores still exist and in fact only went out of business in the early 1980s). Instead of driving to the grocery store, the grocery wagon came to you, as did the furniture maker and the milkman.

It sounds insane to claim that this lifestyle would ever come back, and of course it won’t, leastways not in the exact same form. But the future of Winona lies more in its past than in its suburbs. In 10 years, many students may not be able to afford cars, and many seniors will not be able to drive them. Home heating costs may be a major expense. Many of us are already finding out that we can’t afford to heat the size of house that we thought we wanted back in the 1990s. This means that dorms will be more efficient for students, and small and walkable neighborhoods will look very appealing to the rest of us.

The city council is attempting to take the long view, whereas both the students and the landlords are assuming that the status quo will remain. That seems to me dubious, and I applaud the bravery of the council for putting long-term thinking ahead of short-term gain. This may not be the best ordinance � time will tell � but the goal it articulates is the sensible one for our collective future.

Jim Armstrong teaches literature, creative writing and composition at Winona State University. His two daughters both attend Bluffview Montessori, and his wife is an English teacher who hopes to teach in the public schools here some day. He is a poet whose latest book of poetry will be published by Milkweed Editions in March.

Guest views are opinions of the author and don’t necessarily reflect the views of the Winona Daily News. They are published to stimulate thought and to provide an expanded forum on issues of local interest.

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