Katsiaryna Handrabura,
Deputy Editor-in-chief ,
Journal “Gradoustroistvo”,
Moscow
It is a clear advantage for a city to have a University. The advantage consists not only in educational function and professional training provided by the university. The University is often the main enterprise in the city, an organic part of its image, thereby plays an essential role in the development of the city territory. Unfortunately, various programs of capitalization of regional or city universities so often give no visible effects. How do the cities used the capabilities of the educated people? What kind of relation between city and its university would be healthful?
It is well known that Tomsk, which is one of the most acknowledge and old university centers in the country, tries to develop its market strategy, proclaiming itself “Siberian Athens.” There are evident reasons to do it: every fourth city dweller is a student and they arrive from all over the vast region. “Athens” is a nice metaphor, and it suits to the first university city in Siberia. But that’s not enough. The metaphor must be supported by a newly designed perspective of the city’s destiny, which implies an effective transformation of the logic of the institutions, which operate in the city. Still, that is what is not done yet.
Consequently, even in competence for the students Tomsk gradually gives up its positions to Novosibirsk. Not because the education here is poorer. Tomsk is infamously known as a city where the quality of the students’ life is incredibly law. The dormitories cannot host all the students, they are overpopulated, and the rental market is terrible in prices and offers. Employment positions for students are practically absent. Employment for graduates is even worse. Only a small part of them would have a chance to become postgraduate students, and for them it is an extreme hard task to get job.
If a graduate of any of six Tomsk Universities has not a real estate in the city, there even is no option to be “promised” to get it at least some day. Therefore, the fresh graduates quickly move to cities where they would get better options to have a happy life.
There is a city legend in Tomsk explaining why the new railroad bypassed it. They say the local merchants whose business was carting, were afraid to loose the profits and bribed the responsible people. Thus way or other, the Great Trans-Siberian railway came to the south, and Tomsk was connected with it by a branch line only in 1910. This decision to change the route of the railroad was a milestone in the history of Novo-Nickolaevsk (Novosibirsk), which quickly became the biggest transport knot in the region. Meanwhile Tomsk, one of the oldest Siberian cities with rich traditions of science and education, was outside of the main way and its development slowed down. The situation was not remedied even after establishment of a special economic zone on the territory of the city by the Governmental decision in 2005. The zone should imply rise of investments into city economy and development of new branches of business. Tomsk mayor was accused in corruption[1], and the story threatened investors. Investment business is considered highly dangerous one in Russia, the risk doubles in non-productive sphere.
Today, as experts say, the situation becomes better. The city has all necessary resources for development: rich science and cultural environment, developed small and medium business. The historical center has survived.
Tomsk is not a unique case we have in our practice, where, on the one hand, this type of recourse as an influential education center exists, but on the other hand, common perception of the economic development is governed by the habitual logic of extraction natural resources. To give an example, I remember an extremely unfavorable town Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky (http://aleksandrovsk.sakh.com), which naturally is a historical and cultural capital of Sakhalin. The higher education has been more developed in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the regional center, while high professional education traditionally has had more solid basis in Aleksandrovsk. It does not only have a very good pedagogical technicum [high professional school], one of the oldest educational institutions on the island, but there are also highly specialized institutions that train specialists for the whole fishing fleet and industry of Sakhalin . The population is 11.6 thousands, but the town hosts two thousand of students annually! However, not more than 4 percents of them stay in town after finishing their education[2]. The same experience characterizes many other towns where the educational institution takes one of the key positions of their economic and cultural status.
I asked many municipal officials about how their town tries to take advantage of such interesting resourse as people. The answer was principally the same, although the words varied: “we do not see it clearly yet. It would be good to have an enterprise which would employ the best of them.” It naturally means that the town invests into education but cannot accept the additional profit. It sounds as if we, having find oil on our land but do not make the pipe. In a very short time, the oil floods the land. You cannot plant anything useful on this spoiled land, but you do not get the money
At the same time, documents proposing strategic and tactic targets of city development in various cities steadily include “keeping our graduates” as an important target!
The talented and educated people attract investments like a magnet. This apparent truth seems to be understood, in the end of the day, in our country[3]. The experience of the most successful cities would drive the strategists to apply this resource. It really drives them! But the whole process moves extremely slowly, for it forces to become unfaithful to the habitual principle of the Soviet Gosplan in their most simplified variant, which up till now is the leading line for the thought of all our strategists. The Soviet economy implied extra targets of territorial development, say, geolopolitical or political ones. The subsidiary principle, that permeates the municipalities’ rhetoric since 2000, concentrates the efforts of the regions towards securing and improvement of the quality of life in the regions and municipalities. It is not easy to accommodate to this alteration of the governing principle. Today, it makes no sense for a university city to teach more specialists than it’s self-sustain and the next stage of development demands.
In case we speak about federal or regional educational centers, which have federal programs, it is extremely important for the territory to determine its position about its university. Would it become a meeting place for the graduate of the federal university and their future employers? Does the territory need the products of the university? How does the university influence on the visions of the future of the territory? A clearly articulated position allows the city develop a system of educational steps, which must be done to keep the desired number of population, sustainable reproduction if the science and cultural base, along with an ability to provide the clients of the educational institution the essential quality of life during the whole length of their study. Options for future employment should be guaranteed as well.
These stages are difficult and technologically not equipped yet. Thus, there is a gap between the sphere of education, which belongs to the domain of post-industrial sphere, and the sphere of “regular” production. Oil industry is still the basic industry of Tomsk. Only several years ago, the projects of international wasted nuclear materials storage panted. In the same day then the city authorities discussed the city strategy of “Siberian Athens”, the students protested against this new plant on the streets. A situation like this is unavoidably pregnant with conflict, for it is an open contradiction of several discourses. The problem does have roots in any presupposed fact of existence of “good” and “evil” forces which do or do not understand certain things. The problem is that the very concept of “university city” is not developed yet. It is possible to imagine that exactly the alumnae of Tomsk State University can build up the best ever seen nuclear enterprise. Why do not we consider it a good perspective of science activity in the city? Still, there is no united scheme to gather such perspectives. The same case is in Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky, where fish factories, working mainly with smuggled fish, have no ties or connections with the professional training centers in their own town.
I do not subscribe under the idea of keeping all the graduates in the town they have studied. I try to conceptualize how education and practical life can be connected, in order to make the connection a factor of the city development. The practice shows evidence that campus communications and comfortable residence areas are neither the only nor the main factors that give a university leading position.
I spent some time, visiting several American Universities. One of them is Stanford, factually the very heart of Silicon Valley. Hearing this word, I had imagined views of High-Tech offices, cyber infrastructures and people in spacemen coats. The reality happened to have nothing in common with it. The University is a splendid and cozy university campus close to somewhat bourgeois San-Jose. The main street resembled me the main street of Tomsk. I send the picture of the city to my father and he responded that the capital of the Silicon Valley resembled him Klincy [small provincial town] of the late Soviet time. It is really so. A professor in linguistics, with whom we had an accidental talk, told me he felt himself tight there, Stanford was poor in specialists with whom he would be able to establish a school, thus being rather aged he wanted to leave for another university, a richer one in professionals. Thus he decided to move to Harward[4]. It was amazing that the first met person in that center for science and education, allegedly built up very harmonically, told about problems of that kind. It looks as San Jose is a place for people who organically get into a highly specific way of life and a highly specific sphere of labor as well. It is a usual thing here to finish the job and leave. The city is not ready to provide permanent residence for people who come there. The center consists of a little bit old supermarkets, regular restaurants and shops which prices are considerably high for the USA. Double store center with traditionally high prices is surrounded by neat private houses. They are so neat that seems artificial. Stanford campus was built up according to one united plan. The plants along the street hide shining headquarters of worldly distinguished IT firms which run the main markets of search engines and office soft. You hardly met a car on the broad streets. Faculties use electro mobiles, while students use bicycles or even more remarkable facilities like stilts, crossing quite a long distance between the university buildings and the residence area. Golf training is seemingly mandatory for everyone. The impression is that you see a colossal machine, training in high standard American way of life. This image came into my mind then I had seen announcements inviting to the Stanford Lake Shore, and could not find it during a long search with the map. There was no lake. There were shadowy embankment with benches, a beach, sun umbrellas…But there was no lake. Instead, there was a big not very deep ditch, with future national elite jogging along its rim.
People who work there in mass are not Stanford alumnae, so the population changes frequently: some arrive, others leave. The faculty to a certain extent participates in the business of the companies. The head of the directors of Google is the rector of Stanford University. This way, an exchange between education and practice is supported, at least partially, but also the necessary intensity of heuristicity, needed for intellectual business, is sustained.
While IT technologies and related products are the domain of Stanford, Harvard influences on politics. It resides in much more bigger city Boston. The rector and his apparatus are embedded of the federal policy decision making process. New rector usually arrives from high state positions. For instance, the previous Harvard rector was the minister of economics before. In comparison with Stanford, where the university campus deeply integrated in the city environment, being one of the city districts. Various centers and programs occupy various buildings built up in different time with absolutely visible difference in funding[5].
These two American universities give reward for the investments because they are not local institutions with local influence, but they define the future of the country in the global scale. Thus, the University city becomes an international capital that attracts fresh gifted people into the country and create new national product. Nonetheless, the city feels itself pressed by its closeness to the university. Not all inhabitants consider it a positive factor. The labor market is incredibly competitive. The real estate prices rise up. Such city is unquiet in comparison with other cities. Special municipal programs the equilibrate university and city population interests, are in urgent demand.
In Russia, we have comparably influential universities; take the famous Lomonosoff Moscow State University, which is a symbol of the country. Beside MSU, there is a set of internationally renowned universities in Moscow. Unfortunately, the city does not realize, how much its educational infrastructure influences on its style of life and economics. If we look at the General plan of Moscow, presented this year in May,27, we acquire that the city “sees” children , thereby projects hospitals and schools, “sees” families and aged people, but it does not care for the students. As if the city was waiting for them to finish their studies and leave, to find better usage for Vorobievy Gory[6].
[1] Alexander Makarov (the city mayor since 1996) was kept under arrest in 6 of December, 2006, and sooner was accused in corruption . – editor’s note
[2] Data for 2000-2005.
[3] The translations of Cotler’s books about territorial marketing, along with Richard Florida’s book “Creative class,” definitely played a crucially important role in it.
[4] It is an crucially important impact for Stanford to loose the linguists who has created Google.
[5] During the previous twenty years, Harward championed as one of the most financially respectable universities of the country. The papers of the enterprise are the most expensive, whereas the investments are the most prestigious.
[6] A historical district in the center of Moscow where main complex of MSU buildings is placed - translator’s note.
