In response to Austin Hill

The Kentucky Kernel published an opinion article about the student housing situation entitled, "Students must mature, accept new housing plan" that detailed a "defense" of the ordinance being considered by the prestigious Lexington Student Housing Task Force. Below is an response sent to the Kernel along with a link to the article:

Dear Mr. Hill,

In response to the opinion article you wrote on September 24, 2009, I feel that I must agree. Students must mature. College is a time to grow and learn, not party and throw away brain cells like confetti. Burning couches are unacceptable. “Sleeping on pizza boxes” is a terrible way to live. It is not cool to hang “a plastic beer sign across your porch that you stole from the campus bar the night before”. I think such activities are morally reprehensible. On these points we completely agree.

Where I must disagree with you sir is the rest of the article. Your solution for this problem involves creation of legislation that imposes restrictions on the density of students in an area. It’s an elementary way of dealing with such a matter, separating two unruly children from each other in a classroom. This works well in such a simplistic model comparing the city of Lexington to a grade school classroom, but the city is much more complex than your typical middle school. Not only would such legislation conflict with the common law that has developed (see Hayek’s Law, Legislation, and Liberty Vol. 1), it also imposes on individual property rights of the owners of the properties, as well as the rights of the students attempting to secure shelter. But each of these defenses warrant long essays and I will attempt to keep this letter somewhat brief. So in this case, I will talk about the unintended consequences of such an action.

Looking at the economics of the problem, I can find many reasons why this is a poor reaction. Many of the students who live in such areas that you call slums do so because of the cheap rent that they find in such areas. Forcing students to look for better living condition (a noble idea) causes them to undoubtedly pay higher rates, be it either for rent or for transportation to campus. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford the transportation rates, but many other students cannot afford this luxury. You say that students should not live this way “to save $50 per month on rent” but does it not cross your mind that some of these students could not afford to live in Lexington and attend this university if they did not institute themselves on such stringent monetary restrictions. The fine city of Lexington is doing them no favors by requiring them to pay more money to live further apart from each other.

Other proponents of this legislation say that property values in these areas are terrible because students populate these areas. They are right, but we as a society cannot go changing the law every time someone loses money. Property values rise and fall based on many factors, risk is involved in investment. And I can guarantee you that property values will be almost nil in these areas if this legislation is enacted. But there is definitely not a chance that our fine university, which has an interest in property values surrounding its campus that is expanding, would be attracted to the prospect of being able to buy cheap land. Not our university.

When students live in houses that are not fit for humans to inhabit, they should be condemned. When someone lights a couch on fire in the street to celebrate a big upset for a football game, they should be arrested. If a landlord is cheating their tenants, the tenants should report theses violations. These living conditions give you neither the right nor the obligation to force these students to live in a way that applies to your standards. That is morally presumptuous on your part sir and as reprehensible as the conditions in which these students live.

Sincerely,
Campbell Fritschner