Nuancing student geographies: studentscapes in post-industrial cities

Abstract

The article contributes to the debate that links student geographies with urban change. It has been argued that students reshape urban geographies through the creation of distinctive “student areas.” However, the literature has often done so focusing on one specific component (e.g. accommodation or leisure) and one specific city or neighborhood. Therefore, we aim to nuance the debate over student geographies in cities. To this end, we use the “studentscapes” framework and propose a concurrent examination of students’ educational, residential, and leisure activities distributed in the urban space of Lodz, Poland, and Turin, Italy. We show that the presence of higher education students plays a role in the multifaceted and dynamic restructuring of Lodz and Turin as they transition from industrial to post-industrial economies. We also claim that the dichotomous distinction between “student” and “non-student” neighborhoods might miss the wide range of configurations of students’ activities in urban settings.