Studentville.

ISSUE 8 / STUDENT AFFAIRS

The suburbs which envelope our universities, and the students that inhabit them, exist in worlds of their own.

“Hovel” is a powerful word, often wielded against the neighbourhoods we students inhabit. I concede, to some extent, it is apt. I live in a charming student enclave in Riccarton. Down my street I find mouldy couches, crushed cans and the occasional police van there to break up an out-of-control party on particularly good nights. Hurrah for Studentville, I think to myself as I sidestep an upturned e-scooter. It may be a hovel, but this hovel is home, too. 

The communities of twenty-somethings that surround Aotearoa’s universities are important social spaces where we live out the Kiwi rite of passage that is flatting. Yet, these communities are changing, increasingly challenging their thriving student character. In Dunedin, students have become highly segregated in the cityscape, with sometimes devastating consequences. Meanwhile, in Christchurch, the hubs of youthful energy are slowly disappearing beneath new development. These are different problems but reveal the same tension. Cities struggle to accommodate these communities which we students rely on. 

In many cities, you will find us students embedding ourselves into the suburbs surrounding universities. We transform family suburbs into so-called Studentvilles. Urban geographers coin this process as “studentification”. It is not to be confused with gentrification, which describes the flows of wealthier residents and new investment into neighbourhoods, pricing out locals. Meanwhile, studentification describes the social and physical transformation of neighbourhoods as student populations become increasingly concentrated. Some emphasise it as a process of deterioration, such as academic Holly Randell-Moon who characterises it as a “reverse make-over”. The term is useful because it captures the peculiar contradiction of Studentville: it is simultaneously a place that provides students with independence and community, but one that can be viewed by the wider city as a source of disorder and decline.

The ultimate in Aotearoa studentification is undoubtedly Dunedin North. An isolated hub of youthful energy. As Hugh Askerud suggested in a tongue-in-cheek Critic article, the city’s hill-dwelling, National-voting professionals are perfectly placed to spit on the students living below in the valley. Beneath the joke, Askerud is tapping into the compartmentalisation of students in the city. Dunedin North’s character developed in the mid-twentieth-century as rapidly rising roll numbers outpaced the capacity of halls. This was compounded by increased economic independence of young people created by an upturn in holiday work and increased government allowances. It was a division that was reinforced by the city’s geography. North Dunedin’s proximity to the University of Otago makes it an obvious place for students to live, while poor public transport connections to the hill suburbs further concentrate students in the walking-distance blocks around the university. By the 1960s, Ōtepoti had developed a self-contained student haven on its northern side that remains to this day. This is furthered by the ephemeral nature of the student experience. Students often only stay for a few years and thus have little incentive to engage with the city beyond their own domain of like-minded young adults. Thus Dunedin North becomes a city within a city.

To anyone familiar, the name Castle Street will evoke the image of mouldy couches and the distinct smell of alcohol-laden vomit. A hub of the boisterous and the drunken, Dunedin North’s student culture is epitomised by the tradition of flat naming. Sarah Gallagher’s “Dunedin Flat Names Project” explores the folklore and history of these named flats. She argues naming flats allows students to assert identity in a physical space of frequent turnover. They are often marked by their lewd, offensive and deliberately provocative nature. The same irreverence is seen in the infamous couch burning tradition, which has since been banned by the city. Or the often-dangerous hazing rituals, where students can be made to drink in great, great excess. Civic norms and basic decorum become secondary to these peculiar cultural rituals. 

However, the most serious consequence of Dunedin North’s culture is the deaths of its young people. In 2019, Sophia Crestani was crushed to death at a flat party in Dunedin. Her best friend, Megan Prentice, has argued that Sophia might still be alive had the city retained more third spaces for students.  In her view, the intentional effort to diminish party culture by restricting dedicated student gathering spaces has simply pushed it into increasingly dangerous environments, with private flats becoming the venues instead.  

These days, the city is attempting to manage the consequences of this concentration, without necessarily addressing the underlying conditions that created it. The same factors that concentrated students in North Dunedin in the 1960s, such as affordable rents, proximity to university, and limited transport options, continue to shape the area. When student life becomes geographically constrained and then deprived of safe spaces in which to socialise, the flat itself becomes the centre of student culture. Without safer alternatives, dangerous rituals persist, fires are lit and, tragically, young people have died. Studentville is therefore not simply a collection of badly behaved students. It is a product of the way the city has organised, contained, and responded to its student population over decades.

Christchurch has its own Studentville, although defining it is more difficult. It is a fluid boundary that roughly encircles UC’s Ilam campus. Our frigid little flats are often in close quarters with the curb-appeal munching suburbanites. Yet, unlike Dunedin, students in Christchurch should arguably be able to cultivate a positive image. The stereotype of a civically apathetic student that exists in a bubble was shattered by the Student Volunteer Army following the 2010-11 Canterbury Earthquakes. Students demonstrated pragmatism and genuine concern for their community by shovelling silt and assisting residents well beyond their normal social circles. However, any effect they had in lifting the image of the Cantabrian student was clearly short-lived. By 2017, homeowners were accusing students of turning Ilam into a “slum.”

This is arguably a consequence of the broader cultural image of flatting itself. The rowdy Scarfie occupies a peculiar place within the New Zealand psyche as the archetypal student. The most boisterous elements of Dunedin student culture subsume the meta-image of student flatting in Aotearoa. Consequently, our very presence in the community can become an unwanted blight in the minds of some residents. Of course, homeowners have genuine grievances about noise, rubbish, parties, and property damage. But the image of the Kiwi student, informed by its most dramatic example, can obscure the reality of students who simply want an affordable place to live while studying.

As such, the face of Studentville in Ōtautahi is changing. Homes that once accommodated students are disappearing as townhouses spring up in their place, slowly shrinking the student presence in Western Christchurch. I do not bring this up with NIMBYism in my heart. Intensification is an important transition Aotearoa must make for a successful, climate resilient future. The challenge is doing it well. There are many new townhouses in Christchurch, frequently bought as investments and filled only by Airbnb guests a few nights a month. It comes at a time when student accommodation is already under considerable pressure. I only recently secured my 2027 flat after a lengthy tour of the city’s dampest dwellings. As I traipsed door to door, clutching my CV, I couldn’t help but notice the frequency with which I stumbled upon old bungalows being demolished to make way for townhouses. 

Renting a frigid little home while studying is a rite of passage, though, to me, it is now closer to a humiliation ritual. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a home that will not make you sick. It is not that these townhouses are inherently bad. Better-quality and more energy-efficient housing could substantially improve the lives of students. The problem is that better housing does not necessarily translate into housing students can afford. Without appropriate regulation, Christchurch risks losing the neighbourhoods that support students through their transition to adulthood. The city could end up with a sea of empty beds while abandoning students struggling to find an adequate place to live. 

Randell-Moon offers an alternative: to invest with students in mind. She suggests supporting student-oriented venues and improving public transport to increase mobility would both allow students to socialise further from their university, thereby breaking down the bubble. Meanwhile, former University of Canterbury Students Association president James Addington suggested in 2017 that more student involvement, representation, and consultation within community groups could help bridge divides and create better outcomes for all. The goal should not be to break up Studentville, but to engage it.

These suburbs allow students to navigate a few strange years in a new city together, forming friendships, communities, and identities. Therefore, the way we construct and manage these spaces matters. In Dunedin, the concentration and containment of students has contributed to a culture that can become dangerous when students are denied safe spaces beyond the flat. In Christchurch, the opposite problem is emerging: students are slowly being pushed out of the neighbourhoods that have historically housed them as development and investment reshape the city.

Students will always need somewhere to live, socialise, and make a mess of things. The problem is cities treat students as an inconvenience to be contained. Aotearoa’s universities cannot thrive without the ecosystems of young people around them. If our cities want students to become part of their communities rather than retreat into bubbles of their own, they need to consider the place we are given in them.