More Yale on the Move I neglected to post this article from the Sunday Times about Yale's investments in its campus. The university is undergoing a remarkable physical transformation.

Yale University is rebuilding itself — drawing on its huge, rapidly growing endowment and on multimillion-dollar gifts, mainly from alumni — to renovate 54 buildings and construct 16 new ones. Not since the 1930s has Yale undertaken so ambitious an expansion.

The theme of the article is how private spending on infrastructure is outpacing public spending; New Haven can not afford to spend what Yale is spending, and so there's enormous pressure on the university to fill the vacuum—to pay for the extension of a local airport runway, for example, or somehow contribute to the development of high-speed rail service to Manhattan.

It's a sign of the attention being paid to Yale's wealth—a sign that certainly extends to Harvard, Columbia, and others—that the university could even be considered as a funder for such large-scale public works.

Yale has suffered historically in comparison to Harvard by being located in New Haven. What's interesting about this latest evolution is that its impoverished-city locale is actually helping the university in its rebuilding program—it's simply easier to get things greenlighted in New Haven than (certainly) in Cambridge and probably even Allston.

And the university is making the most of the opportunity; it's renovated two-thirds of its dorms (when will Harvard do this?), and many of the new or renovated buildings on campus are architecturally significant.

Much of this has happened under the radar. But as I've been saying for a few years now, New Haven is becoming quite a nice place in which to attend college. And Yale seems to have an energy that is making the university an exciting place to be.  ¶ 7:34 AM