I was up in New Haven for an interview a couple days ago, and traveled to some areas of campus I don’t usually visit on my trips back. The difference between now and a quarter-century (gulp) ago when I was an undergraduate is astonishing; in fact, the difference between now and, say, five years ago is astonishing. The landscape on the side of campus dominated by science, economics and business is now dotted with new buildings, some of which are quite beautiful. And there’s an absolutely enormous new building rising up, future home to Yale’s School of Management.

New Haven certainly doesn’t have the beauty and the energy of Cambridge—though I’d forgotten how absolutely gorgeous Hillhouse Avenue is—but one thing it does have is plenty of relatively cheap real estate, and the university is clearly taking advantage of that.