Baldwin, Davarian (2021) In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities. Bold Type Books.

Almost as long as there have been universities, there has been social conflict between town and gown. The University of Cambridge, after all, was founded in 1209 by scholars fleeing the hostile environment of Oxford, where three of their colleagues had been hanged in an act of semivigilantism by town officials in punishment for their role in the death of a young townswoman. From then until now, the general logic of the conflict has stayed the same, even if the particulars have varied widely. Universities have a profound historical connection to the reproduction of ruling elites, manifest most darkly in the historical discovery in the last generation of the connection many hold to slavery and the slave trade. Students and scholars are linked up to national institutions that carry their own status and prestige and may access distinct pools of economic resources. Especially at more elite institutions, they may occupy a quite different social position from their neighbors, but (except for online colleges) they must exist in physical space and interact with the social geography around them.