Abstract:
Town-gown relations define political and social taglines in today’s communities.
The multifaceted dynamics of such a relationship involving two entities with (oftentimes)
differing priorities and loyalties cannot be understood nor investigated in isolation and in
the exclusivity of economics. One area that provides definition to the relationship
between a town and an educational institution located within it involves the students at
the school as well as policies governing the living affairs of the students. Of
consideration in this paper is the history of campus housing policies as seen through the
textured relationship between Duke University and the Durham, North Carolina
community.