Research Project

Studentification is the process of urban change distinct to university towns associated with the increased concentration of postsecondary students (Smith, 2005). This process has consequences for residents within the urban environment, with aspects of displacement similar to gentrification. Studentification has recently been fuelled by the rise of off-campus Purpose-Built Student Housing (PBSH), apartment buildings built specifically to market towards students, addressing specific demands for more luxurious, higher quality housing. In order to examine the demand for PBSH relative to other forms of housing, this study codes comments under posts about housing from the r/Rutgers subreddit on Reddit, a popular online forum, this subreddit being a place where many students share information, share stories, and ask for advice. By using the r/Rutgers discussion forum as a case study, the study attempts to understand what student demand for housing looks like, expanding the body of literature suggesting a re-evaluation of the student’s role in the studentification of urban environments (Nakazawa, 2017; Sotomayor et. al., 2022). It was found that students speak the most about off-campus housing, and will prefer off-campus housing in comparison to on-campus housing as well as off-campus PBSH.