On 'student rot'

Dan Lorentz talks about 'student rot' affecting area neighborhoods ...

But even though there's much to recommend (Athens-Clarke County District Five Commissioner David) Lynn's approach—it's immediately implementable, it doesn't involve writing new rules and it apparently works (at least so far, in particular neighborhoods)—there are problems with it. First, it gets old pretty fast. And second, it won't work in neighborhoods under heavy student pressure.

I've now lived in four college towns, always fairly near campus. It's not fun to have to talk to new neighbors every year about fairly obvious matters of politeness and then be ignored as often as not. Over time as more students move in, fewer established residents have the patience to do that every year and so they move...and yet another block gets lost to student rot—which is a real loss to the community.