Zoning, not nerdiness, keeps Chicago students locked in their rooms at all times

It turns out that the real reason Hyde Park is bleak and miserable isn't that U of C students are (or think of ourselves as being) too bookish, but is in fact the result of zoning restrictions. Chicago professor and Volokh conspirator Jacob T. Levy weighs in on today's hot topic, "Where's the Gap?" After summing up Will's and my arguments, he asks:

"Honestly, what are they teaching in University of Chicago economics classes these days? I thought Chicago was supposed to produce libertarians who knew to look for government failure behind market strangeness. In short: it's the zoning. "

Levy also gives a good summary of the bustling commercial zone that is Hyde Park:

"The old joke goes that you can buy anything in the world you wnat to in Hyde Park, as long as it's a book. Two of the country's great bookstores are here, plus a very good used/ rare book shop, a very nice Borders, and a mediocre little Barnes & Noble. But (as Phoebe and Will point out) there's nary a Gap in sight. No Banana Republic. No Indian food, no sushi, no Bed & Bath, no Whole Foods or Trader Joes, only one restaurant allegedly first-rate restauarant (though it isn't) where outside speakers or job candidates can be brough without embarrassment, very few low-price studenty restaurants or bars. No comic book stores or gaming stores. No poster stores or boutiques selling precious little $200 Guatemalan peasant skirts. No Birkenstock dealer. And so on, and so on. The area around the U of C looks nothing like the area around any other American residential college or university I know of."

He's only slightly incorrect here: there's sort-of-Indian food (Rajun Cajun, anyone?) served in a dilapidated cafeteria setting, and Kikuya serves something sushi-like in a lovely setting over by the Metra tracks. But his overall point is indisputable.

Levy concludes:

"Don't get me wrong; I love it here, and the neighborhood as well as the campus have real virtues. But there are also real quality-of-life sacrifices involved in living in a city neighborhood where there is so little walking-distance commerce, and so many barriers to developing more of it. Those sacrifices aren't made necessary by the (deserved) pride our students take in their commitment to intellectual pursuits. "

I agree with Levy that being at the University of Chicago is worth sacrificing quality of life. But I remain hopeful that one day quality of life may move closer to quality of education. Man cannot live on rare books alone.