Date of Award
5-10-2026
Date Published
June 2026
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Geography & the Environment
Advisor(s)
Arnisson Andre Ortega
Keywords
Buses;Postindustrialism;Studentification;Transit;Transportation Geography;Upstate New York
Subject Categories
Geography | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
Decades of deindustrialization have forced several American cities to seek other sources of economic life for their shrinking populations and increasingly impoverished populations. One sector that has shown much potential for revitalization has been the “meds and eds” of hospitals and universities. The growth of higher education is fueled by a rise in enrollment that has transformed the demographic, economic, and social atmospheres of university neighborhoods. Yet an important transformation missed by these “studentification” scholars are the accompanying reconfigurations of public transit. Given that students, and young people generally, are less likely to own their own car, universities have to creatively account for the transportation gap. In this thesis, I explore the university-transit nexus in Upstate New York, a region with some of the US’s most impoverished and least car-reliant cities. I develop a new metric for studentification to nuance differences in form and extent of student settlement in Upstate’s four largest cities. I then quantitatively demonstrate the biasing of transit resources, vis-à-vis coverage and frequency, for these studentified areas vs non-studentified ones. I then interview a Syracuse transit planner and university official to unpack the privileging of students/universities in transit planning as well as elucidate the panoply of extra transportation options uniquely available to students. I end with a discussion of what transit gains and losses from privileging university areas, as well as alternative strategies for achieving the ridership gains necessary for amassing the resources to build out a transit with fast and frequent service for all.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Gonzalez, Carlos Jose, "Who gets Better Buses? Studentification, Bus Geographies, and Transit Privilege in Postindustrial Upstate New York" (2026). Theses - ALL. 1035.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/1035
