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I grew up in Minneapolis and moved to DC to attend AU before I adopted the District town as my home. One issue which got a lot of attention in Minneapolis when I was a kid was the folks who lived in the path of Minneapolis airport's runways complaining about the noise of planes flying over their homes on approach to the airport (and demanding that the planes fly somewhere else). Something I could never understand was why these homeowners felt entitled to say anything about the matter when they built/purchased their homes in the paths of runways which had already been there for decades. Simply stated, they knew what they were getting into when they bought/built their homes in the path of a runway so they shouldn't feel entitled to complain. I feel the same sort of logical disconnect exists for residents who own homes around AU.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, who lives around AU today lived there before the university was built over 100 years ago. Considering the wealth of Spring Valley, I am confident that AU's neighbors had the financial resources to build/buy somewhere else... but they chose to build/buy next to AU. Just like the people who moved into the paths of Minneapolis' runways, the neighbors of AU knew that there was a university in the neighborhood before they built/bought. If you hate the smell of sewage, why move next to a waste-treatment plant? If you hate young people, why move next to a university?

by Jeff G. on Mar 6, 2011 11:44 am • link • report