Sounds like part of the issue here is I maybe have a different idea of what “cater to traditional students” means. I was thinking more class availability, dorm availability, and such.
I have spent time on the University of Arizona and Texas State campuses the most other than UH. Also been on Rice, been around UT (bot not really on campus), around Georgia Tech a bunch as well, a little of A&M.
Until the last 10 years UH was a commuter school with a sea of parking? Ok, I don’t know what you mean, we still have a sea of parking it just is a lot deeper because of more garages than we had 10 years ago. Is UH any less a commuter school now than it was 10 years ago? or even 20 or 30? I would expect so. Although I guess it depends how you measure it. However, I can tell you 30 years ago we did not have a student rec center or football games in the on campus stadium. We also had less students and less parking (that was truly a sea of parking if you ever forgot where you parked near Robertson Stadium back in the day like I did).
As far as 24-7 on-campus gathering spots, I don’t know of too many at the other schools outside of dorms or the library or I’m not sure there is as much of a call for 24-7 spots outside of dorms these days as the computer labs are not necessarily needed to be 24 hours with everyone having a laptop. However, the library commons at UH is 24 hours and has vending machines. Then there is spots in the dorms I would imagine but haven’t been in them lately. Can you give us examples of 24 hour gathering places at traditional campuses?
Privately funded districts supporting campus that are walking distance… well, unfortunately, other than where The Den is and the center that has (had?) Pink’s, there is no privately owned land on that side of campus. More of that has developed on Scott, especially in the last 10 years but not quite the attraction you seek yet. Although those newer complexes with the retail at the bottom at around Elgin certainly could become what you seek. Unfortunately, they aren’t quite there yet. Maybe its better in daytime, I don’t know. I know that Scott street is really the only place for it.
I’m just thinking how University of Arizona has that maybe three or four block area with shops and such but that area was always pretty dead at night when I was around, lively during the day though. Usually at night they would go downtown or some other places nearish to campus but not walkable. I would compare it to the drag in Austin really. Texas State well, I guess you can walk to the square from many dorms but there is no real main drag there and that is a traditional university. There’s retail between the square and the university too. but the university is like in the center of a circle and not all areas of the circle have the shopping and such. I can’t think of a particular area like you describe for Georgia Tech either (here’s a campus map Georgia Tech) but I could be forgetting something right now.
Well, the simple answer is nothing keeps students on campus 24-7, 7 days a week at UH or any traditional, commuter or any other school except maybe military academies. This isn’t a prison. We shouldn’t want students on campus 24-7, 7 days a week. We should also want them off campus at internships, externships, coop work, volunteering, etc. Those that do live in campus housing or private housing that caters to the students (I know some of the dorm places near campus recently are privately built and not officially uh housing) probably spend a lot of that time on campus like you wish. Now, getting that group to games regularly might be a different question.
I’m going to move this to a new thread though, while related to athletic attendance I think it is a bit of its own argument.