HMOs and the studentification of Leamington Spa
Professor Darren Smith has made a career out of studying the impact of students on towns and cities in more ways than one. As a leading academic and geographer at Loughborough University, he has an impressive record of research, teaching and editorial achievements. However, his reputation as an international expert rests on his identification of the phenomenon of ‘studentification’ - a term he coined himself and which entered the Macmillan English Dictionary in 2003 with the definition: “the social and environmental changes caused by very large numbers of students living in particular areas of a town or city”. Dense concentrations His initial documentation of the problem was in his home town of Leeds where he noticed the ‘in-migration’ of students and the ‘out-migration’ of established residents: a change which caused ‘conflict and tensions’. The classic trajectory of studentification including the appearance of dense concentrations of young people, the inflatio...