the Yale Bubble as defined by
34 students
Given a screenshot of New Haven, I asked students to answer the question, “where do you feel safe walking alone at night?” by drawing an approximate region on a map.
The results are overlain as shown, with Yale-owned properties delineated in white. Many students accompanied their map drawing with a description noting specific locations (Walgreens, Elm City Market) or streets
(Dwight, Edgewood) to be included or excluded.
the Bubble as defined by
men vs. women
Surprisingly, gender affected size less than I thought: the areas women felt safe largely overlapped with the areas men felt safe walking alone at night. However, women were more careful to specify routes: they drew more precise shapes with irregular tendrils,
while the men had more broadly circled regions.
For example: both men and women had restaurants like September in Bangkok or grocery stores like Stop and Shop included in their Bubbles, but women seem to venture out to these destinations more intentionally. State Street and Whitney Avenue are also two streets women seem to feel safe walking along,
in comparison to the men, who made less of a distinction.
the Bubble as defined by
BIPOC vs. non-BIPOC students
Race affected outcomes more than I predicted, or perhaps in the way I thought gender would have:
BIPOC students had a much smaller average range than non-BIPOC students. As can be seen, one eastern bound for BIPOC
students is Orange St, while non-BIPOC students have everything up to Highway 91 included as areas in which they felt
safe walking alone at night.
the Bubble as defined by
domestic vs. international students
Upon reflection, 9/11 of the international students I interviewed were from East Asian countries, skewing the data, as
not all international students are obviously from East Asia. However, I did then find that the most popular East Asian restaurants—
Taste of China, Noa, a slew of ramen places— are concentrated in the “International” Bubble. The “East Asian International” Bubble thus
seems to have a different center of gravity, skewing towards these institutions and shaped by them as relevant landmarks. I might just be
conflating factors that have nothing to do with each other— but it’s an interesting correlation, nonetheless.
“I don’t feel safe walking anywhere at night.”
3 Yale students.
Three students did not feel comfortable walking anywhere at night, demonstrating the problem, once again, of using safety as a proxy in this project.
One student noted being uncomfortable with the question being asked in the first place, because as a BIPOC woman she did not feel like the question was fair:
the issue of safety to her is place-agnostic, and has nothing to do with implications of Yale vs. New Haven. Though I didn’t specify I was going to use safety
as a proxy, she seemed to have intuited the intent, and was against the simplification.
My intention with this project was not to stereotype, trivialize, or downplay the complexities inherent
to the town-gown divide, concept of the “Yale Bubble,” or issue of safety in urban contexts in general. Crime happens
within the supposed confines of the university too, and as the first university campus to have a police force—formed in response
to student protests— conflating “where I feel safe walking alone at night” with “Yale University” is a dangerous exercise. Especially
given that perception of safety can be as important as the statistics themselves, I reiterate that the premise is a flawed one. And yet, how else can we measure where the “Yale Bubble” truly exists?
Though grounded in the built environment of Yale-owned property and Yalie-frequented spaces, the Bubble is ultimately a socially constructed place. In this project, I therefore use safety as a proxy and identity as a variable to map different versions of the Yale
Bubble, acknowledging that what safety means to a person might in fact have nothing to do with the Bubble itself.
*Correction: The anonymously cited friend's comment of "am I going to get cancelled" was in response to the question "where do you feel safe walking alone at night," not "what do you consider the boundaries of the Yale Bubble to be."
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