What are town-gown relationships?

Question

What are town-gown relationships?

Answer 1

Town-gown relationships are those between the members of the college or university community and the residents of the university or college town.

These relationships have historically been very troubled. Until the mid 19th century college was in large measure preparation for the clergy, and colleges acted "in loco parentus," meaning, they acted as parents to the students, patrolling their morals! The city of Oxford, an old industrial town, for example, became tired of patrolling the drunkenness and sexual behavior of college men, and the university was never comfortable about the city's police messing with students. So the university ultimately had its own police and jails (!) to keep students (and prostitutes that served them) under control. Similarly, towns like New Haven and Ithaca and State College have at times experienced town-gown conflicts.

These were very common until the 1960s, but are less so today. That is because many more people go to college today, and college is now an occupational and vocational experience. The colleges are no longer acting "in loco parentus" and there is no longer a split between the working class town and the middle and upper class students.

But as one who lived in several college towns, I can assure you that even today rowdy kids can upset a town and lead to difficult problems for college administrators.  

Answer 2

It refers to the two distinct communities of a university town; on the one hand the 'town', being the non-academic population and 'gown' being the university population.

This wikipedia article tells you about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_and_go...