[eschaton]

Colleges are certainly much better at being pedestrian-friendly than typical U.S. development, but they're not entirely ideal because the idyllic "campus" built form that the U.S. loves doesn't quite work well when blown up to larger scale.

Basically the issue with campuses is that once a school gets large enough, they just are a little too expansive to be walkable. A nice central quad is a good communal amenity - I think all schools should have this. But buildings are also set back far from sidewalks with lots of landscaping basically everywhere - with most of this landscaping being passive space of about as little use as that in an office park. Lots of people hang out in it/walk through it because they have no choice. But it's ultimately designed to look pastoral and "nice" - not to be functional.

Another example is the common separation of uses on a college campus, which tends to try and recreate the 1950s idea of "city rings" in miniature. Typically you will see a central ring of academic buildings, with dorms placed on the outer fringes of the campus. On a smaller campus this is fine, but on a large campus this can lead to uncomfortably long "walking commutes." When I was a student there were times when I had to walk 30+ minutes to get to a single classroom. I did it - and it was great for getting in shape. But it was a pain logistically - particularly when I had like a 90-miniute gap between classes and realized it just wasn't worthwhile to walk back to my dorm and leave again. There's no reason why we couldn't intersperse academic and residential buildings - or even have purpose-designed mixed-use buildings with lower floors for classroms and upper floors for residence.