Thousands of students stream daily into the downtown Pew Campus of Grand Valley State University, the institution that has done as much as any single organization to transform Grand Rapids in the twenty-first century. GVSU was founded in 1960 in Allendale Township, twelve miles west of downtown, but its decision to establish a significant urban presence through the Pew Campus brought thousands of students, faculty, and staff into the downtown core each day — a population that supported restaurants, coffee shops, and the density that makes downtowns feel alive. The campus is named for the Pew family, whose Helen DeVos Children's Hospital connection reflects the deep intertwining of philanthropy and institution-building in this city.
GVSU's health science programs in particular feed the medical economy that has replaced much of the manufacturing employment of a generation ago. The Spectrum Health system and Michigan Medicine have become among the largest employers in the region. Walk through the campus and notice how its buildings have been fitted into the existing city block structure — a deliberate urbanism that reflects hard lessons learned from the campus-in-a-park model that hollowed out so many American downtowns in the postwar era.