> They obtain most of their revenue from grants, donations, and investment (endowment) gains.
All of which exhibit market-like forces. Grants are not gifts; universities must attract academics who then produce impactful research, which is then used to gain additional grants. When a professor invents something new or discovers something, the university that hired him/her gains in reputation. The more useful and interesting research a university produces, the more grant money they get. How is this process divorced from reality? Universities and scientists divorced from reality should not be able to make discoveries about it, so it's very important for people in academia to be tethered to the reality, despite what the popular wisdom says.
As for donations, where do they come from? Well they come from rich people, who have made a lot of profits. Earlier you said corporations prove their worth in the long run by earning profits. Wouldn't that apply to graduates of a university as well? Of course there's a lot that goes into the mix, but for those students who go on to be successful and then donate back to the university, aren't they doing so because they attribute their success to the university specifically? So it would seem to me that if a university wants donations, they should do a good job; and if they don't do a good job, they shouldn't expect donations. To me, that seems like a market force right there.
Finally, endowments seem to be the most tethered to reality, if we define reality as "the market". Earnings are invested directly into the rest of the system as with any other business. It's often said that Harvard is a hedge fund with a school as a side hustle. But then isn't Harvard just as attached to reality as any hedge fund?
> The point is that we shouldn't take ivory-tower academics seriously when they speak outside their narrow fields of expertise... when a professor who has always worked in academia gives advice on urban planning I'm going to be highly skeptical.
Sure, I can of course agree we should listen to people according to the expertise they bring to the table. At the same time, we shouldn't discount their input on the basis they aren't practitioners, because the practicing city planners themselves and industry writ large haven't exactly proven they are competent stewards of our cities. Indeed, this story is about how they've failed us all on a wide scale. My point is that the "ivory tower" urban planners actually have a vision for a walkable, livable city, that has been modeled, deployed, and iterated for over 100 years. Maybe we could consider that it's not so divorced from reality, and go from there? It seems it's a complete nonstarter for people, for the reasons you've articulated, and I'm just not convinced.
I mean, people say the suburbs as an entire concept is not sustainable and divorced from reality. Yet we drove that model to the absolute extreme. It sure benefited corporations and big box stores outside of city centers, but what suffered were our communities, social relationships, and of course the environment. We built huge road systems to connect cities and suburbs. We manufacture expensive cars, sell them to people on credit, then expect them to use it to burn gas for hours just to get to and fro their work 5 times a week, all so they can hope to pay off the car one day!
This whole system is absurd but we accept it at face value it seems as "the real world" because it was very profitable for some people. And then we use the fact this industry was profitable to prove ipso facto is was worth it all along, as we wonder why we can't afford to commute to work.
Meanwhile, people building livable, walkable cities where designed for people are pie-in-the-sky idealists. You know, people we probably shouldn't listen to, because what could they possibly have to say? What could they know about city planning? I mean where are all the cars? Where's the Walmart? They call this a town?