Why is Yale so small?

Or rather the town of New Haven, which you probably haven't heard of, in which Yale sits.

Sam* got me thinking about this with this article he sent me recently, on repopulating urban america.

Now bear with me, but I can half-remember a talk by an LSE economic geographer (Henry Overman?), arguing that Oxford and Cambridge (UK) are underpopulated. Agglomerations matter. In the 19th Century industrial age Manchester grew rapidly as the centre of manufacturing. In the modern information economy, universities are the drivers of growth, and these places should naturally be expanding. In the UK this natural growth is restricted by green belts (I believe they call it zoning in the US).

So what's going on in Yale?


* Ooh snazzy new website, check you out. Nice tagline.