Visiting the Ithaca Farmers Market this past week, a few things struck me. The size: 150 vendors is a *lot* of people. I had been to farmers markets in the past in my hometown and other smaller towns in West Michigan, but this was a whole different setup. I got a gyro and scone for lunch (which were both delicious, incidentally) and lollygagged, delaying when I’d have to return to campus and start homework. Another thing that surprised me was the amount of non-food items there. There were woodworkers, jewelry stores, paintings, etc. Broadening the scope of a farmers market to more than just strictly farms makes a lot of sense: after all, one of the primary purposes of a farmers market is to support local businesses.

Walking back from the market, it got me wondering about all of the things about Ithaca we as Cornell students may miss while we’re here. In contrast to some schools that are very integrated into the wider community, Cornell can seem isolating at times. I’ve gone a month or more having not set foot off the campus and that worries me at times. Furthermore, I realized that I actually don’t know a lot about Ithaca. I mean sure, I know about Applefest, the copious amount of farms in the area, surface stuff like that. But I’ve never had a substantial conversation with an Ithaca resident that didn’t go to Cornell and maybe that’s not a great thing.

According to this article (http://www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/ezra-s-vision-how-a-shortfall-of-student-housing-ripples/article_35319f30-e290-11e6-a942-3f7af49588f4.html) it wasn’t always so isolating. Cornell didn’t have on campus housing for a long time: almost 100 years. Ezra Cornell in particular wanted students to live in the community, not alongside it. The current housing market is a whole ‘nother can of worms, but maybe Ezra Cornell had a point.