St Andrews is Starting to Look Like Everywhere Else

A letter to the town from a concerned student

Dear St Andrews,

I say this with love, but you’re changing. Not in the “we need to talk” kind of way, where someone’s accusing you of becoming distant. More in the way that your old friend suddenly starts using brand partnerships and saying things like “content strategy” unironically. You’re still you, just a little more polished, a little more… commercial. 

Every time something new opens, I get a little too excited. Maybe it’ll be a café that isn’t one of the same four we all rotate between, or a shop that doesn’t sell golf jumpers or really expensive cashmere. Then I walk past the scaffolding and see the sign… Caffè Nero. Hotel Chocolat. Or most recently… Socktopus?

None of these are bad. They’re fine. But that’s sort of the issue — they’re fine. They’re safe. They’re everywhere.

Part of what makes you so special is how different you are from any other uni town, and how radically unlike home you seem. But lately, it feels like that’s starting to slip a bit. Every few months, another familiar logo appears — perfectly branded, completely interchangeable. 

Your charm has always been in your predictability, the same pubs and the same accidental eye contact with the side characters in your life that you manage to see everywhere. It’s all part of the appeal. Yet every time a new chain opens, shiny and alluring, you feel a bit less like yourself and a bit more like everywhere else.

To be fair, this shift says something flattering about you. You’ve never exactly been obscure, being ‘The Home of Golf’ and one of the oldest universities in the world — and somehow one which ranks above others with buildings taller than four storeys. But the kind of attention you’re attracting now feels different. The new openings suggest you’re not just historic… you’re marketable! The fact that you can lure a celebrity sports bar and a Hotel Chocolat means you’ve developed a certain lifestyle appeal. 

The Tiger Woods x Justin Timberlake sports bar is the clearest example so far. It’s impossible not to be curious. It’s shiny, probably good, and will definitely be packed. But it also feels like a turning point, a reminder that you’re no longer just a place but a brand. You’re a town learning to merchandise its own character.

Of course, there are upsides: more variety, more jobs, more money. Change isn’t automatically bad. And, to be fair, you’ve always known how to sell yourself. The golf, the history, and the royal alumni are all part of your long-standing (and successful) PR campaign. 

So this isn’t exactly gentrification; you were never struggling financially. It’s more like brandification, and maybe that’s inevitable. More students arrive every year, many of them international, and you adapt. We say we love your quirks, but we’re still the first in line for the brands we recognise.

I’m part of it, too. I’ve gone to Caffè Nero. I’ll probably end up at T-Squared Social; I’m a North American student, after all — exactly the demographic these places cater to. Perhaps that’s why it feels strange to point it out. The version of you I fell for might not be the one I’m helping to change.

Maybe this all sounds dramatic, but don’t worry. You’re still beautiful, still tiny, still full of students who think they live in some kind of BBC period drama. But the small things add up, and I can’t help noticing when “new” doesn’t feel new anymore, when you start catering more to what visitors expect than to what makes you actually interesting.

Listen, I don’t have a grand argument, and I’m not sure there’s one to make. Things change, towns adapt. I just hope that, as you keep modernising, you remember that people come here precisely because you aren’t everywhere else, and that’s the only thing worth selling.

Love,

A concerned student

Illustration by Kate Lau