University Town areas in greater Boston? (Worcester, Cambridge: coupons, neighborhoods, school)

[manuscript]

Hi Boston experts, I've always lived in university towns or university-dominated neighborhoods within cities--where a large percentage of the people living there work at the school. Where are the neighborhoods like this in Boston and the suburbs? Appart from Cambridge and Wellesley that is ... Or maybe it's not as concentrated with all the little towns to choose from...? Thanks so much for your expertise!

[goyguy]

Only Cambridge and some areas of Boston have their "character" shaped by the colleges in their midst. Newton isn't impacted by Mt Ida and Lasell; Boston College is in its easternmost reaches but its presence is mostly felt in Boston's Cleveland Circle. Wenham's "semi-rural suburban" feel is untouched by Gordon College and its seminary, ditto for nearby Beverly with its Endicott College and Montserrat College of Art. Quincy's Wollaston neighborhood is just that, a neighborhood; you'd hardly know Eastern Nazarene was in its midst once you're off school grounds. The gracefully aging "downtown" along Hancock St and surrounding the MBTA station, and the high-rises lining Quincy Shore Dr, put much more of a stamp on that community. Exurban Lancaster has drawn no clubs or coffee shops or bookstores to serve Atlantic Union College. Waltham absorbs Bentley and Brandeis; about the only way you'd know that colleges are within its city limits would be by noticing copies of school newspapers at some merchants, and stickers in restaurant windows announcing the acceptance of student coupons. The town of Norton is more concerned with development sprawl and keeping down the noise level from a nearby outdoor-concert venue than with anything Wheaton College does. And so it goes.

In New England outside the 495 belt, some cities and towns with a strong collegiate vibe are: Burlington VT, Durham NH, Storrs CT, the Pioneer Valley communities of western MA (Northampton, Amherst, South Hadley, et al), Waterville ME, Montpelier VT, and Hanover NH - not necessarily in that order. Sections of New Haven, Worcester, and Providence are also affected by universities in all the usual good and bad ways.

What is it about having an institution of higher learning in the vicinity that's attractive?

[ogre]

I think Goyguy asked the key question with the last line in his post: What is it that attracts you to areas near colleges or universities? If you want a convenintly close place to take classes, you can find plenty of those opportunities in the Boston metropolitan area. If you really like the atmosphere of these areas, in the Boston metro area you'll find that mostly in some city neighborhoods, mostly the areas near the universities in Boston and Cambridge. In the suburbs, there is not much of a college-town atmosphere in the towns that have colleges. I'm guessing that this is because in a metro area, with people traveling all over the area for various activities, there is not so much of a sense that one town's entire existence centers around its college as there often is in college towns that stand alone in more rural areas. You can find plenty of small towns with a true college-town character in much of MA and New England outside the Boston metro area, but not so much in the metro area itself, at least not in the suburbs.