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Which city has more college pride. With these two cities catering to some of the largest universities in America Ohio State University and Florida State University. Which do you think is overwhelmingly more college students and college pride/
I wouldn't say either are true "College Towns" mainly because they are state capitals. Neither city has a significant pro sports team so the College is prided throughout. I havent been to either so I can't say but from an outsiders point of view they are both pretty even.
They're on totally different levels. Columbus is not exactly what I'd call a town. It's a thriving city with diverse industries, and it happens to have a very big university as well. The Columbus metro is home to 1,967,066 people; the Tallahassee area only has 373,255. Columbus is five and a half times bigger than Tallahassee.
In this case, Columbus would be better matched with other larger state capitals with big state schools, like Austin, Texas or Salt Lake City, Utah.
Tallahassee would be best matched up with other small capitals with big state schools, like Baton Rouge, Louisiana or Lincoln, Nebraska.
Last edited by Dawn.Davenport; 01-05-2015 at 03:27 PM..
They're on totally different levels. Columbus is not exactly what I'd call a town. It's a thriving city with diverse industries, and it happens to have a very big university as well. The Columbus metro is home to 1,967,066 people; the Tallahassee area only has 373,255. Columbus is five and a half times bigger than Tallahassee.
In this case, Columbus would be better matched with other larger state capitals with big state schools, like Austin, Texas or Salt Lake City, Utah.
Tallahassee would be best matched up with other small capitals with big state schools, like Baton Rouge, Louisiana or Lincoln, Nebraska.
This is a good way to compare them. Although Baton Rouge is a lot bigger than Lincoln or Tallahassee.
Lincoln has a much larger downtown area than Tallahassee, which has a downtown the size you would expect in a town of maybe 50K.
I've been to Tallahassee a few times, and maybe I was looking in the wrong places, but it seemed kind of sleepy for a town with a major university in it. Columbus seems to have more ambiance, though part of that could be a function of its size.
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I think it should also be noted that besides Florida State, Tallahassee is also home to one of the largest HBCUs in the country, FAMU (Florida A&M). That adds another 10,000+ college students. Considering Tallahassee has both a large PWI and a large HBCU, I cant imagine how many towns could be more of a college town than Tallahassee.
over 41,000 students at FSU + over 10,000 students at FAMU in a city of 186,000.
Last edited by Southern Soul Bro; 01-10-2015 at 05:27 PM..
Interesting comparison. I grew up not far from Tallahassee and have been there more times than I can count and I actually lived in Columbus, Oh a couple of years.
I was surprised by how much of an Ohio State town Columbus was but then the school is huge (much larger than Florida State even) . On game day I remember seeing Ohio State decorations everywhere including the local super market. During my first months living there I was mostly around college students at work and lived near campus for a while so I was completely immersed in the college aspects of the town. During my last two years there however, I was working elsewhere and so was away from that part of Columbus life. I still saw alot of signs of Columbus being a college town but it's easy to see that there's a lot lot more to Columbus than the University.
In Tallahassee there's not nearly as much going on away from the university as in Columbus, it being much much smaller. Life in Tally revolves around not only Florida State but Florida A&M. Especially night life which would be totally dead without college students from those two schools.
Tally is also the State Capital (same as Columbus) so both towns share that in common outside of their colleges but Columbus also has major manufacturing, Banks, Insurance companies, Military base, head quarters to major corporations, a number of big suburbs, three interstates highways instead of one. and a host of other advantages.
Something people in North Florida can identify with and visualize is Columbus, Ohio is like if you dragged Jacksonville, Fla away from the water to Tallahassee. (minus the NFL team).
Last edited by Galounger; 01-11-2015 at 10:09 AM..
I think it should also be noted that besides Florida State, Tallahassee is also home to one of the largest HBCUs in the country, FAMU (Florida A&M). That adds another 10,000+ college students. Considering Tallahassee has both a large PWI and a large HBCU, I cant imagine how many towns could be more of a college town than Tallahassee.
over 41,000 students at FSU + over 10,000 students at FAMU in a city of 186,000.
Now Columbus does actually have 13 colleges and universities in the metro. When you add Ohio state and them Columbus has the largest concentration of college students within a set radius ( I believe it's like 60 to 90 miles) after Boston. But this in a metro if about 2 million now
On a general level, there's no comparison between Tallahassee and Columbus. However, when you take FSU's 41K students, plus FAMU's 10K students, and TCC's 14K students, that's a total of 65K college students, which is nothing to sneeze at. Combine that with all the state government functions, Tallahassee is somewhat of a Columbus in miniature, just without the insurance and banking industries that Columbus also has!!
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