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A college town can have the best of both worlds, to an extent. More reasonable cost of housing, less traffic congestion, etc. combined with cultural activities and amenities to a greater or lesser degree.
Unfortunately, not so in this highly concentrated college area. Rents are quite high due to students/faculty apt sharing. Property taxes are quite high b/c many private colleges do not pay a fair share to the town (and typically there is a low business base), and buying in to these preferred areas is quite pricey. The public school systems here in college towns are supposed to be top rated (though I'm not so sure about that) and thus, of course, much higher property tax (the public school budget is typically 66% of the total town budget each year).
We came back to my hometown and are very happy here. Chapel Hill is large enough to accommodate many neighborhoods and other activities besides UNC activities. Also we are close to Duke (boo Dook) and Raleigh for all sorts of cultural and entertainment fun.
On our local forum people are all the time asking about housing in Chapel Hill and hoping to avoid students. Frankly a person can live here and never run into a "college kid" for months. It just depends on your lifestyle. And since only the cream of the crop are admitted to UNC I think the students actually take their education seriously. That's not to say we don't have wild parties or drunks on campus but it's not as bad as a school with a party reputation. Our graduate student population will soon be more than our undergrads. And a more mature settled student means less noise and mischief.
I don't think rentals are any more expensive than anywhere else but home ownership definitely is. We have the best schools in the state (which frankly after what our current Republican Gov and legislature have done to the teachers and education in general isn't saying too much) and our property taxes are extremely high to maintain the excellent school system. We still have kids at home and education is extremely important to us. The parents are highly educated and know the value of education and are very involved.
Anybody who lives in a college town learns what to avoid and when. UNC sports can mean traffic grid lock not only in town but on I-40 as well. You learn when to shop (during an afternoon football game is a great time to grocery shop almost by yourself).
I own rental property and besides usual wear and tear of normal rentals I have no complaints. But I rent only to graduate students and professionals. And there are plenty rental opportunities in town so I don't think rates are inflated.
A college town phenomenon is the calm quiet and almost ghost town qualities during school breaks. During Christmas break about the only students we see on campus are international ones. Restaurants and bars are nice meeting places for locals and year round residents and it's a different vibe.
My home town of about 9,000 has a small college. When I was growing up it was a blue collar factory town with a small liberal arts college. The college provided most of the activities and people interested in other things, certainly theater and art and all that but also it was the college professors and some of the other native professionals who started clubs and organizations for say hiking or biking or bird watching or bands. The factories sponsored softball leagues, parks and such. A nice mix really, it was lovely.
But with all the factories gone the college is the towns only anchor and only provider of anything besides meth heads.
Less specfically, no I wouln't want to live on top of a fraternity.
But I do want to live in a college town. For whatever reason they usually have better restaurants, libraries/book stores, activities, life time classes in all sorts of things. Education and those involved are generally more interested in learning, have curiosity, like trying new things. I think they tend to be more kinder gentler interesting places.
Personally, I'd think college towns are great for seniors. Agree though that you'd have to pay a premium on your living arrangements. I'm thinking this is only available to affluent seniors with a hefty nest egg. Curious to know what the stats are on the number of seniors living in a collegiate environment. I'd say a pretty low percentage.
I do NOT find that to be true where I live now in Tucson. The University of Arizona is a pretty big mystery to most Tucsonans, if they are not alumni. With the exception of the generous Department of Sciences, which has excellent community outreach, and the annual Book Fair, which totally depends on the public to be a success, I find out about most things at the U of A after they are over. Taking classes is for me prohibitively expensive. Oh, of course the other exception is sports. They're happy to sell you game tickets if you can afford them.
You make some valid points.
The University of Arizona is very disorganized. They did NOT put out their campus guide with all of the events for the 2nd term until about February 5th, about five weeks into the year.
There are no senior discounts that I have seen at this point. In fact, their OLLI program which is free or very low cost, is very expensive. That really does not bother me as MANY universities offer free on-line classes these days (non-credit).
As for athletic events of ANY sort, try getting tickets to a lot of the sports. Many of the seats are held by season ticket holders who may or may not show up to the games.
This is all very interesting... it actually never crossed my mind that any colleges in my area offer any free things for seniors. It's quite possible that they don't but now I'm intrigued and will do some checking into it.
LI has a mix of public (SUNY Stony Brook plus two Community colleges) and private colleges (Hofstra which is the largest, Adelphi, Dowling, LI University and NY Tech, plus other smaller ones). But they are spread out fairly evenly throughout the ~900 square miles of the two counties. The only one that most people regard as a "college town" is Stony Brook, because in addition to the campus it also has a teaching hospital. But there is only a small commercial area (Stony Brook village) which is upscale and not geared toward college students at all (no bars, etc, just a few boutique shops catering to the affluent). Students looking for nightlife etc travel to the surrounding towns; thus there is a general "spillover" of college activity in those.
Rental housing is difficult and expensive everywhere on LI, so it's really no different in towns with or without a college.
It depends upon the college town and what the person wants to get out of it. My experience when I was younger was that I got to go to a lot of free lectures, movies, concerts, art museums and reasonably priced classes. The downside was the high rental prices due to student competition and the hoards of students everywhere I went. Too many students, too small a town, 99% of whatever was there was for the students. If you could find a quiet town or small city with a college where the students didn't out number the adults, it could be a good deal.
When I lived in Des Moines, I was shocked to find that Ames (IA STATE) was a big retiree destination. The points were:
1) cultural activities
2) restaurants
3) medical
4) retirees did not need to go out in bad weather
A lot of retirees remain in MN and IA and spend a couple of months in Texas or Arizona during the winter months. You get the best of both worlds - proximity to family at key times in the year and warm weather in the winter.
Iowa City also attracts retirees to a certain extent.
I think that a lot of rural Iowans migrate to the larger cities in Iowa to be closer to specialized health care. many of the smaller towns do not have a lot of specialists (cardiologists, etc.).
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