Best Downtowns Among Smaller Cities (living, people)
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Such a charming and historic downtown. Lots of vibrancy. Absolutely gorgeous architecture. It feels like a city of 250,000 when it is a mere 50,000 people.
I doubt it. The low income of college students does little to nothing toward influencing a downtown to grow or stand out as unique, especially if the college enrollment amounts to close to one half or more of the college town's population.
I've never been to Stillwater, but in general college towns are more likely to have both creative and intellectual activities like science/art exhibits, performing arts, and lectures. In the past I would have said bookstores, but those are more of a novelty these days. There's also often a diversity that may not be found in other towns. They're more cosmopolitan in my experience.
I've never been to Stillwater, but in general college towns are more likely to have both creative and intellectual activities like science/art exhibits, performing arts, and lectures. In the past I would have said bookstores, but those are more of a novelty these days. There's also often a diversity that may not be found in other towns. They're more cosmopolitan in my experience.
I totally agree with you, when it comes to a lot of college towns. And that for example in Bloomington or Charlottesville, that easily having IU or U of Virginia allows for both cities to have more businesses, art studios, performing arts, etc things, than if that college had never built their main campus there. I'd also say I noticed this with Morgantown, WV and Athens, OH too, and to a lesser extent Oxford(with Miami University-Ohio) as it's a smaller town.
State College, PA and Ithaca, NY sort of remind me of each other. They both have similar vibes in their downtown area.
Looking on street view, I can see similarities as well. Ithaca is kind of unique in that it essentially has 2 Downtown like areas between Downtown/The Commons and Collegetown that are quite urban. Not bad for a city of maybe 30,000.
Downtown East Lansing seems similar to Downtown State College in terms of both abutting the universities in both of those cities.
Most college towns have nice downtown areas (Ithaca, Burlington, Bozeman, Ann Arbor).
Frederick MD
Lancaster PA
Asheville NC
Worcester MA
Frederick is like a colonial version of Greenville. Nice downtown park and 'canal'.
Asheville's downtown is decent but it doesn't have a downtown water feature or great downtown park. That applies to Athens Georgia as well.
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