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Yeah, Indiana's super nice. I would say the success of WCU has more to do with it being in the Philly Metro than West Chester being a better town than Indiana.
Both universities historically were the #1 and #2 in endowment and enrollment possibly due to the quality of the towns, if we assume the education is equal across the system. As you and MSEL alluded to, the merged universities are both now bigger than Indiana but I suspect Indiana will still be considered the 2 in the minds of most.
The whole system is in trouble though, I suspect most kids with options would prefer to spend 4 years in some of the better towns of the Northeast; of which there are no shortage of options.
I personally chose Temple over Kutztown; just couldn't see myself in that small town.
But Massachusetts and the rest of New England practically has high ranked liberal arts colleges in many town....Williamstown, Wellesley, Middletown, Amherst, Brunswick, Middlebury and Northampton up to Ithaca and Poughkeepsie...granted the type of student that goes to the state system wouldn't be the type to go to a Williams or Smith.
The Pittsburgh and Penn State systems arguably have just as much an attractive option of campus locations as the state system; with the incentive of a transfer to the main uni. They're in small PA towns like Altoona, Bradford and Johnstown and many of the towns we have been talking about.
Doesn't hold a candle to West Chester, of course, but compared to "college towns" like Edinboro or Slippery Rock, it's clearly superior.
Is Indiana more vibrant than Altoona? Looking up Altoona it seems to be larger, and has a state college as well being connected to Amtrak. I think Altoona gets that title after Pittsburgh and Erie; the most substantial cities of Western Pa. It peaked in 1930...so again, these were the places that lost out the most after the rise of oil, the car, and western residential and economic (resource) expansion as well as the immigration freeze of the 20s.
City pop 43k, metro pop 122...so just under my imposed criteria, but up there.
Last edited by PHILLYUPTOWN; 05-06-2023 at 06:49 PM..
Much smaller, but I'd say that after New Haven, Middletown is the best Connecticut city when it comes to walkability and vibrancy. It's 100% because it's a college town due to Wesleyan, but it's the closest thing Connecticut has to somewhere like Northampton MA, if not as charming.
Middletown is great but there are other great, very walkable vibrant towns in Connecticut as well. West Hartford has a great collection of restaurants and stores. Probably the best in the state. Greenwich is also great. It has a branch of Saks Fifth Avenue at its center. Fairfield also has a wonderful downtown with great stores and restaurants and a wonderful newly restored theater at its heart. Jay
I personally chose Temple over Kutztown; just couldn't see myself in that small town.
But Massachusetts and the rest of New England practically has high ranked liberal arts colleges in many town....Williamstown, Wellesley, Middletown, Amherst, Brunswick, Middlebury and Northampton up to Ithaca and Poughkeepsie...granted the type of student that goes to the state system wouldn't be the type to go to a Williams or Smith.
The Pittsburgh and Penn State systems arguably have just as much an attractive option of campus locations as the state system; with the incentive of a transfer to the main uni. They're in small PA towns like Altoona, Bradford and Johnstown and many of the towns we have been talking about.
Just curious, but was it a matter of Kutztown just being small or was it also the more rural setting of the town as well?
I personally chose Temple over Kutztown; just couldn't see myself in that small town.
But Massachusetts and the rest of New England practically has high ranked liberal arts colleges in many town....Williamstown, Wellesley, Middletown, Amherst, Brunswick, Middlebury and Northampton up to Ithaca and Poughkeepsie...granted the type of student that goes to the state system wouldn't be the type to go to a Williams or Smith.
The Pittsburgh and Penn State systems arguably have just as much an attractive option of campus locations as the state system; with the incentive of a transfer to the main uni. They're in small PA towns like Altoona, Bradford and Johnstown and many of the towns we have been talking about.
I'd actually argue that in general the Northeast has a pretty awful collection of college towns, at least if you look at the flagship public universities.
Great: Burlington (VT), State College (PA) - Both of these are great mini-cities which we've discussed throughout this thread.
Good: Amherst (MA), Newark (DE) - Amherst is a good college town, but on a smaller scale than the above two, and less urban. Newark has a few blocks of vitality along Main Street, but the campus is mostly surrounded by sprawl.
Meh: New Brunswick (NJ), Durham (NH). New Brunswick is kinda a gritty, semi-ghetto city considering a major university is there, though both Downtown and a strip along Easton Ave have some "college vibes." Durham is a pretty mediocre small college town given the size of university.
Bad: Storrs (CT), College Park (MD), Stony Brook (NY), Buffalo (NY), Binghamton (NY), Albany (NY), Kingston (RI), Orono (ME): All of these are either cases where there either basically no "college town" at all, with the college either in the middle of nowhere or smack dab in the suburbs. I do give Storrs and College Park some additional credit though since they're trying to fill in the area with some new urbanist stuff.
Of course, there are some decent college towns centered around private universities: Northampton, Ithaca, Middletown, Hanover, etc. However, it's less than you'd think. Part of this is because the whole non-metropolitan private college system was set up with the idea that you'd send your kids up to somewhere in the middle of nowhere they'd get into limited trouble. Prestigious schools like Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, Villanova, Haverford, etc. don't really have a classic "college town" vibe.
Is Indiana more vibrant than Altoona? Looking up Altoona it seems to be larger, and has a state college as well being connected to Amtrak. I think Altoona gets that title after Pittsburgh and Erie; the most substantial cities of Western Pa. It peaked in 1930...so again, these were the places that lost out the most after the rise of oil, the car, and western residential and economic (resource) expansion as well as the immigration freeze of the 20s.
City pop 43k, metro pop 122...so just under my imposed criteria, but up there.
Altoona has a fairly sizable downtown, but one which has been marred by parking lots. I'd say if you could compact down everything that's left of interest in the city into the downtown, there's more, but the overall peak intensity of the core blocks of Indiana has it beat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JayCT
Middletown is great but there are other great, very walkable vibrant towns in Connecticut as well. West Hartford has a great collection of restaurants and stores. Probably the best in the state. Greenwich is also great. It has a branch of Saks Fifth Avenue at its center. Fairfield also has a wonderful downtown with great stores and restaurants and a wonderful newly restored theater at its heart. Jay
I was trying to focus on cities, not towns, though I know the distinction doesn't mean much in Connecticut.
West Hartford is cute, but it doesn't seem like a genuine downtown business district to me - just somewhere people from the surrounding suburbs drive to, park, and then walk around.
Downtown Greenwich is quite nice though - you can tell it was an old railroad suburb. Six blocks with a pretty continuous street wall from the Post Road to the Amtrak station, plus some urbanity on the side roads as well.
I'd actually argue that in general the Northeast has a pretty awful collection of college towns, at least if you look at the flagship public universities.
Great: Burlington (VT), State College (PA) - Both of these are great mini-cities which we've discussed throughout this thread.
Good: Amherst (MA), Newark (DE) - Amherst is a good college town, but on a smaller scale than the above two, and less urban. Newark has a few blocks of vitality along Main Street, but the campus is mostly surrounded by sprawl.
Meh: New Brunswick (NJ), Durham (NH). New Brunswick is kinda a gritty, semi-ghetto city considering a major university is there, though both Downtown and a strip along Easton Ave have some "college vibes." Durham is a pretty mediocre small college town given the size of university.
Bad: Storrs (CT), College Park (MD), Stony Brook (NY), Buffalo (NY), Binghamton (NY), Albany (NY), Kingston (RI), Orono (ME): All of these are either cases where there either basically no "college town" at all, with the college either in the middle of nowhere or smack dab in the suburbs. I do give Storrs and College Park some additional credit though since they're trying to fill in the area with some new urbanist stuff.
Of course, there are some decent college towns centered around private universities: Northampton, Ithaca, Middletown, Hanover, etc. However, it's less than you'd think. Part of this is because the whole non-metropolitan private college system was set up with the idea that you'd send your kids up to somewhere in the middle of nowhere they'd get into limited trouble. Prestigious schools like Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, Villanova, Haverford, etc. don't really have a classic "college town" vibe.
In the case of NY, the better examples of college towns or places with a college town section in terms of state schools are the smaller state colleges in places like Cortland, Brockport, Oswego, Fredonia, Plattsburgh, New Paltz, Potsdam, Canton, Geneseo, Morrisville and even the area around Buffalo State(just north of Elmwood Village). In the case of Oneonta, Potsdam and Canton, you also have a small private colleges too.
To be fair to University at Buffalo, it does have a campus on the edge of the city with a Metro Rail stop and is right by Main Street in the city.
Just curious, but was it a matter of Kutztown just being small or was it also the more rural setting of the town as well?
I grew up in the burbs so I was looking for the URBAN experience at that stage in my life. The town was nice enough, though quite small. It was the rural setting; at that stage in my life I didn't appreciate its qualities. Rural Berks County is beautiful though.
Also, I got a town vs gown vibe from the place, and there was no connections between the town and the university, I'm not even sure there is a college bar on the main strip. Fwiw, I didn't perceive any race issues though and that kept me away from Penn State (they had race issues when I was going, i.e. Nate Parker). Kutztown is an old German-American town (91% German), that whole region is, and not just Amish...which was foreign to me.
Its funny, my neighbor was the opposite, and chose Elizabethtown (another small town, but larger than Kutztown) and loved that setting; and E-town has a much better relationship with its town.
I'd actually argue that in general the Northeast has a pretty awful collection of college towns, at least if you look at the flagship public universities.
Great: Burlington (VT), State College (PA) - Both of these are great mini-cities which we've discussed throughout this thread.
Good: Amherst (MA), Newark (DE) - Amherst is a good college town, but on a smaller scale than the above two, and less urban. Newark has a few blocks of vitality along Main Street, but the campus is mostly surrounded by sprawl.
Meh: New Brunswick (NJ), Durham (NH). New Brunswick is kinda a gritty, semi-ghetto city considering a major university is there, though both Downtown and a strip along Easton Ave have some "college vibes." Durham is a pretty mediocre small college town given the size of university.
Bad: Storrs (CT), College Park (MD), Stony Brook (NY), Buffalo (NY), Binghamton (NY), Albany (NY), Kingston (RI), Orono (ME): All of these are either cases where there either basically no "college town" at all, with the college either in the middle of nowhere or smack dab in the suburbs. I do give Storrs and College Park some additional credit though since they're trying to fill in the area with some new urbanist stuff.
Of course, there are some decent college towns centered around private universities: Northampton, Ithaca, Middletown, Hanover, etc. However, it's less than you'd think. Part of this is because the whole non-metropolitan private college system was set up with the idea that you'd send your kids up to somewhere in the middle of nowhere they'd get into limited trouble. Prestigious schools like Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, Villanova, Haverford, etc. don't really have a classic "college town" vibe.
If you intended to argue that the South/MidWest has better Public University systems no one can argue with that.
The South and Midwest have the large State Unis, often two, some anchored to a "larger" small town in the middle of nowhere, where a large school population dominates and are the center of life in that town, but plenty are in the state capital or larger city, you could hardly qualify as a college town; it's almost 50-50.
Minneapolis, Columbus, Columbia, Baton Rouge, Tallahassee, Austin, Raleigh, College Station vs Athens, Auburn, Starkville, Gainesville, Ann Arbor and so on.
In the Northeast, like you say, its all about the private Liberal Arts colleges, which are anchored to beautiful smaller towns, some in the middle of nowhere, many of which can function independent of the university since they're not fully dependent on them.
I personally think there are more small liberal arts colleges anchored to decent towns than there are similar in the South and Mid-West because like you say, history and culture of the Northeast.
In the NE since the schools are smaller, the towns are usually smaller than your Lansing or Tuscaloosa.
As far as the quality of the town, that's entirely up to preference.
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