Definition of a College Town (for sale, apartments, houses)

[ghdana]

Growing up in the area I never really thought of Ithaca as a college town, more of a hipster haven. Cities like Champaign, Ann Arbor, and Tempe are more what I think of.

[Sharks With Lasers]

Originally Posted by nep321

College towns are everywhere. And every town is a college town to varying degrees. BUT, when I think of quintessential college towns, I think of:

Boston, MA
Amherst, MA
Mansfield, CT (aka Storrs)
New Haven, CT
Ithaca, NY
Rutland, VT
State College, PA
Princeton, NJ
Columbus, OH
Ann Arbor, MI
Traverse City, MI
Marquette, MI
Madison, WI
Lafayette, IN
Lexington, KY
Charlottesville, VA
Chapel Hill, NC
Hattiesburg, MS
Gainesville, FL
Tallahassee, FL
Austin, TX
Ames, IA
Fort Collins, CO
Tucson, AZ
Bend, OR

I could be missing many, many more. But these are the ones that come to my mind.

Currently, I live in a college town, technically (Columbus, OH), but it's a very dynamic city with much more going on than just college. There's a lot of corporations here and economic activity in general.

Traverse City is a great place, but it doesn't have a four year college or university anywhere near it.

Marquette has Northern Michigan, but I'm not sure how big of a player that is in the area.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by ghdana

Growing up in the area I never really thought of Ithaca as a college town, more of a hipster haven. Cities like Champaign, Ann Arbor, and Tempe are more what I think of.

Really? I'd say that it is the most quintessential college town in NY State. Between Cornell, Ithaca College and even Tompkins-Cortland CC in nearby Dryden, there are quite a few college students in the city/area.

Ann Arbor is similar, but it is bigger.

[Prickly Pear]

Originally Posted by ghdana

Growing up in the area I never really thought of Ithaca as a college town, more of a hipster haven. Cities like Champaign, Ann Arbor, and Tempe are more what I think of.

Tempe is a suburb of Phoenix. If you are in Tempe you physically cannot tell when Tempe ends and the other suburbs begin for the most part unless you familiarized yourself with the borders. ASU's student population is very spread out because they have more than one campus. There's an ASU campus that's on the other side of the valley out west in Glendale. There's also ASU's Downtown campus in Phoenix and they have a campus out in Gilbert (sort of far east in the metro) on top of the Tempe campus. So it's not like all of the ASU students live/work/play in Tempe, in fact I would say most of them live outside of Tempe and in the other suburbs due to the fact Tempe is smaller in size. Also out of all the ASU students I know, most of them go to parties in Old Town Scottsdale instead of staying in Tempe. So in other words, ASU's college scene is spread out across the entire metro, though somewhat centralized still.

So at this point it is asking if the Phoenix metro itself is a "college metro" since you can find ASU students everywhere in the valley. Considering Phoenix is home to the largest university in the nation (University of Phoenix), and another extremely large university known as Grand Canyon University, not too mention there is a large community college system in Phoenix as well. Despite all this, I don't think the colleges "dominates" Phoenix in any way even though the four of them have high enrollments. I would say most people associate the Phoenix metro with something other than U of Phoenix or ASU at first.

[Prickly Pear]

Originally Posted by eddie gein

I consider places like Tucson, Austin, Columbus, as "University cities" as opposed to "college towns". A place like Tempe would be a "suburban university city."

I think a true college "town" would need to be less than about 250K population.

However, Tucson truly was once a college town that outgrew itself. However, one thing I noticed living there is that there were a lot of people who were transplants from other places that were fans of say Big 10 teams that would still come out and support the Wildcats as sort of a surrogate team.

Probably the biggest supporter of Arizona athletics is Jim Click. But he is an Oklahoma State graduate and actually played for the Cowboys in the 1960s.

My hypothesis for the strong Wildcat support is the fact that Tucson is home to no professional sports, combined with an amazing basketball program and being in the Pac 12 conference, creates a big fanbase here. And the fact that Tucson is kind of boring in some ways, so seeing the games gives Tucson locals something to do and support. There isn't much going on here most of the time since most events go to Phoenix.

[Natural510]

I'd say a town where the local college/university dominates the town and its culture. Columbus and Madison are both state capitals and both stand on their own outside their universities, but OSU & UW are so prominent in the city I'd still say they qualify.

[edsg25]

the most important element in making a town a "college town", IMHO, is the presence of a flagship state university. think of the ultimate college towns……Ann Arbor, Madison, Charlottesville, Boulder, Chapel Hill, Athens, Iowa City, Bloomington, Austin, etc………and each and every one of them have that flagship state university.

[btownboss4]

Originally Posted by edsg25

the most important element in making a town a "college town", IMHO, is the presence of a flagship state university. think of the ultimate college towns……Ann Arbor, Madison, Charlottesville, Boulder, Chapel Hill, Athens, Iowa City, Bloomington, Austin, etc………and each and every one of them have that flagship state university.

I don't think that is necessarily true. Princeton, NJ, Hanover, NH, Northampton, Ma, Ithaca, NY are all college towns with private Colleges. Those are popular in the Northeast more than anywhere else just because of the higher concentration of private schools in the less dominating presence of public universities.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by btownboss4

I don't think that is necessarily true. Princeton, NJ, Hanover, NH, Northampton, Ma, Ithaca, NY are all college towns with private Colleges. Those are popular in the Northeast more than anywhere else just because of the higher concentration of private schools in the less dominating presence of public universities.

Yes the northeast is different buthere in themidwest we have evanston which is somewhat like the towns you listed above (despite being in the heart of a major metro area). But I don't find evanston in the category of ann arbor, madison, iowa city, or bloomington.

[bartonizer]

Originally Posted by nep321

College towns are everywhere. And every town is a college town to varying degrees. BUT, when I think of quintessential college towns, I think of:

Boston, MA
Amherst, MA
Mansfield, CT (aka Storrs)
New Haven, CT
Ithaca, NY
Rutland, VT
State College, PA
Princeton, NJ
Columbus, OH
Ann Arbor, MI
Traverse City, MI
Marquette, MI
Madison, WI
Lafayette, IN
Lexington, KY
Charlottesville, VA
Chapel Hill, NC
Hattiesburg, MS
Gainesville, FL
Tallahassee, FL
Austin, TX
Ames, IA
Fort Collins, CO
Tucson, AZ
Bend, OR

I could be missing many, many more. But these are the ones that come to my mind.

Currently, I live in a college town, technically (Columbus, OH), but it's a very dynamic city with much more going on than just college. There's a lot of corporations here and economic activity in general.

Interesting list, although obviously not comprehensive- that would take a while! And you're right, they vary. Sometimes a relatively little private liberal arts college can have huge influence a small city and make it very much a "college town", other times a decent-sized university barely seems connected to a town. But since you mentioned your list as "quintessential" - why does Bend, OR make your list? Did you mean to say Eugene or Corvallis?