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I can't think of much that is college town about South Bend. The university (on the outskirts) doesn't relate to the city very much. Notre Dame isn't in South Bend; it is in Notre Dame (like Stanford is not in Palo Alto but in Stanford).
and while both Notre Dame and Stanford are their own municipalities, Stanford is far more aligned with PA than ND is with SB.
Given the smaller size of private colleges, you'll have to think of much smaller towns and smaller colleges. Hanover, Princeton, and Palo Alto* at the high end; in the middle, lots of liberal arts colleges situated in tiny college towns, from Williamstown to Oberlin to Northfield to Claremont.*
Definitely. The biggest private schools are much smaller than the biggest public schools and the top few are almost all in big cities. The lone exception being BYU in Provo. I don't know Provo enough to say how much it's influenced by BYU, but I don't know that I hear it talked about much as a "college town."
Hanover and Princeton are the two that jump out to me, and Hanover might jump out a little more as Princeton is a big town sandwiched between NYC/Philly so you have a lot of suburban development/activity to dilute the collegiate feel a bit, but not too much. Middlebury, VT is another one that stands out to me on a small scale, but at this point there have to be a bunch across the country that are similar.
• towns strongly influenced by the university in their midst
• towns whose institutions...likes stores, restaurants, entertainment reflect the university's location
• towns where the university is a large part of their own identity
• towns where the university is big enough to generate the above
• no big cities (Minneapolis is not a college town; either is Seattle)
Most of these towns, I would argue, are towns where state universities are located, where large enrollments and a true connection to their state, gives them so much of that college town feel.
The list is endless and this one is hardly conclusive, but State College, Charlottesville, Chapel Hill, Athens, Gainesville, Tuscaloosa, Oxford, Ann Arbor, Bloomington, Madison, Iowa City, Columbia, Lawrence, Boulder, Berkeley, Eugene,etc.
But for private universities, I think maybe only one (at least in my mind) jumps out at you: Princeton. Cambridge, for example, is well known, but doesn't come across collegiate in the same way (to me)
Are there college towns of private universities that share the characteristics of college towns of public universities I listed above?
I think Searcy, Arkansas is very much influenced by Harding University or so Ive heard so maybe Searcy would count.Harding is a very big part of the community and Searcy's identity.
UL Lafayette in Louisiana is a huge part of the feel of the city. its very Cajun and beloved here as a sense of pride. Louisiana ensures that only LSU gets the glory but UL holds its own
UL Lafayette in Louisiana is a huge part of the feel of the city. its very Cajun and beloved here as a sense of pride. Louisiana ensures that only LSU gets the glory but UL holds its own
I associate major athletics with the big public's in college towns.
That rules out most private colleges except Duke, Stanford, etc
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