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I think the west, particularly the west coast, is the most devoid region of "real college towns". Obviously the four best known institutions are not in college towns but in huge metro areas (Cal and Stanford in the Bay Area and both UCLA and USC in LA).
It would be hard for me to come up with a place that comes across as a real college town (admittedly that is just opinion on my part) west of Boulder. Eugene was a possibility, but it is a bit too large to be a college town.
I mention this to lead up to what I suspect is the most true college town in the Golden State: Davis. UCD is a large UC campus, one of the oldest, and it has a major effect on Davis. As noted above, neither Berkeley, Palo Alto, Westwood, or South Central come across as college towns in the traditional sense.
anyone familiar with both Davis and UCD who can address the town and university?
Isla Vista (University of California - Santa Barbara) may very well be the "Heaven" of college towns.
Cedar City is also a huge college town. Most of the city is run around that University. It also feels more traditional than BYU and Utah State because it has more of a party scene and eclectic restaurants/coffee shops.
Good catch. I've always kind of been intrigued with Cedar City.
North Dakota has two college towns (kinda), although one could fairly easily argue that neither of them are really college towns, especially Fargo:
Fargo is by far the largest city in ND (maybe 2-2.5x the size of Bismarck and probably like 3x the size of Grand Forks or a bit more), but is dominated much more by Microsoft and other smaller corporations than NDSU. NDSU has a real, but not that huge, part of the fabric of the city in my personal view. Fargo is growing at a pretty solid clip, but this is largely not due to NDSU nor to being a college town. Urban area was listed as 175k in 2010; chances are good it will be about 210-215k in the 2020 census. NDSU has about 13k students in total, so it is a bit of (but not that much of) a college town, with perhaps a bit more of a college town feel than Columbia, SC, when I lived there, but roughly the same degree.
In the case of Grand Forks, which is where UND is located, it is at a weird size relative to the university as well. UND has about 13-14k students total, but probably about 8-9.5k in Grand Forks. The Grand Forks urban area was about 61k in 2010, and will probably increase just slightly to maybe 66-67k if I had to guess. The university is an important player in the town, but is nowhere near dominant either. So, there is an interesting mix of light industry (lot of it in Grand Forks; some, but less so in Fargo), commercial properties which have taken a beating, and the university. Grand Forks is arguably the 4th most important city in ND at this time (after Fargo, Bismarck, and probably roughly on par with Minot).
Minot State University is in Minot, but is relatively small (4,000ish students), and Minot is largely not a college town.
North Dakota has two college towns (kinda), although one could fairly easily argue that neither of them are really college towns, especially Fargo:
Fargo is by far the largest city in ND (maybe 2-2.5x the size of Bismarck and probably like 3x the size of Grand Forks or a bit more), but is dominated much more by Microsoft and other smaller corporations than NDSU. NDSU has a real, but not that huge, part of the fabric of the city in my personal view. Fargo is growing at a pretty solid clip, but this is largely not due to NDSU nor to being a college town. Urban area was listed as 175k in 2010; chances are good it will be about 210-215k in the 2020 census. NDSU has about 13k students in total, so it is a bit of (but not that much of) a college town, with perhaps a bit more of a college town feel than Columbia, SC, when I lived there, but roughly the same degree.
In the case of Grand Forks, which is where UND is located, it is at a weird size relative to the university as well. UND has about 13-14k students total, but probably about 8-9.5k in Grand Forks. The Grand Forks urban area was about 61k in 2010, and will probably increase just slightly to maybe 66-67k if I had to guess. The university is an important player in the town, but is nowhere near dominant either. So, there is an interesting mix of light industry (lot of it in Grand Forks; some, but less so in Fargo), commercial properties which have taken a beating, and the university. Grand Forks is arguably the 4th most important city in ND at this time (after Fargo, Bismarck, and probably roughly on par with Minot).
Minot State University is in Minot, but is relatively small (4,000ish students), and Minot is largely not a college town.
Interesting. I enjoyed visiting both of those communities and see exactly what you are saying although both have a nice collegiate feel around their universities. Both are a little bit away from the main downtown districts. Neither had the typical campus retail districts that you see so many times.
I hit Fargo on the day before homecoming and enjoyed visiting with some of the people at the Union who were there. A big buzz about their dynastic football team. Went to Grand Forks the next week and there was a big buzz because their first Hockey Game was that Saturday. The Engelstad Center (Hockey) was something to behold. Dominates the campus like most on campus football stadiums do.
In many of our states, towns and cities outside the more or less major metro areas (areas we tend to classify as being "rural") often experience stagnation or decline.
The exception of being in a state of stagnation or decline would be the cities where the state's flagship university or universities are located.
These cities and their surrounding areas frequently are areas of growth. And their size and rank in population tends to go up. So does their skylines which often surprise people by their growing heights.
That kind of explains what I am looking for here. Away from the major metro areas...
1. where does the flagship college town (or towns) stand in relationship with other in state cities in its importance, relevance, minds of the people in state
2. Has the population ranking of the college town gone up, passing other cities?
The idea is, where do cities like the following belong in the list of cities in state:
Ann Arbor (344,791), East Lansing, MI (280,895)
Bloomington (137,974), West Lafayette, IN (172,780)
Columbia, MO (162,642)
Eugene (351,715), Corvallis, OR (85,579)
Lexington, KY (295,803)
Norman (255,755), Stillwater, OK (77,350)
Iowa City (130,882), Ames, IA (89,542)
Champaign/Urbana, IL (201,081)
Boulder (294,567), Ft. Collins, CO (299,630)
Tuscaloosa (194,656), Auburn, AL (140,247)
Fayettesville, AR (203,065)
Morganstown, WV (96,189)
we, of course, are not looking at places like Minneapolis, Seattle, Columbus, Austin, Salt Lake City, Honolulu (major cities)
Populations of the counties of the schools you have listed in red (these are from my 2015 Rand McNally road atlas, so they might not quite be up to date.)
All but three of them are in 100K+ metro areas, since some of them have other counties included as well. They're not really the small, rural areas. Of cities of the same size without colleges, I'm guessing you won't find massive decline in all of them either.
Populations of the counties of the schools you have listed in red (these are from my 2015 Rand McNally road atlas, so they might not quite be up to date.)
All but three of them are in 100K+ metro areas, since some of them have other counties included as well. They're not really the small, rural areas. Of cities of the same size without colleges, I'm guessing you won't find massive decline in all of them either.
East Lansing actually sits in 2 counties (Ingham and Clinton) and the number provided is only for Ingham county back in 2005 of 280,000 (It is 292,000 people now). However, Clinton county has a population is 79,000. The Lansing Metro area is 464,000 people.
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