Every time I drive through a small college town there’s something about it that makes me think “hmm, I could probably live here” and I don’t get that feeling when in other towns. Why is that?
I live across the street from a university. College towns are great, because they tend to be interesting, quirky, affordable, and upbeat.
Living next to the actual college sucks because of drunk, unruly students. Make sure you get a place on the far side of any bars or 24/7 restaurants from the campus or dorms.
more shit just happens in college towns. the youthfulness of its constituents require more diverse and populous entertainment districts.
the opposite is true of retirement communities.
i visit both types often, the difference is stark.
I bet you get the opposite answer if you asked a bunch of conservative people. They would probably be more drawn to a town like Mayberry.
College towns are typically much more liberal than their neighbors.
Not at all. I did when things like weekday drinking or random hookups appealed to me, but “college town” is a denigration for a reason
Is “college town” agreed to be a denigration? I’d take it as a fairly complex descriptor that could be good or bad depending on your situation. I loved living in college towns. I’m not desperate to move back to one, but I could easily see myself retiring in one, and if you want a small town with more cultural and sporting options and a better educated populace than its peers, then putting up with some rowdy undergrads and a quirky mix of available businesses could be a perfectly sensible tradeoff.
I’ve never known “college town” to be used as a denigration, though sometimes students from big cities who go to school in college towns are eager to return to what those big cities have to offer and perhaps don’t enjoy the college town vibe as much as others.
Absolutely. They bring in fresh ideas, a constant flow of people, and better jobs and talent. Having flagship universities is the lifeblood of towns and cities. Universities themselves are also walkable and make the city prettier too.
not to me.
I stayed in a college town for a summer in a state college prep type program, so I would have been at the perfect age to really enjoy the “college town” experience. it’s not really for me. and it doesn’t really have much of anything to do with the town itself. I liked the place that I stayed in. however driving over 30 minutes to go to a place as middling as a japanese restaurant was not so appealing. having services around is important to me, so unless it’s a giant college town like lexington, ky I’m not going to be interested.
ps. I’m not going to live in lexington because lexington sucks.
I’m not sure you and op share definitions of college town,
Driving a distance to get food, especially foreign food, is the anthesis of my (and presumably op’s) idea of a college town.
Yes
Totally, having a college insures a large enough customer base for social services (a decent clinic or hospital, a supermarket), restaurants, comedy clubs, and other cultural access.
Young people aren’t yet ground into dust by work and tend to engage more in the community - you’ll find better book clubs, RPG games, board game groups, sewing clubs, and everything else awesome.
College towns usually mean that the town doesn’t have any identity outside of the college. In some ways that’s nice, because you have a big community right there. But in other ways the town won’t really do anything without the college.
Sorry it’s been a really long week and the brain worms are getting to my language center…
No. I grew up in one. I had to deal with drunk college kids. One even rear ended me in a parking lot. So much weed smoke.
Never again. Now, I specifically avoid college towns.
Its all the misguided optimism of youth
IMO a relatively big college, especially a public college, makes even isolated towns feel kind of urban which could be what you’re picking up on. This is as opposed to a suburb or a rural town where you’re expected to look and act roughly the same as everyone else. Having a large transitional population (of young people) changes their speed.
Tourist towns have a similar vibe (though not the urban part). I live in a ski town, and without the influx of tourists, I suspect this place would be rather sleepy.
As somebody who’s been stuck in the summer town I was born in for the last 30+ years, sleepy doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s downright suffocating.
I’ve made long-winded posts about this before on Reddit (and every time had people say the exact place I’m talking about without ever mentioning anything specific or talk about another summer town as they all seem to have the same issues), but the brief of it is that tourist towns exist purely for the tourists. When 60+% of the population is only around for 2 weeks to 3 months of the year, there just simply isn’t anything to do the rest of the year. You’d be forgiven if you mistook it for a retirement home.
When I was in high school, me and my Millennial classmates used to have a couple of sayings: that you had to have some kind of addiction to live here year-round, and that the kids did heroin because seeing your parents’ friends day-drinking at the bars was too awkward.
College towns are great in my opinion. Especially many of the small(ish) towns where large public land grant universities are located. (Penn State/Happy Valley, University of Florida/Gainesville, heck most every SEC school for that matter, Cornell University/Ithaca, etc.) The towns often grow around the universities. The schools bring in events that the towns otherwise would never have (concerts/plays/art exhibits/speakers/etc) not to mention college sports. You have some of the best and brightest, including students, faculty, researchers, doctors, in a confined local area. Education and diversity are valued. The universities are often the biggest employer in town, pay well, and attract lots of companies and people who benefit from the symbiotic relationship. You have people from all different walks of life. And usually the cost of living is reasonable. All in all, usually pretty good places to live.
Second this. I went to school in an otherwise fairly rural area. For me, it was the perfect mix. Everything was walkable/bikeable if you wanted, but it was also less than a 20 minute drive to get away from all of it. Tons of amazing parks in the area, hiking trails, you name it. The people were a mixed bag, but that’s anywhere.
Going camping for the weekend was just as easy as going clubbing. I miss it so much, and fully plan to move to the area permanently if I’m ever able to.
They’re usually more walkable, so that’s a plus.
An annual influx of young minds does tend to influence what business can thrive.
Mmm… yes and no.
College towns are more lively and interesting, and notably more likely to have cultural things that similar-sized other towns don’t have - bookstores, galleries, music venues, museums and the like. That’s appealing.
But there’s a downside to living in a college town as a non-student. The town is mostly geared toward serving the students, and that can get tiresome, since it’s near certain that some significant number of the students are going to be… well… assholes.
Someone elsewhere in the thread mentioned tourist towns and their similar appeal, and I’d agree. But with the exact same proviso.
cultural things that similar-sized other towns don’t have
Exactly. Similar sized. College towns punch above their weight when compared to their population peers, but that only goes so far. I have no doubt Pullman, Washington is cooler and more cosmopolitan than Walla Walla (despite the presence of two very small colleges), but it’s no Seattle, for good or for ill, depending on your perspective.
