<p>Ann Arbor, Michigan</p>
<p>i think philly, pittsburgh, boston, and nyc are all great college towns...</p>
<p>^^ er, they're not towns. They're cities. A college town is one that seems to be dominated by the university and tends to have all the goodies for college students. Big cities aren't really dominated by the university population.</p>
<p>^^^true, but they're still great cities w/ many top colleges...</p>
<p>^^but the focus is the town, not the quality of colleges. duke is a top school but it doesn't make durham a great college town. no wonder you put places like philly and pitts but left out chicago when chicago is way better than those two (as a city, not college town, and none of them is college town).</p>
<p>
[quote]
^^but the focus is the town, not the quality of colleges. duke is a top school but it doesn't make durham a great college town.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>Similarly, Stanford is also indisputably a superstar university, but that doesn't make Palo Alto a great college town. Far from it, in fact. Palo Alto is a boring and expensive upper-crust suburb. That's great if you're a millionaire venture capitalist, which is why so many of them are there. It's not so great if you're a starving student. That is, I guess, unless you happen to be a budding tech entrepreneur who is looking for venture capital money. </p>
<p>My brother went to Stanford, and even he admitted that Palo Alto is a rather boring place.</p>
<p>i guess i just meant that they're nice cities anyway; they just happen to have a good number of colleges (btw, chicago is good, but philly is superior).</p>
<p>Deep Springs, CA
;)</p>
<p>Oberlin, Ohio - the campus center and town center are the same beautiful open green Tappan Square, designed by Frederic Law Olmstead. There's a high forest canopy of maple trees above, and flowing perennials with wild colors at eye level. You walk through it many times each day on easy pathways for physically abled or disabled.</p>
<p>Cafes and bookstores run all along one side of the green. The other 3 sides of the square have buildings used by college and town, including the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin Inn, Conservatory of Music. When you walk around, you will encounter college students, a local family with kids and puppies, or someone coming home from work. There's an Asian-style gazebo for evening concerts, and student-painted rocks for political slogans or campus news.</p>
<p>College and town connect seamlessly in Tappan Square.</p>
<p>Ann Arbor, MI (may I suggest you try something other than fast food)
Austin, TX
Bloomington, IN
Fayetteville, AR ( drop-dead gorgeous)</p>
<p>Madison, WI-I have been there twice and both times was a victim of a crime
Touring the capitol building, as a teenager, a man exposed himself to me.
Touring the school with my son, someone keyed our car.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Similarly, Stanford is also indisputably a superstar university, but that doesn't make Palo Alto a great college town. Far from it, in fact. Palo Alto is a boring and expensive upper-crust suburb.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Except for east Palo Alto which is a slum.</p>
<p>Austin has to be number one.
I'd imagine Madison, Wi is nice...I love Wisconsinites.</p>
<p>It's so cool to see Austin and Madison listed in so many posts. Of course I'm prejudiced because my husband and I both graduated from UT, and my husband did his Ph.D. work at UW, so we've spent quite a bit of time in both towns. I STILL miss living in a college town, which I think is different than towns that have colleges in them - entirely different experiences.</p>
<p>Dekalb, IL.
Ghetto reputation with envious students. Great combination.</p>
<p>Charlottesville,Va.
State College,Pa.
Chapel Hill,NC
Lexington,Va.
Davidson,NC</p>
<p>Great towns for college students:</p>
<p>Iowa City, IA
Princeton, NJ
Claremont, CA
Cambridge, MA
Providence, RI</p>
<p>Claremont, CA? You know, it seemd that way to me when I visited, but I talked to the students there and even one of the recent grads in the admissions dept., and they all, without exception, talked about what a terrible college town Claremont is.</p>
<p>I can't opine as to the "best" college towns, but I'll throw in two that I have personal experience with and like: Chapel Hill, NC, where I worked for several years and Manhattan, KS, where my daughter presently attends college. As to the latter, don't roll your eyes unless you've been there. As a jaded northeasterner (metro NYC/CT area), I didn't expect much either, but upon arriving I found a great town with lots of appealing restaurant choices, 21 parks, a zoo, a mall, wonderful outdoor recreation (including a biking/hiking/jogging trail encircling the entire town, a very large lake and the Konza Prairie preserve), a surprising number of cultural offerings (including a terrific library, an art museum, a nationally known lecture series, and a major performing arts venue), excellent medical facilities, great sports facilities and some of the friendliest people I've ever met. One thing that I would add is that by definition a college "town" would seem to rule out larger cities like NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, etc. This is not a knock on those cities as I enjoy all of them, but my understanding of a college town is an environment that is essentially shaped by and dependent upon the presence of a major college or university and I don't think major cities would qualify in this regard.</p>
<p>^I second your definition. Places like Chicago, NYC, Boston...are nice to be in for college students but there's nothing "collegiate" about them. I just don't think it's fair to mention them in this thread. We all know they offer tons of amenities anyway.</p>
<p>What about Rochester, NY? It's obviously not in the same league as NYC but there are quite a few colleges in town, plus the largest employer in the city is actually University of Rochester</p>
<p>just my 2 cents</p>