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Even though the college town itself is pretty vibrant, it gets old by itself quickly.
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<p>Really? I don't see how anyone could ever get bored in Berkeley. Not to undermine the value of SF, which is great, but Berkeley itself seems to have enough to keep anyone interested, and for a long time. This is just my opinion, though.</p>
<p>Yea, I guess it depends on the person. I came from Hong Kong, a city with near 7 million people so that's probably why a college town alone isn't enough for me.</p>
<p>Whether you call it a college town or a city with a load of colleges, Philadelphia is definitely a "place" that has been heavily influenced by the student presence and now caters in many ways to the student population. Keep in mind that in center city alone, you have U of Penn, Drexel, University of the Sciences, University of the Arts, Temple's Center City Campus, several Jr. colleges and several business schools, Moore College of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Academy of Vocal Arts and I'm probably missing several. Then you have Temple's main campus a 10 minute subway ride away and a load of colleges in the suburbs of Phila, such as Swarthmore, Villanova, St Joes, Bryn Mawr, La Salle, Haverford and Penn State, all a 20 minute local train ride away. I know there's more, I just can't recall them right now.</p>
<p>Walk the streets of center city or the University City neighborhood on any given evening and on weekends and you will find the streets teeming with undergrads and grad students. There are tons of cafes, reasonably priced restaurants, clubs, music venues, small local theaters etc in addition to the larger more established venues and establishments. Walk into the stores and restaurants, and all you see are students, students and more students either working or patronizing the establishments. While Philadelphia is also a mature city with a large mature population (i.e. out in the business and commercial world), the whole atmosphere of center city has a very youthful aspect to it now. And unlike a larger city like New York, it is small enough and easy enough to navigate to feel like a "college town" with all the amenities of a larger city.</p>
<p>I was staying in Center City in September and I didn't see "tons" of undergrad or grad students. Maybe I was just clueless.</p>
<p>Depends on where you were, time of day, day of week etc. East of Broad St, between Walnut and Pine and 11th and Broad, 15th -16th Sts between Walnut and Pine, South St between Front and 8th, University City. Believe me, the entire social scene and activities in center city phila have taken on a decidedly youthful aspect.</p>
<p>I think the fact that the idea of a "college town" does not mean the same thing for all people sums up this discussion nicely. </p>
<p>For example, I don't consider Philadelphia or New York a "college town". There are plenty of great colleges in both cities, but they aren't really dominated by students, faculty, and university employees. </p>
<p>On the contrary, as a Chicago resident I do consider Evanston a college town, despite my opinion of it being like one of Chicago's many satellite neighborhoods. Why? If you take a nice walk down Davis or Foster, you'll notice that a clean 70% or greater of the apartments you pass are off-campus student housing. I never really liked the town itself much, but the abundance of [former] White Hen Pantries, coffee shops, and pizza joints clearly spell it out it my mind. Do you see how subjective my assessment is? </p>
<p>Personally, my favorite college town choices are these, and if you come of with a reason to counter them, I don't care because I have *** my own reasons ***</p>
<p>Collegetown, Ithaca, NY (nice town, bad weather)
University Park, PA
Princeton, NJ (home of my alma mater)
Oakland, Pittsburgh, PA
Burlington, VT
Santa Cruz, CA</p>
<p>Other college towns I didn't mention:
Missoula, MT (because the only thing there is Univ. of Montana)
Madison, WI
Charlottesville, VA
Williamsburg, VA
New Haven, CT
Hanover, NH (probably could be voted "tiniest" college town)</p>