<p>So, New Haven vs. Cambridge, from someone who has lived in both places:</p>
<p>Both are great college towns (obviously - Yale and Harvard are easily the two most selective universities in the country and their locations are a major factor in this), but New Haven is a better college town than Cambridge. The main reason is that the area of Cambridge around Harvard empties out on weekends, and the Harvard campus is dead, because it isn't the center of student life for the area. Students go elsewhere to party, and also the fact that Harvard's campus is much more spread-out than Yale's is a problem. Yale is the complete opposite. Yale's campus is very busy all weekend, partly because there is probably more to do in terms of theater and shows and the campus is more compact, but also because the area of New Haven around Yale is the center of student life for all the colleges in the region. If you go around parts of downtown New Haven (where Yale is) on weekends, you'll see there are literally hundreds of stores, restaurants, sushi bars, a brand-new multiplex cinema, nightclubs etc. that students go to, whereas Harvard's area is sort of dead by comparison (to be fair, there are a few good pubs and a couple of good pizza shops around Harvard, and a good movie theater, but it isn't the same).</p>
<p>Of course, Boston obviously has more colleges, since it's a larger city, but New Haven has tens of thousands of college students, too. For example, Harvard is the largest university in Cambridge by enrollment, but Yale is not the largest university in New Haven by enrollment - Southern Connecticut State is.</p>
<p>In terms of safety, Harvard is more dangerous:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stalcommpol.org/data.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.stalcommpol.org/data.html</a></p>
<p>But both campuses are in large urban areas, and obviously students should take some precautions when venturing away from either campus, or late at night on either campus. There are occasionally crimes against students at both Harvard and Yale, but not much more than at a lot of other schools, even rural or suburban schools. The crime seems exaggerated because the universities are closely-knit, people know each other, and there is a constant media spotlight which means you hear about crimes, even small ones (in places like New York City, there can be crimes going on right across the street but chances are you will never hear about them). So, yes, the New Haven and Cambridge/Boston areas both have bad parts of town, obviously, but both also have extremely wealthy areas. Boston has very expensive housing because it is a large city, and a lot of old-money wealth. Connecticut is the richest state in the country by far, and has the highest percentage of Ph.D.'s per capita in the country, and much of that spills over into New Haven, which you'd see if you look at some of the restaurant menus in the downtown area. Be careful comparing any statistics about cities (including even things like population numbers), especially these ones -- the city boundaries of New Haven and Boston are drawn in a very outdated way making it impossible to really compare them to other cities. If you drew the city boundaries of New Haven like San Antonio draws its boundaries, for example, New Haven would be the 8th largest city in the country with a population approaching two million people. </p>
<p>One thing visitors sometimes notice to either place is the homeless population. The reason that homeless people hang out near Yale and Harvard is because they are the safest places, and the only places they are welcome, in the region. Yale and Harvard have lots of pedestrians relative to the areas that surround them (which are much more suburban), which makes it much safer for people, including the homeless, to hang out by the campus. Also, it's the only place panhandlers can make money. Studies have been done that show only about 25% of the homeless people in college towns (areas like the ones around Harvard and Yale) are actually from that area - most have come there because it is where they feel welcome.</p>
<p>In terms of accessibility to the countryside, quieter areas, beaches, hiking trails, etc., New Haven wins hands-down over Cambridge because it is a smaller city. The "edge" of urban sprawl in New Haven is really close to the center, meaning you can ride a bike or even walk out to areas with dozens of miles of hiking trails, whereas in Boston you need to drive at least an hour out to get into nicer rural areas. Of course, Cambridge has a larger city within immediate access (Boston), but I think Yale more than makes up for that by being so close to New York City, which puts Boston to shame. The real comparison is New York versus Boston, since both Yale and Harvard are within those larger metropolitan regions (although for college students both schools benefit by not being in the center of the megacities - being in the center of a huge city like that completely kills all campus life whatsoever). Anyways, in this sense, Yale easily wins because New York City is hundreds of times more interesting, diverse, exciting and educational than Boston will ever be.</p>
<p>In terms of student interaction with the city, both places offer a lot of opportunities for getting involved but Yale wins here, too. The reason is that it's a smaller city, so much more welcoming to student involvement, and also because the Yale campus is literally across from New Haven's City Hall and central business district, on the 400-year old town green. I can't think of any other universities that have such a close, accessible relationship with such a large host city like Yale does. Harvard is part of a much larger city and it's much more difficult to get directly involved with something politically important (and educational)!</p>