As an alumnus of UW-Madison, it is obviously the finest college town in the Midwest, the United States, and the world.
And I do think it’s still a college town, at least from the perspective of a current student. The Capitol is barely walking distance (at least in the winter) and basically where you go when your parents are in town for a nicer dinner. And all of the suburban growth is really out of sight, out of mind for most students. The western end of State Street, and obviously campus itself, are so utterly dominated by the university and students that you’d never mistake it for anything but a college town. It’s a long way from being a Columbus or Austin which, while they are home to huge universities and impacted culturally by that, are really far too big to be “college towns”.
Ann Arbor and Iowa City are probably the next tier in the Midwest. Champaign never impressed me and West Lafayette flat out sucks.
Beyond the Midwest, I’ve always had a positive impression of Charlottesville, Chapel Hill and Athens. Does anyone know those and Madison well enough to compare them?
__________________
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." - Isaac Asimov
|