Flagship state university towns

[Docere]

Let's hear about them.

A report on the growth of Madison, arguably the best of the "type."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbqiL3AMy-A

Champaign-Urbana IL (via Steely Dan).

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1103...7i16384!8i8192

[Steely Dan]

Madison is now almost getting too big to really best exemplify the textbook university town.

Ann Arbor is probably the best of the lot in the big 10, though Iowa City and Bloomington, IN are pretty nice too.

Champaign is pretty good too, and getting better.

West Lafayette didn't impress me a ton, probably the most lackluster of the big 20 college towns I've been to

Minneapolis and Columbus are great cities, but they're too big, and Evanston is great too, but again as a suburb of a GIANT city, it's not quite the same thing either.

Never been to East Lansing nor any of the newer big 10 towns east of Ohio.

[pj3000]

If you're looking for big state school collegiate Shangri-La, I think State College, Pennsylvania (aka Happy Valley) would have to be high on your list.

It's own little world in the middle of the lush ridges and valleys of central PA.

[202_Cyclist]

It is a smaller town but Burlington, VT, is very nice and walkable.


Image courtesy of Onasill ~ Bill - Be Safe & Happy --Flickr.

[Crawford]

Speaking only about the campus & town, no commentary on academics. And excluding major urban centers and university towns enveloped by major metros. So no Ohio State or UCLA or Texas.

IMO, Madison is about as good as it gets.

AA is good, but somewhat overhyped. Town is great, campus is meh. East Lansing is pretty blah. Campus mostly feels like a big suburb. Bloomington is very charming. West Lafayette sucks. Charlottesville is very nice. Burlington is even better.

[pj3000]

I would also say Charlottesville, Burlington, Chapel Hill, Athens, ...

I liked Ann Arbor a lot, just felt bigger than a classic "college town" should be. More of a city in its own right... like Madison.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Madison is now almost getting too big to really best exemplify the textbook university town.

Madison is also a state capital so IDK if we could ever say it was a textbook college town.

Evanston is great too, but again as a suburb of a GIANT city, it's not quite the same thing either.

Well so is Ann Arbor. Although I guess not to the same extent Evanston is.

[202_Cyclist]

Davis and San Luis Obispo are also nice towns.

[SIGSEGV]

Boulder is my favorite of flagship state university towns (not counting places like Seattle or Honolulu). Burlington is great too Connecticut must be the worst.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

Davis and San Luis Obispo are also nice towns.

Davis and SLO are both pretty cool, although Davis is reallllly NIMBY. Berkeley isn't too bad, but that could really upset some folks .
CA's flagship school would be Cal (maybe?), but I'm not sure who the "state" would be. I'll pick CSUS because that's where I went and it's the capital city.

[llamaorama]

And then there's College Station. I lived there when I was in high school and in my early 20s. I did not attend Texas A&M, I went to a local community college and then went to a university elsewhere. My Dad worked for A&M system.

It's the absolute antithesis or opposite of somewhere like Boulder or Ann Arbor.

College Station is named as such because it started out as a train station next to a college. Until the late 1950s it was literally just a gas station at a crossroads and small cluster of houses. So as you can imagine, it's modern form is almost entirely suburban in character. The Brazos Valley is literally a river valley that was and is an important agricultural region, which is all very good, but that also means it's flat.

Texas A&M was a small land grant university that did not become big until the 60s/70s, so it's campus is an imposing brutalist citadel of sorts and the tallest building is probably a decipticon. That's just what it is. Also the campus was very culturally conservative during the "baby boomers go to college" era so the whole hippie/weird college town vibe never took root for better or worse.

It's a very good school and all, I have qualms about it. From my perspective as someone who was from the town side of that community I was happy to get out though.

College Station is expensive due to the rich students and it's hard to get an entry level professional job that isn't underpaid because you have to compete with recent college graduates. The town is run by stuffy old NIMBYs who always vote no on bond elections. Bryan is the other half and a little more interesting, but it's also just kind of poor and meh.

Also despite the evergreen ambitions of leaders in the area(A&M people will tell you they are going to invent carrots that grow on the moon someday that will cure aids), it just isn't winning that hard when it comes to luring in tech or other advanced companies like these other places are. The Bio Corridor plans have only partially materialized and not on the schedule many would like.

It's 250,000 people, it's not super scenic or cool, take it or leave it I guess. SIGSERV will know, he had to live in Palestine for a while. Palestine people drive to Bryan to go to the doctor.

[Omaharocks]

IMO, the best by region:

Midwest: Madison
Great Plains: Lawrence
West: Missoula (Boulder is runner up, but strikes me a bit too much as a nice main st in a suburb)
SE: Athens
NE: Burlington
West Coast: Berkeley
SW: Doesn't do traditional state "college towns"

Haven't been there in years but I always enjoyed visiting friends in Columbia, MO.


https://p0.pikist.com/photos/811/908...drone-view.jpg


https://www.muhealth.org/sites/defau...p-7%281%29.jpg

[xzmattzx]

State College is a nice Northeast college town.

The University of Rhode Island is kind of in the middle of nowhere, and there's a little village with a traffic light called Kingstown nearby, so it may be up there with Storrs as one of the worst college "towns" in the Northeast.

Newark, DE, is a nice college town that like the state and the school, is a little smaller than comparable college towns in bigger states with bigger flagship schools.

Is New Brunswick, NJ, a college town? It kind of is, but it also is kind of suburban.

Amherst, NY, and College Park, MD, seem to be kind of the same thing: an isolated suburban campus that could've been integrated into the community over time, but is physically cut off from the outside with a ring road, and lacks a nice college main street nearby.

My favorite college towns that I've been to are State College Charlottesville, but I haven't been to too many.

[Crawford]

New Brunswick is hardly suburban.

Rutgers probably has the most urban campus of any state flagship. Narrow, winding streets, highrises and grit. Rutgers was founded prior to the American Revolution. I like the vibe, but it isn't classic college town. It's a city campus.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Omaharocks

IMO, the best by region:

Midwest: Madison
Great Plains: Lawrence
West: Missoula (Boulder is runner up, but strikes me a bit too much as a nice main st in a suburb)
SE: Athens
NE: Burlington
West Coast: Berkeley
SW: Doesn't do traditional state "college towns"

Flagstaff is probably the best in the Southwest

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Crawford

New Brunswick is hardly suburban.

Rutgers probably has the most urban campus of any state flagship. Narrow, winding streets, highrises and grit. Rutgers was founded prior to the American Revolution. I like the vibe, but it isn't classic college town. It's a city campus.

I was trying to figure out how to explain that typical North Jersey environment and was drawing a complete blank. I almost said exurban! Urban is much better.

[pj3000]

^ Flagstaff is nice… but no flagship is docked there.

I don’t really consider Tucson and Tempe as “college towns”.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Omaharocks

IMO, the best by region:


West: Missoula (Boulder is runner up, but strikes me a bit too much as a nice main st in a suburb.

Yeah, I liked Boulder, but didn’t get a college town vibe. Didn’t feel like there was much to it.

[dave8721]

In Florida, Gainesville has a decent vibe to it but for a college town that is home to a mid-1800s large public university and another large university AND doubles as a state capital of the nations 3rd largest state, Tallahassee is a dud.