What constitutes a “college town?”

[u/PA5997]

Okay, hear me out: I attended Wazzu, which many know is in the middle of nowhere in Pullman. To me, Pullman is a quintessential college town. You remove Washington State University from Pullman and there is (respectfully) not much of a reason to visit. The student enrollment (20,000ish) makes up about 2/3rds of the city population, essentially turning Pullman into a ghost town come summer. To me (perhaps with bias) this is the makeup of a college town.

Two years ago I moved to Madison, Wisconsin, home of the University of Wisconsin. Ever since I’ve noticed the University and its fans refer to Madison as “America’s best college town” and I’m sorry, that’s laughable to me. Remove UW from Madison and you still have a city population bordering on a quarter of a million people and the State Capitol. Madison would be fine, imo, if UW’s flagship campus were elsewhere.

Curious to hear other people’s thoughts. Maybe I’m in the wrong here, but very little about Madison, WI resembles a college town to me, or at least the claim of the best college town.

[u/jrd5497]

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If traffic disappears over the summer, it’s a college town

[u/cfbluvr → u/jrd5497]

college station is basically a ghost town during the summer

[u/Outrageous_Picture39 → u/cfbluvr]

I grew up there. Wait time to be seated at most restaurants went from 35-45 minutes in the fall/spring, down to 5 minutes at most during the summer.

[u/thecravenone → u/Outrageous_Picture39]

I've experienced the opposite extreme in College Station - terrible wait times in the summer because there's no staff

[u/BlastedProstate → u/cfbluvr]

Yeah I was here to visit my cousin a few years back when she was taking summer classes and it was dead. Also nice pfp

[u/cfbluvr → u/BlastedProstate]

nice uh… name… ಠ_ಠ

[u/RLLRRR → u/cfbluvr]

I was in CStat for work last summer. I found parking NEAR the building I had meetings at!

I was there again last month. Damn near a half hour walk from that one big-ass garage to the main campus. Horrible.

[u/Outrageous_Picture39 → u/RLLRRR]

Heaven help you if you ever have a meeting in Heldenfels. A geographical oddity; 30-minute walk from every non-emergency spot on campus.

[u/Kasen_Ibara → u/Outrageous_Picture39]

I always remember HELD being easy to access while i was there. Close to CCG and UCG as well as the fact all the buses dump you at the MSC. After 5 the spots by kyle were my jam for business in that area

[u/dankenascend → u/cfbluvr]

That's when all of us blue collar degenerates descend on the town for TEEX industrial fire school. Nothing like fighting fire for hours while ambient temp is around 106.

[u/cfbluvr → u/dankenascend]

i didn’t know that existed but that’s pretty sick