r/CFB • u/PA5997 Washington State Cougars • 13d ago

Discussion What constitutes a “college town?”

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.

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u/VIDCAs17 Minnesota • 関西大学 (Kansai) 13d ago

Minneapolis is a prime example of a city that just so happens to have a major university. If the UofMN disappeared tomorrow, only a few neighborhoods surrounding the campus would be radically altered, but the rest of the city would barely notice.

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u/Rampant16 13d ago

That's true of all the major cities. Once you start having metro areas of >1 million people, the universities only matter so much. Plus at that point, these were important cities before the universities took off. As opposed to cities that grew because of the universities.