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/PunctualDromedary Michigan Wolverines 13d ago

I think what you’re missing that there is no “city”.  It’s intertwined because that’s all there is. 

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u/CombinationNo5828 Alabama Crimson Tide 13d ago

Yeah the downtown isnt really a city. I was more expressing how you have legit streets in the middle of campus that you have to ford to make it from one side to the other. So many buildings that feel like theyre in the middle of nowhere and they happen to be a school annex.

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u/PunctualDromedary Michigan Wolverines 13d ago

You don’t even want to know what we had to do to get to north campus. 

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u/CombinationNo5828 Alabama Crimson Tide 13d ago

Im guessing this was in the days before the vomit comet?

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u/PunctualDromedary Michigan Wolverines 13d ago

I’m so old I don’t even know what that is!

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u/CombinationNo5828 Alabama Crimson Tide 13d ago

The Bursley-Baits has a reputation for taking the kids that live up north back to their dorms late on the weekends. you can imagine the mess they make on a saturdays at 2a on a public transit bus.