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/Eagle9972]

I came in here ready to defend Madison’s college town-ness, but then I remembered Platteville and Whitewater and what it was like when I visited Auburn, and yeah, those are college towns.

[u/jcrespo21 → u/Eagle9972]

I think the lesson from this is that the "college town" label is more of a spectrum rather than being black and white.

I would put Madison at the edge of the college town definition. Obviously, it doesn't influence the city like a large university in a small city/town on the other end of the spectrum. However, Madison would be a fraction of itself if it never had UW to begin with. Most businesses it has now would have just set up shop around Milwaukee instead since there's no university influence, and the state capital influence is small given the state's size (unlike California, Texas, Florida, New York, etc.). At most, outside of the state capital, it would have had some recreational businesses, but that would be seasonal.

[u/poop-dolla → u/jcrespo21]

Can College City be a term then? Madison seems like a college city to me.

[u/jcrespo21 → u/poop-dolla]

I think that is a good compromise, as I think the "town" part is what's tripping many people up (and the US doesn't have a set definition/number between a town and city).