Did you really just scroll down to look at comments? That's just...inadvisable. Well except for this pinned comment, which reminds you that you can sign up for the amazing creator-owned streaming service, Nebula, using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: go.nebula.tv/citynerd
While I've got you here -- Madison is too big. U of Wisc is also big but the enrollment is less than 20% of the city's population, and the other thing that happens there is the relative size of the city makes the non-driving mode share somewhat lower than the cities that actually made this list (i.e., the influence of the university itself is less than it is for cities where university enrollment is 25%+ of the city's population). Another thing: I limited this to NCAA Division 1 schools -- basically the 300-odd schools that are eligible for March Madness -- so I missed your 800-enrollment liberal arts college in a town of 3,000. Sorry about that.
@@CityNerd I don’t know how you can make an exception for Davis which is 20 minutes from downtown Sacramento and is by nearly every measure in Sacramento’s MSA because of “farmland” but not make an exception for Madison. Sacramento’s MSA is larger than Madison’s.
I was toying with the idea of joining Nebula because of you and Maggie Mae Fish but I had no idea Lindsay Ellis was there too. So I guess I'm joining now. Congrats, your sale pitch worked.😁
I recall driving my car to State College as a sophomore in January and parking it in a snow-covered lot. I didn't use it for two months because I walked everywhere or used the surprisingly comprehensive bus service CATA to go to the slopes, parties, grocery shopping, whatever. When I returned to my car I found I had been parked in a fire lane and had a pile of tickets. Oops.
@@MbisonBalrog When you live within walking/biking distance of a grocery store you don't "lug" stuff around. My typical grocery haul is like a 6 pack of beer and whatever I'm eating for dinner that night. I go to the store every other day or so and whatever I buy can easily fit in my bag.
@@PalmelaHanderson also I use to live in State College PA on the list. There are no grocery in the walkable areas. Only a few restaurants and useless shops. Everyone has to drive to Walmart or a big super market to get the good stuff.
@@MbisonBalrogthere are two Mcclanahans. The one on beaver ave is an actually grocery store. You don’t need to go to Walmart but it’s very inconvenient if you don’t. I use to work at that grocery store. The only thing I don’t remember them having was meats. Regardless I drove once a week to Walmart for groceries.
What ruined Oxford, Mississippi in your data is ironically the thiing you suggest people might do: move there. Oxford has become such an attraction for retirees that it consists of so many car dependent developments that it overwhelms the campus and original town square. The pre-1980s part of town is nicely walkable. Oh and they got rid of Colonel Reb about 13 years ago.
I love how everyone agrees college is the best time of their lives and college towns are great, but we make 0 effort to make the rest of society more like it (walkable, diverse, subsidized food and healthcare, plenty of outdoor common areas) Also LFG both my alma maters on this list
It’s also because you have a lot of free time, a small community with lots of people you have a lot in common, mixed schedules. I live in a walkable neighborhood and I don’t feel any sense of community like I did in college. My neighbors aren’t my coworkers.
Oh boy! As a current college student that has been in multiple universities and known many people at them, we all reaaaaally hope that this is not the best times of our lives. Maybe it has something to do with Covid/ post-Covid but almost everyone I know is having an awful, awful time.
@@wertbe1718you might not feel like it at the moment, but as a college student you will almost universally have WAY more “you” time compared to graduate life. I thought I was the busiest little bee in college, and now 4 years after graduating I would literally take a 25% paycut to have that same level of free/me time again. It’s crazy what you don’t notice until it’s gone.
2:50 San Luis Obispo, CA 3:44 Corvallis, OR 4:37 Charlottesville, VA 5:17 Ann Arbor, MI 5:55 Boulder, CO 7:03 Amherst, MA 7:52 Davis, CA 9:27 Honorable Mentions 10:26 Dishonorable mention 10:56 Burlington, VT 11:35 Ithaca, NY 12:07 State College, PA
Having lived in 3 of the cities listed, I was shocked to see my favorite college city not listed, Madison! I'm not sure if it failed some of the early qualifications, but talk about a unique city, situated on the isthmus between two large lakes. There are bike paths everywhere and great walkability. Amazing restaurant scene, sense of identity, access to parks and wooded areas. In general I found that people who move there for school or work tend to stay there. I might be slightly biased though after living here and listening to the experiences of city planner plays(city planner in Madison). Regardless great video!
Unfortunately I didn't get to watch the whole video because I blacked out from excitement when you mentioned Amherst. When I regained consciousness you brought up Burlington and I passed out again. Great watch nonetheless, I will send you the medical bill.
The problem in general with college towns is housing. Anything within walking distance of the campus, will either be likely rundown, crowded, and noisy...or if nice it will be extremely expensive. Sure you can live further away from campus, but in most cases you then leave the more interesting parts of town and enter generic suburbs. Almost every single city on this top ten list has serious problems with housing/affordability.
College towns are an interesting beast, basically a lot of money being thrown at a small town so education, income etc. are greatly multiplied. The irony being that a lot of these places were put there originally for cheap land etc. Things might have been fine at first, but colleges tend to grow and bring in more money and subsequent spawl.
It's probably been said before but I absolutely love how you detail your methodology. Really makes your videos feel intentional and truly helpful, and not like some arbitrary thing someone came up with because they felt like it.
The addition of rail connections as a criteria really hurt Midwest college towns in this ranking. You pointed out Iowa City and it's lack of passenger rail, and the same generally holds true for just about every other college-centered town in the center of the country.
Actually, my college town, Fort Collins, Colorado (Colorado State) IS like living in Disneyland. The Disney architect who built Main Street USA was a Fort Collins native. He designed Main Street in homage to Fort Collins' charming, all-American Old Town. The resemblances are amazing!
I love Fort Collins so much. Great bus, bike, and walking routes. Old town is amazing (just did the lighting of Fort Collins on Friday). Wouldn't wanna go to school anywhere else. GO RAMS
I'm so glad Corvallis made it on the list! While the separated infrastructure is not really there, one of the biggest things I've noticed is that drivers actually pay attention to bikes on the road (yielding on a right turn, giving extra space when possible, etc). And newer road work is often reducing lane widths and adding buffered bike lanes, which is always a great thing to see.
"Americans only love the college experience because it's the only time in their lives they live in walkable communities." - A very viral tweet that got half a million likes on Twitter.
lol that may be one of the reasons Americans like college...but it's not in the top 5 reasons for the vast majority of people. Being around so many the same age, the parting, schooling. The first time of freedom not being around parents........ Those things are way way way above
@xtlm curious your age, I'm 36 and walkability is much higher in my list now than some or most of the others, but I also also went to an urban university and commuted, so I only got the walkable part when I was on campus for the day. I miss walking places I actually wanted to go between classes more than the partying and the actual classes.
@@hudsonja Same age. I went to the #1 on this list. I very much enjoyed being able to walk everywhere. It was neat that the town and school were right there for 2 of the 3 places I lived. The third place you had to walk up a large hill and was further away. I also commuted to one of their satellite campuses, which was an extra hilly place where you had to park at the bottom of a large and kinda steep hill (then when you reached the top you had to go up steps) and I can't really say I enjoyed that too much outside of the exercise lol. But I would say that the other things I stated were way more important to most students there, at the time at least. It's an extremely party centric college (and the walk-able-ness of it helps that tremendously. If kids realized that at the time IDK). I am an oddball who likes exploring, so the walking was fun for me. It was something like 5 miles a day at the min so it kept you in shape. Though, I DO really like driving. I think it's an fun/cool thing we are allowed to do. Part of me can't believe that we are allowed to pilot around these large machines everywhere so willy nilly. It's so cool. The exploration is kinda endless. Though I miss the walking a lot, I really don't know if I would want to live in a dense environment like that full time. It's beyond great for college though.
Nice list! To everyone whining these are all in "cold states" or in California, well, that's who walks, bikes, and builds pedestrian-centric infrastructure.
Ole Miss / Oxford is an amazing college town - probably the best in the southeast. I'm not sure where the walking score comes from as I walked all over the town while earning two degrees there. The absence of any southeastern college towns on your list, except for Charlottesville, shows a notable bias but personally I would take Oxford, Athens or Auburn over any of the towns mentioned here.
Ole Miss’ school mascot hasn’t been a white plantation owner for decades. There’s also a pretty clear history on why Southern universities are lacking in public transportation / walkability, hence none of them are included in your list. Also mind you the incredible housing price / cost of living disparities that exist in New England college towns vs say any SEC school towns. Seems like a big thing to miss & don’t think it’s fair to “dunk” on a place like Oxford like that.
As an Ithacan, I would say its main limitations stem from how small it is as a city. Thinking more generally about college towns, an important factor to consider is that some universities (looking at you Cornell) don't pay hardly enough taxes. I know cost of living wasn't part of this list, but Ithaca is in the top 10 most expensive places to live according to some studies, coming above some of the Californian cities we like to make fun of. We have a housing crisis in Ithaca, yet most developments are still targeted at well-off Cornellians. All that said, it's a really nice place if you can make it work.
One thing I miss about Boulder is that almost all the bike routes are grade separated from car traffic. I remember one exception near Broadway and Baseline, but I've never felt safer biking than in Boulder.
Yep, you can really get to most areas in town with the off-street bike paths, which is not something that can be said for most cities. And Boulder is continuing to improve the on-street experience as well, with new protected lanes and intersections!
@@RobertPrestley With the one glaring exception being North Boulder, which is growing more walkable/urbanist/dense by the year but lacks a good bike connection to downtown or the larger multi-use path network.
Colorado in general has great bike routes. I lived in Fort Collins and I could go all over town and never actually cross the street on my bike. Or if I did it was a very small one. Most of the bike routes went under the major roads. It was wonderful. You can literally go for hundreds of miles on bike paths in Colorado. When I moved away from there, I realized how lucky I had been. Mike, Paul's, in walking paths are built into the infrastructure, every time they add a new subdivision. They connect the bike pass to it. It's a wonderful thing that people that aren't from there don't know the value of.
I went to undergrad in Davis and I'm not surprised to see it here at all! It's what got me into biking and found it to be a pleasant place to live in. The student-run transit system is also pretty sweet with their double-decker buses. I just wish local NIMBYs would allow the city to densify.
I have a home in downtown Ann Arbor and lived previously in Madison for 5 years. Having lived in both I was incredulously surprised that Madison wasn't event mentioned. That place is soo pleasant compared to anyplace else.
I'm pretty sure we don't hit the student percentage threshold - between the state government and a good number of private companies headquartered here, a lot of people that live in Madison aren't affiliated with the university The only other thing I can think of is the lack of urban rail. The Amtrak goes through Columbus and Portage, and good luck getting to either of those cities. I always used coach busses instead when I was a student, they're a pretty good alternative and service Madison well
New Haven, ignored again. Trains to NYC, Boston, and Springfield. Bike lanes galore. Bike trail to Hartford. Buses all over the city. I live on the outskirts, and getting to just about everything I need is either a short walk, or a bus ride away. And that is not even mentioning the world's best pizza. People take the train from NYC to have pizza in New Haven. I know people who have taken the Amtrak from DC to have New Haven pizza.
I disagree that college towns are great. They're amazing while you're a student, but there's very few opportunities to work and live in them once you graduate. Plus, they're dead when students aren't there, which makes it hard for businesses to survive. Especially when it comes to grocery stores. My town is a college town and I live on main street, and the nearest one is 30 mins away. The mayor recognizes this problem but the school basically holds the town hostage by continually accepting new students, which means more housing is turned into student only housing, which makes it even harder to build anything for students once they graduate
This is spot on. And definitely true of State College! OMG the arguments between the town and the university. There was a street on the campus border that the school said was the towns, and the town said the school was responsible for it. That thing had potholes in it the size of swimming pools for decades! So much drama. As a high school student living there - there was virtually nothing to do. But we did bike a lot.
St. Louis, Cincinnati, and DC were a few other cities I thought of for this. You could even argue NY since the greater metropolitan area includes places like Jersey City and Newark.
This is such a good idea and I hope he does a video on it! I think City Beautiful had a video highlighting Portland, Oregon having a problem with trying to limit development on the city edge because the suburbs in Washington State didn't put the same restrictions.
Calling West Lafayette a suburb of a major metro is absolutely wild. Lafayette itself has a population of like 60k with cornfields all around and both towns pretty much blend into one another forming what is effectively one larger town. Much the same could be argued with East Lansing. Also, would have loved to see Princeton, NJ mentioned on this list.
In tribute to Coach Knight (RIP), I just threw a chair due to the omission of Bloomington, Indiana, where I learned the virtues of car-free living as an undergrad.
Came here hoping to see Amherst, MA and I was not disappointed! Leaving my car-dependent suburb and going to UMass Amherst was extremely eye opening for me. I literally remember the very first day on campus and we WALKED into town to get bagels. I was blown away that something like that was even possible (yes, car-dependent suburbia was all I knew). It was the first seed of urbanism that got planted in my head
@@scottfrazer4669 you bet! Although much of the surroundings are VERY different. Bunch of midrise apartments went up where the carriage shops used to be. Bit of a shame, really changed the feel of downtown. They're also marketed as luxury apartments and super overpriced. They serve mostly international students whose parents have deep pockets.
I'm living in State College since the beginning of 2023 and I find it a great place to live. I don't have a car, and still I can go anywhere walking, biking or taking the bus. There are buses to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York. One the things I love the most here is the nature, we are surrounded by the Appalachian mountains and thick forests. It's paradise for hiking lovers like me.
PSU alum here, I loved living in State College when I was going to get my undergrad. It’s been hard to replicate the same living experience in other places I’ve lived in since then.
I am so pleased to see State College, PA as the #1 choice. I was a student at Penn State in the late 1980s-1990s. Fresh from divorce and a very poor mother of two young children, I couldn't afford a car. My little family had to rely on public transport/walking/biking to get around. And it worked! Kids to and from day care, going to classes, shopping, kid activities...the buses were so regular and the routes so well-planned that life was doable without a car.
@@markr385 Sad for the boys, but instructive for us if we want it to be. Who gets nailed in these situations, and by whom? Low income boys love going to big time football games, get to go for free if they please middle-class coach. People who *happen* to be employed in jobs or affiliated with charity organizations where they will be near the young often are at those places for a reason. Sometimes. I could go on.
'Sko Buffs! Happy to see Boulder featured on this channel. Can't wait to see your video all about us! :) First I want to note that the Cheesecake Factory closed 10 years ago, and the top and bottom floors of the building have been converted to an Avanti food hall. Very pleased you covered that 50% of the working population of the city commutes in every day, and that the train won't arrive until I retire. The bike paths and bike culture here are great, as a middle schooler I had the run of the city on my bike, happy times. With good paths and sunshine most days, there's good potential for e bike commuting.
Genuinely a bit surprised Champaign-Urbana didn't make the cut, I hope it was near the top ten at least! Got my undergrad in planning here and sticking around for an extra year to get a masters and i feel like i hit the jackpot for college-town urbanism, a perfect case study city that i get to learn in.
@@jakobpopaeko6435This guys probably never been here but that is the wrong assumption to make. The heart of downtown champaign is like 0.25 miles at most away from the edge of campustown and it only feels farther because they are separated by regional rail. Urbana on the other hand, is legitimately separated by around 0.75 miles of single family houses, but urbana isn’t as big and the “downtown” is really only 20ish business now that the mall is dead. 20 years ago I think it felt more like a twin cities vibe but now it is really just campustown acting as the urban core and suburbs around that.
Considering it was 2nd place in his "Small City Urbanism" video (despite that ranking deliberately penalizing college towns), it can't have been far off. I would be interested to know where it would land on this one, and how much its ranking was affected by population and housing prices (which the small city urbanism video considered while this one didn't).
I might be biased, but I'm surprised Newark, DE (University of Delaware) didn't make the list. There's on Amtrak station on the Northeast Corridor; Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York are all reachable in ~2 hours or less. The central quad runs most of the campus from north-south and intersects Main Street which runs east-west, making it extremely walkable. I toured both UD and Rutgers when looking at colleges and found UD to be infinitely more pedestrian/biking friendly compared to Rutgers.
When i went to college at Penn State, i remember using the stars college bus service even for hiking. Id take one bus to Pine Grove Mills, hike up Tussey Mountain, and hike along the mountain for 10 miles before catching another bus at the ski area. Living there got me into hiking for the 1st time
Wow, not a single town in the south. Crap on Auburn, AL and Oxford, Ms though. I'll take Athens, GA, Ashville, NC, Durham, NC, and Auburn, AL over all of them just for the weather if nothing else. We're still playing golf in January down here.
Loved seeing the street view of the Chauncey Hill area of West Lafayette, IN at Purdue (my alma mater) at the 0:40 mark. Nice to the see you listed the town as honorable mention. I actually grew up in WL and it was a great place to live. I have lived in several other places over the past 25 years and I have always missed living in a college town.
As a recent Purdue grad I felt a little sense of pride seeing my old college town in his video lol, it also made me feel nostalgic and miss college a little bit haha
Growing up, I used to wish I could bike to school. But walking was just so practical, dealing with a bike would've been more of a hassle! This was in suburban Stockholm. Having experienced that, it always confuses me why so many American parents think driving their kids everywhere until they're 16 is ideal.
Eugene is too big of a city to make the list. His definition of "college town" is cities where the enrollment is >25% of the population. U of O has an enrollment of 23k and Eugene has a population of about 180k, which would make it about 13% (or 6% of you include the whole Eugene metro area). It does hurt, though, seeing OSU on the list... 😂
That makes sense. I didn’t realize Eugene was such a big metro area. I’ve only spent short periods of time there, but it is a great college town with bike and running trails all over the place.
UC Davis alumnus represent, glad to see the ranking. Davis is one of the few cities where stealing bikes is the equivalent of a grand theft auto. One more thing about its transit, there is a bus line, although exclusive to UC Davis/UC Berkeley students and faculty and runs like twice a day, between those 2 UC campuses, which then connects up w/ the rest of the bay area transit
i don't want to be mean, but that is not how the bus system works here. anyone can use them, it costs a couple dollars, and they normally run every 30-60 min throughout the day. honestly though davis is one of the best and nicest looking cities when it comes to public transit and walkability, and yes i am saying that because i grew up here
The frequency of Unitrans could be better for sure. I remember the bus from Greystone apartments (where I lived) was always packed. It wouldn't hurt for service to be extended an hour or two later since there are some clubs on campus that can go pretty late.
State College really is the best town in the country. It has everything you need: public transportation, clean, low crime, and most importantly it's affordable.
When I lived there in the early 90's it was a cultural wasteland. For a college town it had the worse music scene imaginable. No food worth mentioning. No diversity. And I can't imagine not having a car because sure you can survive in town but you can never leave as the closest way out would be the Amtrak station 60-90 minutes away by car. If you are happy living in an extremely boring place then I guess it will be Happy Valley for you. To be fair 6 months out of the year there was some outdoor activities available in the surrounding area (as long as you have a car). Full disclosure - city dweller that hasn't owned a car for close to 30 years.
@@medlocrf7289 Yeah, I agree. I don't live there, but I've worked there for 8+ years, and I am totally unimpressed. The type of culture I look for in a college town is very limited. The music scene is still very limited. With a college population this large, there should be a handful of good music venues serving dozens of local bands. There really isn't even a good place to buy used records and CDs. What college culture exists is very mainstream, mostly aimed at frats, sororities, and sports fans (which is fine -- I like sports, too -- but that shouldn't be the primary thing to do in a college town). I can see why it ranked highly here, because State College does have a lot of bike trails and areas for hiking, which seemed to be big in this analysis.
As one such resident who commutes to Boulder for work, I just wanna add that the "Fine Restaurant" on Pearl Street closed down quite some time ago! I never even knew it existed!
I’m so glad that you put “fine restaurant” in quotation marks, LOL. Boulder has been called “the foodiest town in America” by Bon Appétit and has so much better to offer.
Great video! My great great grandma was killed in a horse & buggy accident on pearl street in Boulder ages ago, so I much prefer the current pedestrianized pearl street. I'd love to see a video about urban growth boundaries and greenbelts, and how to do them well
As a Mississippi State alum, it was satisfying to see you dunk on Oxford, MS, although I’m not confident Starkville fares much better. I will say they retired Colonel Reb over a decade ago, but they still call themselves the Rebels. Insidious stuff. Your note about “dunking on this poor state” was appreciated and I just want to say, so many people from out of state of all races attend our state universities and have amazing experiences. Jackson State is an HBCU with students from all over the country who are proud to make it their alma mater. And not to mention international students who call Mississippi their first home in the U.S. College in Mississippi was a sweet and special time for me and I’m glad to see at least a piece of that conversation make it on this list.
CityNerd said that he lived in Las Vegas, which has the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels, so he shouldn’t hold that against anyone. As for diversity, the cities on his list average below 5% African-American population, while Oxford is at 22%.
@@rogerblakely8462Yes but Mississippi is ~38% Black so for the state that demographic is actually underrepresented. It’s mainly because we have prominent public HBCUs in MS, though.
I'm surprised Madison wasn't mentioned. It's a neat little city...it's on an isthmus and somewhat dense for its size. It has a high percentage of white collar workers and those with higher education degrees. There are many independently owned shops/restaurants with creative cuisine options (independent to franchise restaurant ratio is likely among the highest in the country). Very wooded, tons of parks, nice lakes, terrific rails-to-trails bike paths, and there are future plans to connect to to Milwaukee/Chicago via the Hiawatha with perhaps a train stop by the campus. It's also a planned city with a somewhat unique (for Wisconsin) radial layout around the capitol.
Agree very much, but I had to go look it up and the population is too high vs the college enrollment. Such a great little city. Rates high for young professionals too.
Housing is rising at among the fastest in the country. I am being forced to move at the end of my current term for "renovations" so that the landlord will increase rent by approximately 25%. That could also be a reason.
I biked passed a "Madison, WI Population: XX" sign and it's as high as 282,000 people now! I think we have graduated into "not just a college town" and you can tell in the summers when Downtown doesn't just die. We also have the third highest bike % for cities over 250k so we probably would have placed well
I remember visiting back to my university town and the issue with living there is once you leave you realize how much of it really _is_ based on the school. Even one year after graduation I remember hearing every conversation on the buses or in the restaurants about the next class, the upcoming test, the professors. And while I was still fresh enough to know all those topics there was very much a disconnect being a proper working adult. Maybe this is fine to some people but for me it killed the remaining ideas I had of living there full time (the cost of living killed most of it in all fairness).
I just had to comment as someone who just returned from Oxford UK and went to ole Miss in Oxford Mississippi. Oxford Mississippi is actually pretty walkable around the the square it also has a good cultural and artistic feel. The problem is its very hard to go in and out of Oxford without a car because as far as I know there's no trains or buses in and out. Oxford MS isn't Oxford UK but it's a very nice college town and I have definitely seen worse.
I suspect this is a desk exercise and he hasn't really visited many of these places. I also suspect when you name your town "Oxford" in 1830 it is aspirational (you know, like Utica) and not really hubris*. Also, the U of Miss hasn't had that mascot in 13 years. one can even read that in his cut and paste. Seemed like a free shot. *Also could have simply been a guy from Oxfordshire naming the place from where he came from like many cities and towns in the US.
@@starkeymorgan4142 Yep, didn't need to go there for any reason. I'm also finding it highly unlikely he's ever "dunked" on anyone unless it was with a donut. I'm sure a lot of these places are nice but now that we've seen the hidden side of his "methodology" why would I trust his opinions?.
I live in State College and it is great in a lot of ways but I was shocked to see it ranked above all those other awesome towns! It's easy to have critiques of the place you live but honestly my heart skipped a beat when you revealed #1
I feel that... I've lived in state college since age 2 and I was expecting us to come in at 5 or 6 or so. but nope. I don't know why but I had the same little stomach-butterfly feeling of hometown pride when he said we were tops
I was really surprised at State College getting ranked that high. The downtown is already 20% parking lot, with low occupancy on non-football weekends, and it took public outcry for the city to stop a project to demolish a brewery and a few other downtown buildings and put up a parking garage. Atherton is an un-bikeable scar on the city that kids can't safely cross on their own. After you get out of the downtown and the residential areas immediately around it, it turns into suburbland. I think we should convert two lanes of Atherton, and one lane of Beaver and College into human spaces instead of carland, and replace cars and public car-storage facilities with biking lanes, spaces for cafe and restaurant seating and public hangout space.
A cousin of mine graduated from Penn State in 1973 and decided to retire to State College with his wife. SC is on the list of college towns where lots of grads take shit jobs just so they can soak in the college vibe for a while longer. Ann Arbor is another such, as are, I would suppose, most of the other towns on this list.
As a UMass alum, one thing that was missed in the video was how good the PVTA (BRT) and bike infrastructure are. There's a off-street bike path between Amherst and Northampton (home of Smith College) and neighboring Easthampton. Tons of bike lanes in each town as well.
100%. I rode my bike everywhere, and if there wasn't a good path you could just throw your bike on the front of a bus and hop on for a few stops until the trails picked up again
I loved my time at UC Davis, and I definitely miss the biking. Only problem now is that housing costs have begun to increase because of local restrictions on development. Hope they get that sorted too, especially as the university continues to expand
I grew up in Ann Arbor and graduated class of 2000. In the 90s it was an amazing place to grow up. The city has evolved from educating everyone being the core community value to the education economy serving the upperclass being the core community value. The difference is in the 90's you could be middle class and thrive in Ann Arbor and today the Ann Arbor middle class is an afterthought. Profits from educating teenagers and young adults from upper class out of state communities trumps the actual education of Ann Arbor residents.
In a way it's three cycling worlds layered on top of each other: 1) Perhaps 15 to 30% up to 9th grade then going down by half once kids have cars, or can go in the cars of friends to the free parking at high school. 2) A range of about 20 to 40% of all members of the campus community who get to UCD by bike, but really mostly from closer parts of the city, and many have cars which they use when they have free parking at destinations in the city and in the region 3) About 3 to 6% mode share from non-university associated adults for commuting to jobs in town, shopping and social activities and some school runs and combined trips with Amtrak.
@@TheObimara Do students really have money for cars, car insurance, gas, etc.? The reality is that most people in Davis can live without a car, especially compared to other places in the country.
We're discussing and interpreting statistics here, not looking at potential.... But a lot of student apartment complexes have parking lots completely full of cars, and nearby streets completely full of their cars.... Including on-campus housing. While there are some discounts for long distance bus trips to the Bay Area, Amtrak service is quite limited, doesn't run late (It's useless for Night time events in Sac) and standard pricing is quite high. Car ownership and access is so high in town that there's no car share cars available east of Pole Line/Lillard.
I live in Athens, Ohio - it's so great that I decided to stay after graduation. If accounting for cost of living I'm sure it would've been high up on this list.
duuuuude, I was hoping for this mention. I went to Wright State Uni, my brother went to OU, and I LOVE ATHENS. It's a cool lil spot. But yea, most small towns with a large Uni has a great vibe to it. Very different from most of suburbia which is dead and can be creepy.
I have been to Santa Cruz, Corvallis, Davis and Burlington and I enjoyed them so much. I would love to visit the other 6 on your list as well, but the greatest difficulty is that many beautiful college towns in America lack train connections to large urban centers.
@@areader2253 I love Santa Cruz, but outside of the area immediately surrounding Pacific Ave, its all pretty low density, and the actual campus is very much not integrated with the rest of town. It definitely has college town vibes, but an urbanist's dream, it is not.
Sadly (not sadly) the Boulder Cheesecake Factory has gone out of business. It’s been replaced by a multi floor restaurant with four different food style options and rooftop dining with views of the flatirons.
Moved to State College from Des Plaines (just outside Chicago city limits on a Metra line). I bike everyday to and from daycare, work, and swim lessons. Almost all our weekend activities are accessible by bike. The bike infrastructure isn't fantastic, but there are so many people riding bikes that outside of 6 weekends year, drivers are expecting bikes on the road.
Amherst! It's great because while it's a college town, it's a network of 5 colleges in the area. Most students don't need a car. UMass Amherst itself is huge and has buses running all the time around the campus. Bike racks are everything and buses have racks too if you don't want to ride up the hills. The transit org for the area gives free rides to students, so you can hop on a bus to get into the little Amherst down"town" area (it's small but has most things you need), a bus to the mall/walmart targets, or all the way to Northhampton where you walk to get everyone on the main streets there.
10. San Luis Obispo, CA 9. Corvallis, OR 8. Charlottesville, VA 7. Ann Arbor, MI 6. Boulder, CO 5. Amherst, MA 4. Davis, CA 3. Burlington, VT 2. Ithaca, NY 1. State College, PA
@pryvexx I get it. It’s also nice to have a reference, but if you like these videos you can help support them by watching the whole video. The creator gets paid based on views. I’ll just have to watch it twice from now on.😀
It was wild seeing Von's and state street near the start of the vid. Purdue in West Lafayette was my first experience of walkable living. I hope they improve Chauncey Hill and eastward, since most of it's car-dependent development and parking lots
Amherst connectivity to regional transit is really good because of the norwottuck rail trail! It starts right in the UMass campus and goes straight past the Amtrak station and into the downtown of Northampton. 9 miles of beautiful tree lined bike path.
I was at UMass from '86-'90 so missed out on this trail. It apparently opened in '93. That would have been awesome. I biked around campus and into Amherst but took the bus when going to Northampton.
I grew up in Ann Arbor. Great city. The move towards more walkability downtown after the start of the pandemic has been really great. And you can't beat the feel of Kerrytown. It's only struggle is affordable housing because everybody in southeast michigan wants to live there.
Hey, thanks for talking about Corvallis! I’ve lived here for two years to go to Oregon State. It’s pretty weird how many people bike here with almost no high quality infrustructure except on campus, but I think you’re right about it going to show how much culture and public attitude can do to change the reality of biking
@@loganpage1542 yeah me too… I think Corvallis made it higher because it has small-town advantage. Most places are pretty close to each other so there’s naturally more biking and walking
My mother used to say that the closest thing to heaven was a New England college town. Lucky for her, she got to spend the last years of her life in Hanover, New Hampshire. That's where Dartmouth is. An especially pretty town. What's more, the Upper Connecticut River Valley, where it's located, has tons of pretty towns, so she was not just limited to one place.
I went through Dartmouth on a work trip at least 20 years ago. I still remember it being gorgeous! Some small part of that might have been the autumn leaves, but still...
@@charlienyc1 Trust me, it's gorgeous at other times of the year, as well. The only less-than-beautiful season is spring, as that's mostly characterized by black flies and mud (as is true for a lot of northern climes).
I love Hanover, and not too far away are Burlington, Brattleboro, and the various MA college towns. New England is full of good colleges, beautiful fall weather, and nice people. I lived out there on my own for 15 years, and I'd move back if I had more family within a day's drive. It's hard only seeing family once or twice a year, and it's hard to justify the environmental impact of air travel.
I really enjoy your videos, as they scratch one of my specific nerdy itches, haha :) I live near Ann Arbor but I'm from just outside of SLO & really enjoy both cities. As a disabled person who uses a variety of mobility aids, no city is accessible enough, & that includes cities considered very bikeable or walkable by able-bodied folks. I'd love to hear what accessibility is like in the cities specifically considered most livable/walkable/well designed; I have yet to find a US city as accessible as some I've been fortunate to visit abroad.
Wohoo, San Luis Obispo!! I had so hoped it would pop up in one of your videos once. Hilarious how you pronounce the name tho haha but everyone usually only says SLO haha. I was an exchange student at Calpoly for a year and absolutely loved it. Walked and biked everywhere, of course due to year-round perfect weather.
An important detail you skipped about Burlington, VT is that there's a 30 minute public bus ride (Bus 2) between downtown Burlington and the Amtrak Vermonter stop in Essex Junction. And they made all buses free during the pandemic and keep extending it, so that ride is still free now. I'm at UVM for grad school, I would have liked to live in downtown Burlington, but the housing situation is pretty bad (demand increasing way faster than supply). It took me almost 3 months to find a place to live, but ended up in Essex Junction, so it turned out not too bad.
The Amtrak Ethan Allen Express which departs from the waterfront Burlington Union Station is usually the better choice and faster to get to New York City. That said, the Vermonter is useful for Connecticut and western Mass trips.
I stayed in Essex Junction this past Summer for four nights. It certainly has its conveniences relative to Burlington and the affordability certainly helps.
The funny thing about Corvallis that often gets overlooked is its neighbor Albany. It's not a college town, but being right next door it's kind of Corvallis's more affordable twin. The urbanism there is just about as top-notch for some of the cheaper rents in the Willamette Valley! Highly recommend taking a look at the town for anyone that's considered moving to Oregon.
I don't think Albany has good design at all. The busses are sporadic and the gaps of time between stops is too long. It's not uncommon for me to get calls to from family/friends to go pick them up because their bus never came lol. It takes less time for me to walk from the mall to the park & ride in North Albany than it does to take the bus the same distance. Rent is cheaper (I pay $1400 for my apartment) , but it's still absurd for the area income. Albany is only worth it because it's close to CV which has stuff to do, but isn't as expensive. Riding your bike in Albany is also outright mortifying.
As a non-USian, college towns really fascinate me as they don’t really exist where I’m from. I’d love to visit one and see what the vibe is like. You’ve given me a good list to start with ✌️
same - in Australia many universities are right in the centre of big cities, they're not separate. I live in Sydney Australia, continued living with parents all throughout undergrand since several of the country's best universities were within an hour's commute on public transport. Most students lived at home or in shared housing in the city, stayed friends with high school friends who often live close by.
@@thebluest_blue1145 I did college in the US and met many Australians. For the average person, the Australian way is much better. College housing costs in the US run into thousands of dollars a year, and there is not much to do in the vast majority of US college towns.
@@lord_of_love_and_thunder Housing is expensive here too, around 200aud for the average shared housing (part of why many live at home). Being in the big city definitely has advantages though, my friends and I saw amazing shows at the Sydney Opera House with Opera Australia's $35 student rush tickets.
Part of the "vibe" is that's where lots of money ends up, so you have what might have been an otherwise prosaic town with lots of nice restaurants, entertainment, shows coming through, eg, rock, jazz classical and lots of educated people with educated hobbies and things to do and of course, lots of young people doing young people things. One might contend it has gotten a little bit beyond just educating students.
I just love your stuff. Opposed to other urban design channels, yours feel like sitting down and listening in to a conversation. You walk us through so well!
Big fan of your channel AND alum of The University of Mississippi here. Our mascot isn’t Colonel Reb he’s a racist relic based on a Black man actually. And while that’s problematic we are the Landsharks. Our slogan is Fins Up. Just to clarify.
I’m from Chico, CA which is definitely a college town- a little progressive oasis amidst a very rural area in Northern California. I lived there since I was 5 and got my bachelors and masters degree at CSU, Chico. I think it was quite good for walkers, bikers, and transit- enough so that I subsisted on biking or bussing everywhere I needed to go and didn’t get my drivers license until after I got my Masters degree and started working outside of Chico. I think it at least deserves an honorable mention.
Fellow Chico State grad here and totally agree! I grew up in Paradise, and moving to Chico for college was life changing. It was the first place I realized life was possible without owning a car. Definitely honorable mention worthy.
Yes, I grew up in Chico and I agree. Part of the urbanist charm is that the campus sits right next to downtown and unlike so many small downtowns, it's still a thriving center of social and economic activity for the community. I think it gets a bad rap as a "party" school, and certain that still seems to be the case, but that is just a small part. Right now I really wish I was finishing class and heading to Celestino's for a slice :D
My school made your list, but I agree with these three other folks in this thread (so far), you should have a least given Chico State an honorable mention. I mean, c'mon, they got Bidwell Park.
@@nplus1watches35 Bidwell Park itself is reason Chico should be featured on this channel. I’m genuinely surprised that this wasn’t the video where I saw Chico finally show up.
@@metromlv this comment resonates so deeply with me. I spent a lot of time in the art department right across the street from Celestino’s so I would go there at least twice a week between classes. That’s about how often I still think about Celestino’s 😂 and that is literally a block away from the transit center
@@wildrice8199 the weather is wonderful here, we don't get any of the crazy lake effect snow here. Doesn't get too hot, and there are amazing lakes all over the state and surrounding the state. I will take the "cold" lmao.
@@davik9003 I lived there for 4 years and in Michigan for 30. It was always too cold for me, even in the summer. There's no such thing as "too hot" for me. But glad other people like it. It's a great city otherwise.
@@davik9003I grew up in Grand Rapids (in the snow belt of Lake Michigan.) I attended grad school in Ann Arbor and was surprised how relatively little snow AA received the two winters I was there, compared to GR. AA received even less snow, overall, than East Lansing.
At 22 my boyfriend and I left Boston MA. and followed a friend to Northfield MN. This two college town impacted my life in ways I’m still feeling today. I’m back in MA now, but I lived there for 8 years, my kids were born there, and I still keep in touch with friends and check in on city politics. It was the perfect place for me at that time in my life. A young kid just striking out in the world, who wasn’t going to college but was a sponge for learning. That mix of locals and college students, used book stores, and conversational pubs, was a perfect mix and I loved living there.
Cheesecake Factory is unnatural. You shouldn’t be able to have that many items on a menu without being a buffet. Convinced it’s ran by aliens from Mars.
Burlington native here, none of this is a surprise except I'm interested in how Davis, CA embraced bikes as serious transportation in *the '60s* when they were at peak being-considered-children's-toys.
tldr version to my understanding is that a few UC Davis professors who had been to the Netherlands got elected to city council and then tried to emulate some of what they saw there
He mentioned in another comment that it came in at number 16 on this list, and that its bike mode share was very low, which dragged it down the list a bit.
Awesome to see Corvallis represented in this list! People often site Eugene as the best college town in Oregon but I always thought that had more to do with them having a more relevant football team. Corvallis is such a charming college town that is so easily to walk and bike around.
Based on our dear nerd’s criteria, I believe UO has too few students for the size of the Eugene/Springfield metropolis. More interesting… the campus has kind of scraped at the edges for more space, and they’ve finally gotten around to replacing 1960s-era dorm buildings, but given the chance to build up rather than out, the only thing on the campus that has attained some sort of height is the observation tower over Hayward Field that looks like a spliff. I blame Phil Knight. Still, go Ducks!
@@henneds If you just came here for the college banter, I know, I know. Silly Fuskies and their ability to whine like malamutes do can be an issue at times. I’ll also put it this way… my father was the city engineer in Portland when the first light rail line was designed and eventually constructed. I have an affinity to the broader subject matter here that overrides the other stuff.
It is the best college town in terms of walk and bikeability. Eugene has only been increasing bike accessibility including carving out busy streets to have dedicated, protected bike lanes.
You mentioned my favorite college town. I absolutely love State College, PA. What an amazing town...at least it was when I lived in Pennsylvania 24 years ago. I have fond memories of visiting the nuclear reactor there, exploring various buildings on campus, and some absolutely incredible coffee shops and incredible used book stores. What a wonderful downtown! Hopefully that's still true. I always used to enjoy the trip there: I lived in a rural part of the state to the north. I had an amazing drive to get there through wonderful mountain scenery and forest. Now that I live in North Dakota (another story) I really do miss that! One of my favorites on the way was the town of Bellefonte: one of the most beautiful small towns I've ever seen.
Fitting that my residence of Auburn is the picture for a college town that won’t even come close to this list. I love Auburn but it’s entirely car dependent. Wide streets, no public transit for those not attending the university, hardly any bike lanes, and suburban development outside of downtown. Auburn has made strides to densify their downtown and areas around campus, but outside of that it’s pretty grim and the future doesn’t look too bright
@@bonecanoe86a suburb of what? It’s pretty far from both NYC and Philly, and the town’s identity is pretty tied to the university in the same way any of the other towns on the list are
I go to Rutgers - New Brunswick but have been to Princeton and the University three times in the last six months and was surprised it wasn’t at least an honorable mention either. Great for walkability and bike-ability, about an hour each way from Philadelphia or New York and it definitely has its own distinct feel, similar to New Brunswick in that way. You would have no way of knowing two of the country’s major cities are nearby. The thing you are forgetting is that Princeton is a large commuter town to both New York and Philadelphia, although I don’t see that knocking it for this list any more than Davis as you mentioned or some others.
Great video, as always. New Jersey property taxes can hurt, but New Brunswick can put you in Manhattan in like 45 minutes via train, which is pretty awesome.
Penn State is a total college town, but in middle of nowhere and difficult to get there from about anywhere. Most of the BIG Ten schools are very walkable, have transit access and no need for cars (at least the current BIG)
2:50 San Luis Obispo, CA 3:44 Corvallis, OR 4:36 Charlottesville, VA 5:17 Ann Arbor, MI 5:54 Boulder, CO 7:02 Amherst, MA 7:52 Davis, CA 10:54 Burlington, VT 11:35 Ithica, NY 12:05 State College, PA
As someone in the upper Midwest, there’s a handful of college towns in Minnesota and Wisconsin that I often revisit the idea of moving to for reasons very similar to the criteria you used here (with the addition of affordability): La Crosse, Eau Claire, Wausau, Oshkosh (all in Wisconsin) as well as Mankato, Winona or St Cloud (in Minnesota.) Also Iowa City which you mentioned.
@@richardfriedman600 I’ve actually lived there, it’s a beautiful town! It checks a lot of the same boxes, and has some surprisingly cheap apartments (probably due to the colleges being there) though housing prices seem to be going out of control. You can definitely tell you’re dealing with two very prestigious, rich, nerdy private colleges though, for better or worse (you get an unusual amount of artisan type shops, yet not much of a bar scene, and some of the conversations you’ll overhear…ugh. But probably better than being surrounded by drunk meat heads everywhere)
The ONLY midwest town on this top ten list was Ann Arbor...and that is a decent sized city on its own right and properly considered part of the Detroit Metro area (Penn State != Midwest). The midwest was ridiculously overlooked in this top ten list.
State College native here! Nice to see my hometown recognized for its merits (for once). I wish it had passenger rail -- the closest Amtrak station is Lewistown, PA, with one train per day each way -- but it was once served by a short line called the Bellefonte Central. There was one train per day, taking 90 minutes to get to Bellefonte, the county seat 10 miles away. Not exactly high speed or high frequency...
I almost accepted a job in the Davis area before realizing my wages would only BARELY cover the cost of renting a tiny studio lol. Oh what could have been.... 😅
Came here hoping for SLO and Amherst and was not disappointed. I spent two years of undergrad at UMass and ended up in SLO for four years in my twenties. One of the things that struck me most about SLO was how easy it was to exist without a car, which kind of subverted my expectations given what I knew at the time about California as a whole. Between the general walkability and the coverage of the bus system, I was able to get essentially anywhere I needed in town without a problem.
Also very surprised New Haven didn’t make the list. The walkability is certainly confined to certain neighborhoods but they make up a sizable portion of the area surrounding downtown.
I love seeing Ithaca come in so highly on this list, but please don't forget it is also the home of Ithaca College in addition to Cornell University. I know Cornell is 4x the size of IC by student population, but we still exist!
Waiting for the Amtrak Iowa city expansion from Chicago. Having family in iowa city while being car free is awful and my options are Greyhound busses which are always packed full. There’s very much demand!
I wish they’d also run local rail up to CR and Waterloo to reduce dependence on I-380 for moving between those places as traffic is a nightmare especially between CR and IC
Did you really just scroll down to look at comments? That's just...inadvisable. Well except for this pinned comment, which reminds you that you can sign up for the amazing creator-owned streaming service, Nebula, using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: go.nebula.tv/citynerd
While I've got you here -- Madison is too big. U of Wisc is also big but the enrollment is less than 20% of the city's population, and the other thing that happens there is the relative size of the city makes the non-driving mode share somewhat lower than the cities that actually made this list (i.e., the influence of the university itself is less than it is for cities where university enrollment is 25%+ of the city's population). Another thing: I limited this to NCAA Division 1 schools -- basically the 300-odd schools that are eligible for March Madness -- so I missed your 800-enrollment liberal arts college in a town of 3,000. Sorry about that.
@@CityNerd I don’t know how you can make an exception for Davis which is 20 minutes from downtown Sacramento and is by nearly every measure in Sacramento’s MSA because of “farmland” but not make an exception for Madison. Sacramento’s MSA is larger than Madison’s.
You are funny as heck. Keep it up. @@CityNerd
Madison is kinda THE college town and this is coming from an Iowa fan who is sad neither Ames or Iowa City made the official list
I was toying with the idea of joining Nebula because of you and Maggie Mae Fish but I had no idea Lindsay Ellis was there too. So I guess I'm joining now. Congrats, your sale pitch worked.😁
I recall driving my car to State College as a sophomore in January and parking it in a snow-covered lot. I didn't use it for two months because I walked everywhere or used the surprisingly comprehensive bus service CATA to go to the slopes, parties, grocery shopping, whatever. When I returned to my car I found I had been parked in a fire lane and had a pile of tickets. Oops.
State College PA? If you go shopping you need a car unless you want lug groceries, and stuff everywhere.
@@MbisonBalrog When you live within walking/biking distance of a grocery store you don't "lug" stuff around. My typical grocery haul is like a 6 pack of beer and whatever I'm eating for dinner that night. I go to the store every other day or so and whatever I buy can easily fit in my bag.
@@PalmelaHanderson but you need a lot of specialty stores around. I live in NYC and still drive to the burbs for the good stuff.
@@PalmelaHanderson also I use to live in State College PA on the list. There are no grocery in the walkable areas. Only a few restaurants and useless shops. Everyone has to drive to Walmart or a big super market to get the good stuff.
@@MbisonBalrogthere are two Mcclanahans. The one on beaver ave is an actually grocery store. You don’t need to go to Walmart but it’s very inconvenient if you don’t. I use to work at that grocery store. The only thing I don’t remember them having was meats. Regardless I drove once a week to Walmart for groceries.
What ruined Oxford, Mississippi in your data is ironically the thiing you suggest people might do: move there. Oxford has become such an attraction for retirees that it consists of so many car dependent developments that it overwhelms the campus and original town square. The pre-1980s part of town is nicely walkable. Oh and they got rid of Colonel Reb about 13 years ago.
I love how everyone agrees college is the best time of their lives and college towns are great, but we make 0 effort to make the rest of society more like it (walkable, diverse, subsidized food and healthcare, plenty of outdoor common areas)
Also LFG both my alma maters on this list
It’s also because you have a lot of free time, a small community with lots of people you have a lot in common, mixed schedules. I live in a walkable neighborhood and I don’t feel any sense of community like I did in college. My neighbors aren’t my coworkers.
Oh boy! As a current college student that has been in multiple universities and known many people at them, we all reaaaaally hope that this is not the best times of our lives. Maybe it has something to do with Covid/ post-Covid but almost everyone I know is having an awful, awful time.
@@yungrichnbroke5199free time? Hah! I wish!
@@wertbe1718you'll realize after ungrad how much free time you dont have anymore lol its sad but thats the reality
@@wertbe1718you might not feel like it at the moment, but as a college student you will almost universally have WAY more “you” time compared to graduate life. I thought I was the busiest little bee in college, and now 4 years after graduating I would literally take a 25% paycut to have that same level of free/me time again. It’s crazy what you don’t notice until it’s gone.
2:50 San Luis Obispo, CA
3:44 Corvallis, OR
4:37 Charlottesville, VA
5:17 Ann Arbor, MI
5:55 Boulder, CO
7:03 Amherst, MA
7:52 Davis, CA
9:27 Honorable Mentions
10:26 Dishonorable mention
10:56 Burlington, VT
11:35 Ithaca, NY
12:07 State College, PA
goat
Dr. Bo Ring
Dr. Weirdo!
I went to school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Cornell University. I would take Urbana-Champaign over Ithaca any day.
Logan, UT
Check it out.
Having lived in 3 of the cities listed, I was shocked to see my favorite college city not listed, Madison! I'm not sure if it failed some of the early qualifications, but talk about a unique city, situated on the isthmus between two large lakes. There are bike paths everywhere and great walkability. Amazing restaurant scene, sense of identity, access to parks and wooded areas. In general I found that people who move there for school or work tend to stay there. I might be slightly biased though after living here and listening to the experiences of city planner plays(city planner in Madison). Regardless great video!
Madison did not meet his criteria of having 25% or more of the population be students.
Unfortunately I didn't get to watch the whole video because I blacked out from excitement when you mentioned Amherst. When I regained consciousness you brought up Burlington and I passed out again.
Great watch nonetheless, I will send you the medical bill.
No wonder your superflat world is so well designed.
mogswamp do you live in amherst!?!?
We need a collab for minecraft urbanism
@@bladee47 I did for about 6 years! I miss it a lot.
so wildly shocked to see mogswamp in an urban planning video comment section! heyo
The problem in general with college towns is housing. Anything within walking distance of the campus, will either be likely rundown, crowded, and noisy...or if nice it will be extremely expensive. Sure you can live further away from campus, but in most cases you then leave the more interesting parts of town and enter generic suburbs. Almost every single city on this top ten list has serious problems with housing/affordability.
College towns are an interesting beast, basically a lot of money being thrown at a small town so education, income etc. are greatly multiplied. The irony being that a lot of these places were put there originally for cheap land etc. Things might have been fine at first, but colleges tend to grow and bring in more money and subsequent spawl.
These towns will collapse when the student loan and grant programs come to an end.
@@ednorton47 That could be true. In many ways they represent "fake" economies...many college towns though are still nice.
@@ednorton47Not these! All butt a few have thrived for over a century!
It's probably been said before but I absolutely love how you detail your methodology. Really makes your videos feel intentional and truly helpful, and not like some arbitrary thing someone came up with because they felt like it.
Second this, love it
I don't know how else to do it
gut feelin'@@CityNerd
You said it in the video,@@CityNerd: vibes (please don't do this)
The addition of rail connections as a criteria really hurt Midwest college towns in this ranking. You pointed out Iowa City and it's lack of passenger rail, and the same generally holds true for just about every other college-centered town in the center of the country.
Actually, my college town, Fort Collins, Colorado (Colorado State) IS like living in Disneyland. The Disney architect who built Main Street USA was a Fort Collins native. He designed Main Street in homage to Fort Collins' charming, all-American Old Town. The resemblances are amazing!
i visited there last october and immediately started looking at home prices
I just moved out foco and really miss it
I’m glad it’s not on the list. No one else needs to move here, hahaha! Go Rams!
Will always live in the shadow of Boulder. Fort Fun has improved greatly tough...
I love Fort Collins so much. Great bus, bike, and walking routes. Old town is amazing (just did the lighting of Fort Collins on Friday). Wouldn't wanna go to school anywhere else. GO RAMS
I'm so glad Corvallis made it on the list! While the separated infrastructure is not really there, one of the biggest things I've noticed is that drivers actually pay attention to bikes on the road (yielding on a right turn, giving extra space when possible, etc). And newer road work is often reducing lane widths and adding buffered bike lanes, which is always a great thing to see.
"Americans only love the college experience because it's the only time in their lives they live in walkable communities."
- A very viral tweet that got half a million likes on Twitter.
It's part of the reason but definetly not all of it
lol that may be one of the reasons Americans like college...but it's not in the top 5 reasons for the vast majority of people.
Being around so many the same age, the parting, schooling. The first time of freedom not being around parents........ Those things are way way way above
@xtlm curious your age, I'm 36 and walkability is much higher in my list now than some or most of the others, but I also also went to an urban university and commuted, so I only got the walkable part when I was on campus for the day. I miss walking places I actually wanted to go between classes more than the partying and the actual classes.
@@hudsonja Same age. I went to the #1 on this list. I very much enjoyed being able to walk everywhere. It was neat that the town and school were right there for 2 of the 3 places I lived. The third place you had to walk up a large hill and was further away.
I also commuted to one of their satellite campuses, which was an extra hilly place where you had to park at the bottom of a large and kinda steep hill (then when you reached the top you had to go up steps) and I can't really say I enjoyed that too much outside of the exercise lol.
But I would say that the other things I stated were way more important to most students there, at the time at least. It's an extremely party centric college (and the walk-able-ness of it helps that tremendously. If kids realized that at the time IDK). I am an oddball who likes exploring, so the walking was fun for me. It was something like 5 miles a day at the min so it kept you in shape.
Though, I DO really like driving. I think it's an fun/cool thing we are allowed to do. Part of me can't believe that we are allowed to pilot around these large machines everywhere so willy nilly. It's so cool. The exploration is kinda endless. Though I miss the walking a lot, I really don't know if I would want to live in a dense environment like that full time. It's beyond great for college though.
Nice list! To everyone whining these are all in "cold states" or in California, well, that's who walks, bikes, and builds pedestrian-centric infrastructure.
Ole Miss / Oxford is an amazing college town - probably the best in the southeast. I'm not sure where the walking score comes from as I walked all over the town while earning two degrees there. The absence of any southeastern college towns on your list, except for Charlottesville, shows a notable bias but personally I would take Oxford, Athens or Auburn over any of the towns mentioned here.
Ole Miss’ school mascot hasn’t been a white plantation owner for decades. There’s also a pretty clear history on why Southern universities are lacking in public transportation / walkability, hence none of them are included in your list. Also mind you the incredible housing price / cost of living disparities that exist in New England college towns vs say any SEC school towns. Seems like a big thing to miss & don’t think it’s fair to “dunk” on a place like Oxford like that.
As an Ithacan, I would say its main limitations stem from how small it is as a city. Thinking more generally about college towns, an important factor to consider is that some universities (looking at you Cornell) don't pay hardly enough taxes. I know cost of living wasn't part of this list, but Ithaca is in the top 10 most expensive places to live according to some studies, coming above some of the Californian cities we like to make fun of. We have a housing crisis in Ithaca, yet most developments are still targeted at well-off Cornellians. All that said, it's a really nice place if you can make it work.
One thing I miss about Boulder is that almost all the bike routes are grade separated from car traffic. I remember one exception near Broadway and Baseline, but I've never felt safer biking than in Boulder.
Yep, you can really get to most areas in town with the off-street bike paths, which is not something that can be said for most cities. And Boulder is continuing to improve the on-street experience as well, with new protected lanes and intersections!
@@RobertPrestley With the one glaring exception being North Boulder, which is growing more walkable/urbanist/dense by the year but lacks a good bike connection to downtown or the larger multi-use path network.
They have put in bollards which reduces Folsom down to one lane in each direction to expand the bike lane
If you need to bike North/South, say along 30th, it can get sketchy.
Colorado in general has great bike routes. I lived in Fort Collins and I could go all over town and never actually cross the street on my bike. Or if I did it was a very small one. Most of the bike routes went under the major roads. It was wonderful. You can literally go for hundreds of miles on bike paths in Colorado. When I moved away from there, I realized how lucky I had been. Mike, Paul's, in walking paths are built into the infrastructure, every time they add a new subdivision. They connect the bike pass to it. It's a wonderful thing that people that aren't from there don't know the value of.
I’ll try and hold back the tears that Chapel Hill, NC wasn’t mentioned, but great video!
I went to undergrad in Davis and I'm not surprised to see it here at all! It's what got me into biking and found it to be a pleasant place to live in. The student-run transit system is also pretty sweet with their double-decker buses. I just wish local NIMBYs would allow the city to densify.
Go Aggies!
We are, we are. Big apartment/affordable housing complex going up at 5th and G where Hibberts Lumber used to be.
Go, Ags! Beckett Hall 1st Floor 1985
I have a home in downtown Ann Arbor and lived previously in Madison for 5 years. Having lived in both I was incredulously surprised that Madison wasn't event mentioned. That place is soo pleasant compared to anyplace else.
You must be a millionaire to be owning a home in downtown Ann Arbor. It's crazy expensive there. Maybe you bought it twenty plus years ago?
I'm surprised also...Madison is routinely listed as one of the best biking cities in the USA.
I would guess that percentage of student population was not high enough for this list
I'm pretty sure we don't hit the student percentage threshold - between the state government and a good number of private companies headquartered here, a lot of people that live in Madison aren't affiliated with the university
The only other thing I can think of is the lack of urban rail. The Amtrak goes through Columbus and Portage, and good luck getting to either of those cities. I always used coach busses instead when I was a student, they're a pretty good alternative and service Madison well
I think that because Madison is a state capitol that pretty much disqualifies it, same as Austin.
New Haven, ignored again. Trains to NYC, Boston, and Springfield. Bike lanes galore. Bike trail to Hartford. Buses all over the city. I live on the outskirts, and getting to just about everything I need is either a short walk, or a bus ride away. And that is not even mentioning the world's best pizza. People take the train from NYC to have pizza in New Haven. I know people who have taken the Amtrak from DC to have New Haven pizza.
I disagree that college towns are great. They're amazing while you're a student, but there's very few opportunities to work and live in them once you graduate. Plus, they're dead when students aren't there, which makes it hard for businesses to survive. Especially when it comes to grocery stores. My town is a college town and I live on main street, and the nearest one is 30 mins away. The mayor recognizes this problem but the school basically holds the town hostage by continually accepting new students, which means more housing is turned into student only housing, which makes it even harder to build anything for students once they graduate
Sounds like you are moving somewhere else?
This is spot on. And definitely true of State College! OMG the arguments between the town and the university. There was a street on the campus border that the school said was the towns, and the town said the school was responsible for it. That thing had potholes in it the size of swimming pools for decades! So much drama. As a high school student living there - there was virtually nothing to do. But we did bike a lot.
A video idea: What are some of the unique problems/solutions used by major cities that sit on state borders (ex. kansas city)
St. Louis, Cincinnati, and DC were a few other cities I thought of for this. You could even argue NY since the greater metropolitan area includes places like Jersey City and Newark.
This is such a good idea and I hope he does a video on it! I think City Beautiful had a video highlighting Portland, Oregon having a problem with trying to limit development on the city edge because the suburbs in Washington State didn't put the same restrictions.
Calling West Lafayette a suburb of a major metro is absolutely wild. Lafayette itself has a population of like 60k with cornfields all around and both towns pretty much blend into one another forming what is effectively one larger town. Much the same could be argued with East Lansing. Also, would have loved to see Princeton, NJ mentioned on this list.
In tribute to Coach Knight (RIP), I just threw a chair due to the omission of Bloomington, Indiana, where I learned the virtues of car-free living as an undergrad.
It’s a great town but the population of students is almost half of the entire population.
Came here hoping to see Amherst, MA and I was not disappointed! Leaving my car-dependent suburb and going to UMass Amherst was extremely eye opening for me. I literally remember the very first day on campus and we WALKED into town to get bagels. I was blown away that something like that was even possible (yes, car-dependent suburbia was all I knew). It was the first seed of urbanism that got planted in my head
Bruegger's or The Works tho? 👀👀
@@Mogswamp Breugger's! Is it still there? I haven't been back in close to a decade
@@scottfrazer4669 you bet! Although much of the surroundings are VERY different. Bunch of midrise apartments went up where the carriage shops used to be. Bit of a shame, really changed the feel of downtown. They're also marketed as luxury apartments and super overpriced. They serve mostly international students whose parents have deep pockets.
You walked from UMass to town? PVTA all the way.
I think it is for quite a lot of people who go to college (if their college is in a walkable town)!
I'm living in State College since the beginning of 2023 and I find it a great place to live. I don't have a car, and still I can go anywhere walking, biking or taking the bus. There are buses to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York. One the things I love the most here is the nature, we are surrounded by the Appalachian mountains and thick forests. It's paradise for hiking lovers like me.
PSU alum here, I loved living in State College when I was going to get my undergrad. It’s been hard to replicate the same living experience in other places I’ve lived in since then.
I am so pleased to see State College, PA as the #1 choice. I was a student at Penn State in the late 1980s-1990s. Fresh from divorce and a very poor mother of two young children, I couldn't afford a car. My little family had to rely on public transport/walking/biking to get around. And it worked! Kids to and from day care, going to classes, shopping, kid activities...the buses were so regular and the routes so well-planned that life was doable without a car.
I've lived in State College since 1990 without a car.
Everything awesome there at Penn State; just watch out for Jerry Sandusky and you'll be fine.
Joe knew all along! Who else was called "coach" at PSU? Keep the blue sunglasses and the ice cream, ill live elsewhere thanks.
@@markr385 Sad for the boys, but instructive for us if we want it to be. Who gets nailed in these situations, and by whom? Low income boys love going to big time football games, get to go for free if they please middle-class coach. People who *happen* to be employed in jobs or affiliated with charity organizations where they will be near the young often are at those places for a reason. Sometimes. I could go on.
That’s amazing. In the future I hope similar stories can be heard from more mothers in other US cities
'Sko Buffs! Happy to see Boulder featured on this channel. Can't wait to see your video all about us! :) First I want to note that the Cheesecake Factory closed 10 years ago, and the top and bottom floors of the building have been converted to an Avanti food hall. Very pleased you covered that 50% of the working population of the city commutes in every day, and that the train won't arrive until I retire. The bike paths and bike culture here are great, as a middle schooler I had the run of the city on my bike, happy times. With good paths and sunshine most days, there's good potential for e bike commuting.
Genuinely a bit surprised Champaign-Urbana didn't make the cut, I hope it was near the top ten at least! Got my undergrad in planning here and sticking around for an extra year to get a masters and i feel like i hit the jackpot for college-town urbanism, a perfect case study city that i get to learn in.
UIUC gang rise up (and my guess would be that it’s because downtown champaign/urbana are relatively disconnected from campustown)
@@jakobpopaeko6435This guys probably never been here but that is the wrong assumption to make. The heart of downtown champaign is like 0.25 miles at most away from the edge of campustown and it only feels farther because they are separated by regional rail. Urbana on the other hand, is legitimately separated by around 0.75 miles of single family houses, but urbana isn’t as big and the “downtown” is really only 20ish business now that the mall is dead. 20 years ago I think it felt more like a twin cities vibe but now it is really just campustown acting as the urban core and suburbs around that.
Considering it was 2nd place in his "Small City Urbanism" video (despite that ranking deliberately penalizing college towns), it can't have been far off. I would be interested to know where it would land on this one, and how much its ranking was affected by population and housing prices (which the small city urbanism video considered while this one didn't).
bloomington normal is better
@@lukeb.5625I think Bloomington Normal has way too many stroads to be considered “urbanist”. Like I can’t imagine living there without a car.
I might be biased, but I'm surprised Newark, DE (University of Delaware) didn't make the list. There's on Amtrak station on the Northeast Corridor; Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York are all reachable in ~2 hours or less. The central quad runs most of the campus from north-south and intersects Main Street which runs east-west, making it extremely walkable. I toured both UD and Rutgers when looking at colleges and found UD to be infinitely more pedestrian/biking friendly compared to Rutgers.
When i went to college at Penn State, i remember using the stars college bus service even for hiking. Id take one bus to Pine Grove Mills, hike up Tussey Mountain, and hike along the mountain for 10 miles before catching another bus at the ski area. Living there got me into hiking for the 1st time
Wow, not a single town in the south. Crap on Auburn, AL and Oxford, Ms though. I'll take Athens, GA, Ashville, NC, Durham, NC, and Auburn, AL over all of them just for the weather if nothing else. We're still playing golf in January down here.
Loved seeing the street view of the Chauncey Hill area of West Lafayette, IN at Purdue (my alma mater) at the 0:40 mark. Nice to the see you listed the town as honorable mention. I actually grew up in WL and it was a great place to live. I have lived in several other places over the past 25 years and I have always missed living in a college town.
As a recent Purdue grad I felt a little sense of pride seeing my old college town in his video lol, it also made me feel nostalgic and miss college a little bit haha
State College turned me into an urbanist. I loved walking everywhere -- I didn't even bother to have a bike, walking was just so practical.
Growing up, I used to wish I could bike to school. But walking was just so practical, dealing with a bike would've been more of a hassle!
This was in suburban Stockholm. Having experienced that, it always confuses me why so many American parents think driving their kids everywhere until they're 16 is ideal.
Same I had a motorcycle that I used from time to time when in a hurry but I walked 95% of the time when going anywhere on campus
I’m surprised Eugene did not make the Top 10! Curious to know where it fits into the ranking. Keep these great videos coming! Thanks!
Eugene is too big of a city to make the list. His definition of "college town" is cities where the enrollment is >25% of the population. U of O has an enrollment of 23k and Eugene has a population of about 180k, which would make it about 13% (or 6% of you include the whole Eugene metro area). It does hurt, though, seeing OSU on the list... 😂
That makes sense. I didn’t realize Eugene was such a big metro area. I’ve only spent short periods of time there, but it is a great college town with bike and running trails all over the place.
Came here to say this, I agree Eugene is a great college town, but I guess it's too big for the video's criteria.
Eugene is the best!
@dgbrownnt Totally bias towards Eugene but you hot a point, haha 😅.
UC Davis alumnus represent, glad to see the ranking. Davis is one of the few cities where stealing bikes is the equivalent of a grand theft auto. One more thing about its transit, there is a bus line, although exclusive to UC Davis/UC Berkeley students and faculty and runs like twice a day, between those 2 UC campuses, which then connects up w/ the rest of the bay area transit
They have significantly increased the bus coverage, with like 20 bus lines
i don't want to be mean, but that is not how the bus system works here. anyone can use them, it costs a couple dollars, and they normally run every 30-60 min throughout the day. honestly though davis is one of the best and nicest looking cities when it comes to public transit and walkability, and yes i am saying that because i grew up here
Unitrans is free to students, employees, and faculty but anyone can ride it if you pay a fare
The frequency of Unitrans could be better for sure. I remember the bus from Greystone apartments (where I lived) was always packed. It wouldn't hurt for service to be extended an hour or two later since there are some clubs on campus that can go pretty late.
@@anna.lullaby Downtown Davis is great but could probably stand to have some car-free areas imo
State College really is the best town in the country. It has everything you need: public transportation, clean, low crime, and most importantly it's affordable.
When I lived there in the early 90's it was a cultural wasteland. For a college town it had the worse music scene imaginable. No food worth mentioning. No diversity. And I can't imagine not having a car because sure you can survive in town but you can never leave as the closest way out would be the Amtrak station 60-90 minutes away by car. If you are happy living in an extremely boring place then I guess it will be Happy Valley for you. To be fair 6 months out of the year there was some outdoor activities available in the surrounding area (as long as you have a car). Full disclosure - city dweller that hasn't owned a car for close to 30 years.
Well, sorta low crime. Remember Jerry Sandusky? Hmmm?
@@tarico4436 Be alert when taking a shower.
@@ednorton47 Yeah, and don't be an eleven year old boy.
@@medlocrf7289 Yeah, I agree. I don't live there, but I've worked there for 8+ years, and I am totally unimpressed. The type of culture I look for in a college town is very limited. The music scene is still very limited. With a college population this large, there should be a handful of good music venues serving dozens of local bands. There really isn't even a good place to buy used records and CDs. What college culture exists is very mainstream, mostly aimed at frats, sororities, and sports fans (which is fine -- I like sports, too -- but that shouldn't be the primary thing to do in a college town).
I can see why it ranked highly here, because State College does have a lot of bike trails and areas for hiking, which seemed to be big in this analysis.
As one such resident who commutes to Boulder for work, I just wanna add that the "Fine Restaurant" on Pearl Street closed down quite some time ago! I never even knew it existed!
I’m so glad that you put “fine restaurant” in quotation marks, LOL. Boulder has been called “the foodiest town in America” by Bon Appétit and has so much better to offer.
Elsewhere someone said it closed down 10 years ago!
Great video! My great great grandma was killed in a horse & buggy accident on pearl street in Boulder ages ago, so I much prefer the current pedestrianized pearl street. I'd love to see a video about urban growth boundaries and greenbelts, and how to do them well
As a Mississippi State alum, it was satisfying to see you dunk on Oxford, MS, although I’m not confident Starkville fares much better. I will say they retired Colonel Reb over a decade ago, but they still call themselves the Rebels. Insidious stuff. Your note about “dunking on this poor state” was appreciated and I just want to say, so many people from out of state of all races attend our state universities and have amazing experiences. Jackson State is an HBCU with students from all over the country who are proud to make it their alma mater. And not to mention international students who call Mississippi their first home in the U.S. College in Mississippi was a sweet and special time for me and I’m glad to see at least a piece of that conversation make it on this list.
CityNerd said that he lived in Las Vegas, which has the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels, so he shouldn’t hold that against anyone. As for diversity, the cities on his list average below 5% African-American population, while Oxford is at 22%.
@@rogerblakely8462Yes but Mississippi is ~38% Black so for the state that demographic is actually underrepresented. It’s mainly because we have prominent public HBCUs in MS, though.
I'm surprised Madison wasn't mentioned. It's a neat little city...it's on an isthmus and somewhat dense for its size. It has a high percentage of white collar workers and those with higher education degrees. There are many independently owned shops/restaurants with creative cuisine options (independent to franchise restaurant ratio is likely among the highest in the country). Very wooded, tons of parks, nice lakes, terrific rails-to-trails bike paths, and there are future plans to connect to to Milwaukee/Chicago via the Hiawatha with perhaps a train stop by the campus. It's also a planned city with a somewhat unique (for Wisconsin) radial layout around the capitol.
Agree very much, but I had to go look it up and the population is too high vs the college enrollment. Such a great little city. Rates high for young professionals too.
@@kimck10 UW-Madison has an enrollment of 49k. Madison itself has a population of 269k. That a ratio of 1-5...and pretty high.
@@kimck10yeah but it's in Indiana...
Housing is rising at among the fastest in the country. I am being forced to move at the end of my current term for "renovations" so that the landlord will increase rent by approximately 25%. That could also be a reason.
I biked passed a "Madison, WI Population: XX" sign and it's as high as 282,000 people now! I think we have graduated into "not just a college town" and you can tell in the summers when Downtown doesn't just die. We also have the third highest bike % for cities over 250k so we probably would have placed well
I remember visiting back to my university town and the issue with living there is once you leave you realize how much of it really _is_ based on the school. Even one year after graduation I remember hearing every conversation on the buses or in the restaurants about the next class, the upcoming test, the professors. And while I was still fresh enough to know all those topics there was very much a disconnect being a proper working adult. Maybe this is fine to some people but for me it killed the remaining ideas I had of living there full time (the cost of living killed most of it in all fairness).
I just had to comment as someone who just returned from Oxford UK and went to ole Miss in Oxford Mississippi. Oxford Mississippi is actually pretty walkable around the the square it also has a good cultural and artistic feel. The problem is its very hard to go in and out of Oxford without a car because as far as I know there's no trains or buses in and out. Oxford MS isn't Oxford UK but it's a very nice college town and I have definitely seen worse.
I suspect this is a desk exercise and he hasn't really visited many of these places. I also suspect when you name your town "Oxford" in 1830 it is aspirational (you know, like Utica) and not really hubris*. Also, the U of Miss hasn't had that mascot in 13 years. one can even read that in his cut and paste. Seemed like a free shot.
*Also could have simply been a guy from Oxfordshire naming the place from where he came from like many cities and towns in the US.
@@TheJhtlag yes 100 percent you can't just look at statistics briefly or just throw out an old mascot to have a conclusion about the place.
Yep, he doesn't need to go there for any reason. I like Ole Miss just the way it is.@@TheJhtlag
@@starkeymorgan4142 Yep, didn't need to go there for any reason. I'm also finding it highly unlikely he's ever "dunked" on anyone unless it was with a donut. I'm sure a lot of these places are nice but now that we've seen the hidden side of his "methodology" why would I trust his opinions?.
Faulkner attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS. That's William Faulkner, our greatest writer.
I just moved to Ithaca to work for the city's planning department! Incredibly walkable and good urbanism overall.
Awesome!
Sure, go help the smart kids!😀
Planning student at Cornell, would love to see u around!
Freshman here as well 🤚
Is no one going to mention Ithaca's infamous catch phrase? I once saw a dude on the UC Davis campus wearing an Ithaca t-shirt with said phrase.
I live in State College and it is great in a lot of ways but I was shocked to see it ranked above all those other awesome towns! It's easy to have critiques of the place you live but honestly my heart skipped a beat when you revealed #1
Yeah, the higher up the list he went the more I thought State College might not've made the cut. It was a nice surprise.
same and then i saw the birds eye shot and i was like "holy crap is that the hub?"
I feel that... I've lived in state college since age 2 and I was expecting us to come in at 5 or 6 or so. but nope. I don't know why but I had the same little stomach-butterfly feeling of hometown pride when he said we were tops
I was really surprised at State College getting ranked that high. The downtown is already 20% parking lot, with low occupancy on non-football weekends, and it took public outcry for the city to stop a project to demolish a brewery and a few other downtown buildings and put up a parking garage. Atherton is an un-bikeable scar on the city that kids can't safely cross on their own. After you get out of the downtown and the residential areas immediately around it, it turns into suburbland. I think we should convert two lanes of Atherton, and one lane of Beaver and College into human spaces instead of carland, and replace cars and public car-storage facilities with biking lanes, spaces for cafe and restaurant seating and public hangout space.
A cousin of mine graduated from Penn State in 1973 and decided to retire to State College with his wife. SC is on the list of college towns where lots of grads take shit jobs just so they can soak in the college vibe for a while longer. Ann Arbor is another such, as are, I would suppose, most of the other towns on this list.
As a UMass alum, one thing that was missed in the video was how good the PVTA (BRT) and bike infrastructure are. There's a off-street bike path between Amherst and Northampton (home of Smith College) and neighboring Easthampton. Tons of bike lanes in each town as well.
100%. I rode my bike everywhere, and if there wasn't a good path you could just throw your bike on the front of a bus and hop on for a few stops until the trails picked up again
@@Mogswampnice minecraft channel!
glad you enjoy ray’s (citynerd’s) stuff!
Loved the Norwottuck Rail Trail when I was a graduate student there. 👍🏻
Dang, would've been cool to cover that. I'm always struggling with how much time to spend on each city, it can get unwieldy!
@@CityNerd The nice thing about your videos is that you can just look into the comment section to find out more about the stuff you cover :)
I loved my time at UC Davis, and I definitely miss the biking. Only problem now is that housing costs have begun to increase because of local restrictions on development. Hope they get that sorted too, especially as the university continues to expand
I grew up in Ann Arbor and graduated class of 2000. In the 90s it was an amazing place to grow up. The city has evolved from educating everyone being the core community value to the education economy serving the upperclass being the core community value. The difference is in the 90's you could be middle class and thrive in Ann Arbor and today the Ann Arbor middle class is an afterthought. Profits from educating teenagers and young adults from upper class out of state communities trumps the actual education of Ann Arbor residents.
Yep, so many people getting priced out of living in A2 too
8:32 A video about how Davis became so bicycle friendly would be a great example for other towns.
Its bicycle friendliness is rather nuanced. See my comment above.
@@TheObimara Davis certainly has a way to go to match the Netherlands. It’s also somewhat isolated even though it is close to Sacramento.
In a way it's three cycling worlds layered on top of each other:
1) Perhaps 15 to 30% up to 9th grade then going down by half once kids have cars, or can go in the cars of friends to the free parking at high school.
2) A range of about 20 to 40% of all members of the campus community who get to UCD by bike, but really mostly from closer parts of the city, and many have cars which they use when they have free parking at destinations in the city and in the region
3) About 3 to 6% mode share from non-university associated adults for commuting to jobs in town, shopping and social activities and some school runs and combined trips with Amtrak.
@@TheObimara Do students really have money for cars, car insurance, gas, etc.? The reality is that most people in Davis can live without a car, especially compared to other places in the country.
We're discussing and interpreting statistics here, not looking at potential....
But a lot of student apartment complexes have parking lots completely full of cars, and nearby streets completely full of their cars.... Including on-campus housing.
While there are some discounts for long distance bus trips to the Bay Area, Amtrak service is quite limited, doesn't run late (It's useless for Night time events in Sac) and standard pricing is quite high.
Car ownership and access is so high in town that there's no car share cars available east of Pole Line/Lillard.
I live in Athens, Ohio - it's so great that I decided to stay after graduation. If accounting for cost of living I'm sure it would've been high up on this list.
duuuuude, I was hoping for this mention. I went to Wright State Uni, my brother went to OU, and I LOVE ATHENS. It's a cool lil spot. But yea, most small towns with a large Uni has a great vibe to it. Very different from most of suburbia which is dead and can be creepy.
I have been to Santa Cruz, Corvallis, Davis and Burlington and I enjoyed them so much. I would love to visit the other 6 on your list as well, but the greatest difficulty is that many beautiful college towns in America lack train connections to large urban centers.
Sorry I meant San Luis Obispo (but I have been to Santa Cruz as well, and I'm surprised it didn't make it on the list)
Do you have any favorites? I need somewhere warm with good medical facilities.
Yes! Exactly! Me too!
@@areader2253 I love Santa Cruz, but outside of the area immediately surrounding Pacific Ave, its all pretty low density, and the actual campus is very much not integrated with the rest of town.
It definitely has college town vibes, but an urbanist's dream, it is not.
Yes, bring passenger train back to the US!!!
Hoboken isn’t so dense, it’s just that nearly all the space is dedicated to residential. All the office space is in Manhattan or Jersey City.
Reread your first two sentences. What do you think the definition of density is?
Nice to see my former town State College and current town Hoboken getting some love. One way streets are the answer, folks!
I'm a fan of one way streets if they're done right. I talk about it in my video on Portland. Thanks!
Sadly (not sadly) the Boulder Cheesecake Factory has gone out of business. It’s been replaced by a multi floor restaurant with four different food style options and rooftop dining with views of the flatirons.
Came here to say this!
I'm new faculty at Penn State. Could afford a house a mile from my job. I walk and bike everywhere, and life kicks ass
Moved to State College from Des Plaines (just outside Chicago city limits on a Metra line). I bike everyday to and from daycare, work, and swim lessons. Almost all our weekend activities are accessible by bike. The bike infrastructure isn't fantastic, but there are so many people riding bikes that outside of 6 weekends year, drivers are expecting bikes on the road.
I recognized that street view at 0:41 seconds so fast…Boiler Up! (Sad West Lafayette got disqualified though)
Amherst! It's great because while it's a college town, it's a network of 5 colleges in the area. Most students don't need a car. UMass Amherst itself is huge and has buses running all the time around the campus. Bike racks are everything and buses have racks too if you don't want to ride up the hills.
The transit org for the area gives free rides to students, so you can hop on a bus to get into the little Amherst down"town" area (it's small but has most things you need), a bus to the mall/walmart targets, or all the way to Northhampton where you walk to get everyone on the main streets there.
10. San Luis Obispo, CA
9. Corvallis, OR
8. Charlottesville, VA
7. Ann Arbor, MI
6. Boulder, CO
5. Amherst, MA
4. Davis, CA
3. Burlington, VT
2. Ithaca, NY
1. State College, PA
I know you are trying to be helpful, but Ray has mentioned before that he doesn’t appreciate spoilers.
@pryvexx I get it. It’s also nice to have a reference, but if you like these videos you can help support them by watching the whole video. The creator gets paid based on views.
I’ll just have to watch it twice from now on.😀
It was wild seeing Von's and state street near the start of the vid. Purdue in West Lafayette was my first experience of walkable living. I hope they improve Chauncey Hill and eastward, since most of it's car-dependent development and parking lots
Oxford, Mississippi is a wonderful little town.
Amherst connectivity to regional transit is really good because of the norwottuck rail trail! It starts right in the UMass campus and goes straight past the Amtrak station and into the downtown of Northampton. 9 miles of beautiful tree lined bike path.
I was at UMass from '86-'90 so missed out on this trail. It apparently opened in '93. That would have been awesome. I biked around campus and into Amherst but took the bus when going to Northampton.
I grew up in Ann Arbor. Great city. The move towards more walkability downtown after the start of the pandemic has been really great. And you can't beat the feel of Kerrytown. It's only struggle is affordable housing because everybody in southeast michigan wants to live there.
Hey, thanks for talking about Corvallis! I’ve lived here for two years to go to Oregon State. It’s pretty weird how many people bike here with almost no high quality infrustructure except on campus, but I think you’re right about it going to show how much culture and public attitude can do to change the reality of biking
I'm surprised Eugene didn't also make the list!
@@loganpage1542 yeah me too… I think Corvallis made it higher because it has small-town advantage. Most places are pretty close to each other so there’s naturally more biking and walking
@@davidn2612true. I’ve been told Eugene is the Oregon equivalent of San Bernardino, CA
My mother used to say that the closest thing to heaven was a New England college town. Lucky for her, she got to spend the last years of her life in Hanover, New Hampshire. That's where Dartmouth is. An especially pretty town. What's more, the Upper Connecticut River Valley, where it's located, has tons of pretty towns, so she was not just limited to one place.
I went through Dartmouth on a work trip at least 20 years ago. I still remember it being gorgeous! Some small part of that might have been the autumn leaves, but still...
@@charlienyc1 Trust me, it's gorgeous at other times of the year, as well. The only less-than-beautiful season is spring, as that's mostly characterized by black flies and mud (as is true for a lot of northern climes).
@@gerberjoanne266 Sounds like Vermont! I'm from upstate NY, so New England-adjacent 😆
I love Hanover, and not too far away are Burlington, Brattleboro, and the various MA college towns. New England is full of good colleges, beautiful fall weather, and nice people. I lived out there on my own for 15 years, and I'd move back if I had more family within a day's drive. It's hard only seeing family once or twice a year, and it's hard to justify the environmental impact of air travel.
That's because New England college towns are like 99% white. If your mom considers that heaven, well... I get it
I really enjoy your videos, as they scratch one of my specific nerdy itches, haha :) I live near Ann Arbor but I'm from just outside of SLO & really enjoy both cities. As a disabled person who uses a variety of mobility aids, no city is accessible enough, & that includes cities considered very bikeable or walkable by able-bodied folks. I'd love to hear what accessibility is like in the cities specifically considered most livable/walkable/well designed; I have yet to find a US city as accessible as some I've been fortunate to visit abroad.
Wohoo, San Luis Obispo!! I had so hoped it would pop up in one of your videos once. Hilarious how you pronounce the name tho haha but everyone usually only says SLO haha.
I was an exchange student at Calpoly for a year and absolutely loved it. Walked and biked everywhere, of course due to year-round perfect weather.
I never thought I’d see the day when Auburn is used as the poster child for “good football team” or “party school”, much less both.
An important detail you skipped about Burlington, VT is that there's a 30 minute public bus ride (Bus 2) between downtown Burlington and the Amtrak Vermonter stop in Essex Junction. And they made all buses free during the pandemic and keep extending it, so that ride is still free now.
I'm at UVM for grad school, I would have liked to live in downtown Burlington, but the housing situation is pretty bad (demand increasing way faster than supply). It took me almost 3 months to find a place to live, but ended up in Essex Junction, so it turned out not too bad.
The Amtrak Ethan Allen Express which departs from the waterfront Burlington Union Station is usually the better choice and faster to get to New York City. That said, the Vermonter is useful for Connecticut and western Mass trips.
@@NoTimeForNoodles True! Honestly I haven't used either one.
@@Shako_LambWould recommend! Super comfortable, calming, and a great way to avoid the stress and costs of flying.
I stayed in Essex Junction this past Summer for four nights. It certainly has its conveniences relative to Burlington and the affordability certainly helps.
@@kenctravels As far as housing goes it isn't affordable by a long shot, but it's pleasant and it's easy to get into Burlington for sure.
The funny thing about Corvallis that often gets overlooked is its neighbor Albany. It's not a college town, but being right next door it's kind of Corvallis's more affordable twin. The urbanism there is just about as top-notch for some of the cheaper rents in the Willamette Valley!
Highly recommend taking a look at the town for anyone that's considered moving to Oregon.
Now that Albany doesn’t smell so much, perhaps yes.
Is there regular bus service to Corvallis?
I don't think Albany has good design at all. The busses are sporadic and the gaps of time between stops is too long. It's not uncommon for me to get calls to from family/friends to go pick them up because their bus never came lol. It takes less time for me to walk from the mall to the park & ride in North Albany than it does to take the bus the same distance. Rent is cheaper (I pay $1400 for my apartment) , but it's still absurd for the area income. Albany is only worth it because it's close to CV which has stuff to do, but isn't as expensive. Riding your bike in Albany is also outright mortifying.
@@PCSPounder There's a very small park & ride in North Albany that connects to HP a few times a day.
As a non-USian, college towns really fascinate me as they don’t really exist where I’m from. I’d love to visit one and see what the vibe is like. You’ve given me a good list to start with ✌️
same - in Australia many universities are right in the centre of big cities, they're not separate. I live in Sydney Australia, continued living with parents all throughout undergrand since several of the country's best universities were within an hour's commute on public transport. Most students lived at home or in shared housing in the city, stayed friends with high school friends who often live close by.
@@thebluest_blue1145 I did college in the US and met many Australians. For the average person, the Australian way is much better. College housing costs in the US run into thousands of dollars a year, and there is not much to do in the vast majority of US college towns.
@@lord_of_love_and_thunder Housing is expensive here too, around 200aud for the average shared housing (part of why many live at home). Being in the big city definitely has advantages though, my friends and I saw amazing shows at the Sydney Opera House with Opera Australia's $35 student rush tickets.
Most US college towns are not big, you have to go to the big and nice ones. And trust me there will be a lot to do
Part of the "vibe" is that's where lots of money ends up, so you have what might have been an otherwise prosaic town with lots of nice restaurants, entertainment, shows coming through, eg, rock, jazz classical and lots of educated people with educated hobbies and things to do and of course, lots of young people doing young people things. One might contend it has gotten a little bit beyond just educating students.
I just love your stuff. Opposed to other urban design channels, yours feel like sitting down and listening in to a conversation. You walk us through so well!
Big fan of your channel AND alum of The University of Mississippi here. Our mascot isn’t Colonel Reb he’s a racist relic based on a Black man actually. And while that’s problematic we are the Landsharks. Our slogan is Fins Up. Just to clarify.
I’m also a former employee as well so I get how confusing the messaging can be coming out of the university.
Follow up video: top 10 most sprawling universities of the South
I’m from Chico, CA which is definitely a college town- a little progressive oasis amidst a very rural area in Northern California. I lived there since I was 5 and got my bachelors and masters degree at CSU, Chico. I think it was quite good for walkers, bikers, and transit- enough so that I subsisted on biking or bussing everywhere I needed to go and didn’t get my drivers license until after I got my Masters degree and started working outside of Chico. I think it at least deserves an honorable mention.
Fellow Chico State grad here and totally agree! I grew up in Paradise, and moving to Chico for college was life changing. It was the first place I realized life was possible without owning a car. Definitely honorable mention worthy.
Yes, I grew up in Chico and I agree. Part of the urbanist charm is that the campus sits right next to downtown and unlike so many small downtowns, it's still a thriving center of social and economic activity for the community. I think it gets a bad rap as a "party" school, and certain that still seems to be the case, but that is just a small part. Right now I really wish I was finishing class and heading to Celestino's for a slice :D
My school made your list, but I agree with these three other folks in this thread (so far), you should have a least given Chico State an honorable mention. I mean, c'mon, they got Bidwell Park.
@@nplus1watches35 Bidwell Park itself is reason Chico should be featured on this channel. I’m genuinely surprised that this wasn’t the video where I saw Chico finally show up.
@@metromlv this comment resonates so deeply with me. I spent a lot of time in the art department right across the street from Celestino’s so I would go there at least twice a week between classes. That’s about how often I still think about Celestino’s 😂 and that is literally a block away from the transit center
I figured Ann Arbor would be on this list, and am glad it is. If it weren't for the cost of living, it'd be my ideal place to live in the US.
Except for the weather
@@wildrice8199 I like colder weather!
@@wildrice8199 the weather is wonderful here, we don't get any of the crazy lake effect snow here. Doesn't get too hot, and there are amazing lakes all over the state and surrounding the state. I will take the "cold" lmao.
@@davik9003 I lived there for 4 years and in Michigan for 30. It was always too cold for me, even in the summer. There's no such thing as "too hot" for me. But glad other people like it. It's a great city otherwise.
@@davik9003I grew up in Grand Rapids (in the snow belt of Lake Michigan.) I attended grad school in Ann Arbor and was surprised how relatively little snow AA received the two winters I was there, compared to GR. AA received even less snow, overall, than East Lansing.
At 22 my boyfriend and I left Boston MA. and followed a friend to Northfield MN. This two college town impacted my life in ways I’m still feeling today. I’m back in MA now, but I lived there for 8 years, my kids were born there, and I still keep in touch with friends and check in on city politics.
It was the perfect place for me at that time in my life. A young kid just striking out in the world, who wasn’t going to college but was a sponge for learning. That mix of locals and college students, used book stores, and conversational pubs, was a perfect mix and I loved living there.
Cheesecake Factory is unnatural. You shouldn’t be able to have that many items on a menu without being a buffet. Convinced it’s ran by aliens from Mars.
Burlington native here, none of this is a surprise except I'm interested in how Davis, CA embraced bikes as serious transportation in *the '60s* when they were at peak being-considered-children's-toys.
Hippies?
tldr version to my understanding is that a few UC Davis professors who had been to the Netherlands got elected to city council and then tried to emulate some of what they saw there
What happened to Champaign-Urbana? They've usually been top or near-top on your transit lists; plus, trains to Chicago at their bus station.
He mentioned in another comment that it came in at number 16 on this list, and that its bike mode share was very low, which dragged it down the list a bit.
Awesome to see Corvallis represented in this list! People often site Eugene as the best college town in Oregon but I always thought that had more to do with them having a more relevant football team. Corvallis is such a charming college town that is so easily to walk and bike around.
Based on our dear nerd’s criteria, I believe UO has too few students for the size of the Eugene/Springfield metropolis. More interesting… the campus has kind of scraped at the edges for more space, and they’ve finally gotten around to replacing 1960s-era dorm buildings, but given the chance to build up rather than out, the only thing on the campus that has attained some sort of height is the observation tower over Hayward Field that looks like a spliff.
I blame Phil Knight.
Still, go Ducks!
The guy wearing the UW coat is absolutely not giving Eugene any love. 😂
@@henneds If you just came here for the college banter, I know, I know. Silly Fuskies and their ability to whine like malamutes do can be an issue at times.
I’ll also put it this way… my father was the city engineer in Portland when the first light rail line was designed and eventually constructed. I have an affinity to the broader subject matter here that overrides the other stuff.
It is the best college town in terms of walk and bikeability. Eugene has only been increasing bike accessibility including carving out busy streets to have dedicated, protected bike lanes.
Is the population difference the only reason Eugene, OR was left off the list? Because, Corvallis AND Boulder?? Geeez.
You mentioned my favorite college town. I absolutely love State College, PA. What an amazing town...at least it was when I lived in Pennsylvania 24 years ago. I have fond memories of visiting the nuclear reactor there, exploring various buildings on campus, and some absolutely incredible coffee shops and incredible used book stores. What a wonderful downtown!
Hopefully that's still true. I always used to enjoy the trip there: I lived in a rural part of the state to the north. I had an amazing drive to get there through wonderful mountain scenery and forest. Now that I live in North Dakota (another story) I really do miss that!
One of my favorites on the way was the town of Bellefonte: one of the most beautiful small towns I've ever seen.
Fitting that my residence of Auburn is the picture for a college town that won’t even come close to this list.
I love Auburn but it’s entirely car dependent. Wide streets, no public transit for those not attending the university, hardly any bike lanes, and suburban development outside of downtown.
Auburn has made strides to densify their downtown and areas around campus, but outside of that it’s pretty grim and the future doesn’t look too bright
Out of curiosity, what parameters excluded Princeton from the list? they have their own train shittle to connect to NE Corridor right into the campus
Probably because Princeton is technically a suburb. But Princeton is an awesome town and I love going there, so I'm with you there.
@@bonecanoe86a suburb of what? It’s pretty far from both NYC and Philly, and the town’s identity is pretty tied to the university in the same way any of the other towns on the list are
@@bonecanoe86and Davis is arguably more of a Sacramento suburb (only 15 miles away) than Princeton is to NYC or Philly
I go to Rutgers - New Brunswick but have been to Princeton and the University three times in the last six months and was surprised it wasn’t at least an honorable mention either. Great for walkability and bike-ability, about an hour each way from Philadelphia or New York and it definitely has its own distinct feel, similar to New Brunswick in that way. You would have no way of knowing two of the country’s major cities are nearby. The thing you are forgetting is that Princeton is a large commuter town to both New York and Philadelphia, although I don’t see that knocking it for this list any more than Davis as you mentioned or some others.
@jfmezei ^
Shout out to Morgantown WV. Any distance is walkable when you’re blitzed on penny pitchers of natural light
Great video, as always. New Jersey property taxes can hurt, but New Brunswick can put you in Manhattan in like 45 minutes via train, which is pretty awesome.
Penn State is a total college town, but in middle of nowhere and difficult to get there from about anywhere. Most of the BIG Ten schools are very walkable, have transit access and no need for cars (at least the current BIG)
2:50 San Luis Obispo, CA
3:44 Corvallis, OR
4:36 Charlottesville, VA
5:17 Ann Arbor, MI
5:54 Boulder, CO
7:02 Amherst, MA
7:52 Davis, CA
10:54 Burlington, VT
11:35 Ithica, NY
12:05 State College, PA
Thank you!!! 🎉❤
As someone in the upper Midwest, there’s a handful of college towns in Minnesota and Wisconsin that I often revisit the idea of moving to for reasons very similar to the criteria you used here (with the addition of affordability): La Crosse, Eau Claire, Wausau, Oshkosh (all in Wisconsin) as well as Mankato, Winona or St Cloud (in Minnesota.) Also Iowa City which you mentioned.
Just thinking out loud, but how is biking in the snow?
@@toughbutsweet1 Fat bikes are used in the winter. Pretty easy.
And I’d add Northfield, MN, home of both Carleton and St. Olaf (Go Oles!) to the list of fantastic college towns in the wonderful Gopher State.
@@richardfriedman600 I’ve actually lived there, it’s a beautiful town! It checks a lot of the same boxes, and has some surprisingly cheap apartments (probably due to the colleges being there) though housing prices seem to be going out of control. You can definitely tell you’re dealing with two very prestigious, rich, nerdy private colleges though, for better or worse (you get an unusual amount of artisan type shops, yet not much of a bar scene, and some of the conversations you’ll overhear…ugh. But probably better than being surrounded by drunk meat heads everywhere)
The ONLY midwest town on this top ten list was Ann Arbor...and that is a decent sized city on its own right and properly considered part of the Detroit Metro area (Penn State != Midwest). The midwest was ridiculously overlooked in this top ten list.
State College native here! Nice to see my hometown recognized for its merits (for once). I wish it had passenger rail -- the closest Amtrak station is Lewistown, PA, with one train per day each way -- but it was once served by a short line called the Bellefonte Central. There was one train per day, taking 90 minutes to get to Bellefonte, the county seat 10 miles away. Not exactly high speed or high frequency...
I almost accepted a job in the Davis area before realizing my wages would only BARELY cover the cost of renting a tiny studio lol. Oh what could have been.... 😅
Did you forget about Chapel Hill, Nc? That’s like the best one to me😅 Bloomington, IN as well.
Yea Chapel Hill is nice
Came here hoping for SLO and Amherst and was not disappointed. I spent two years of undergrad at UMass and ended up in SLO for four years in my twenties. One of the things that struck me most about SLO was how easy it was to exist without a car, which kind of subverted my expectations given what I knew at the time about California as a whole. Between the general walkability and the coverage of the bus system, I was able to get essentially anywhere I needed in town without a problem.
Also very surprised New Haven didn’t make the list. The walkability is certainly confined to certain neighborhoods but they make up a sizable portion of the area surrounding downtown.
I love seeing Ithaca come in so highly on this list, but please don't forget it is also the home of Ithaca College in addition to Cornell University. I know Cornell is 4x the size of IC by student population, but we still exist!
Waiting for the Amtrak Iowa city expansion from Chicago. Having family in iowa city while being car free is awful and my options are Greyhound busses which are always packed full. There’s very much demand!
I wish they’d also run local rail up to CR and Waterloo to reduce dependence on I-380 for moving between those places as traffic is a nightmare especially between CR and IC
Will probably never happen.
Because you're dealing with Illinois.
Ii live in Illinois.
It's probably the most screwed up state in America
@@RobertDetert Illinois is good about building railroads. Iowa is the bigger concern here.
The City of Berkeley as a whole isn’t much of a college town other than Southside