The American College Town Author(S): Blake Gumprecht Source: Geographical Review, Vol

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The American College Town Author(s): Blake Gumprecht Source: Geographical Review, Vol. 93, No. 1 (Jan., 2003), pp. 51-80 Published by: American Geographical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30033889 Accessed: 12/03/2010 05:09

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http://www.jstor.org THE AMERICANCOLLEGE TOWN*

BLAKEGUMPRECHT

ABSTRACT.With their unusual densities of youngpeople, highly educated workforces, com- parativelycosmopolitan populations, dominant institutions of highereducation, and char- acteristiclandscapes such as the campus, fraternity row, and college-oriented shopping district, collegetowns represent a uniquetype of urbanplace. This study identifies several basic differ- encesbetween college towns and othertypes of cities,considers why the collegetown is largelyan Americanphenomenon, distinguishes among types of collegetowns, and exam- ines some of the characteristicsthat make them distinctive.Keywords: college towns, higher education,United States, urban geography.

The literarycritic Henry Seidel Canbyonce wrote, "Surelyit is amazingthat nei- ther history,nor sociology,nor fiction, has given more than passingattention to the American college town, for surely it has had a characterand a personalityunlike other towns"(1936, 3). Nearlyfour decadeslater, Wilbur Zelinsky observed that the social and culturalgeography of college communities is "almosttotally terraincog- nita"(1973,136). Indeed, no majorstudy of the college town has yet been published, despite the prominent image such towns have in Americanculture and the important role they have playedin the lives of many Americans.' In essence, the hundredsof college towns in the United Statesare an academic archipelago:Similar to one another,they differin severalimportant ways from other cities and the regions in which they are located.They are alikein their youthful and comparativelydiverse populations, their highly educatedworkforces, their relative absenceof heavyindustry, and the presencein them of culturalopportunities more typical of largecities. The attributesof the institutionslocated in college towns and the people who live in them, furthermore,breed unusual landscapes-the campus, fraternityrow, the college-orientedshopping district (Figure1), the student ghetto, and more. This study fills a gap in the literatureby presenting a concise portrait of the college town in the United States.My goal is to demonstratethat the collegetown is a unique type of urban place and thus deservesin-depth considerationby scholars and others who are interestedin the Americanexperience.

DEFINING THE COLLEGETOWN Thisstudy considers as a collegetown any city where a collegeor university and the culturesit createsexert a dominantinfluence over the character of thecommunity. Thisdefinition is deliberatelyimprecise because there is nota cleardistinction be- tweena collegetown and a citythat is merelyhome to a college.They vary along a

* Theauthor thanks John Hudson, Jo Lenardi, Peirce Lewis, John Lofland, Dave McBride, Bret Wallach, and Wilbur Zelinksy,and the GrahamFoundation, which provided funding. *. DR. GUMPRECHTis an assistant professor of geography at the Universityof New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire 03824.

TheGeographical Review 93 (1): 51-80, January2003 Copyrightc 2004 bythe American Geographical Society of NewYork 52 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG. 1-College Inn, on the Corner in Charlottesville,Virginia, where town and gown intertwine. (Photographby the author,January 2003) continuum. In this study I focus on towns in which institutionsof higher education are clearlydominant. I will not discuss cities such as Austin, Texas,which possess major universitiesbut are also state capitals,or universitycommunities like Tempe, Arizona,which are part of major metropolitan areas,because the socioeconomic diversityof such placesdilutes the influenceof a collegiateculture.2 Although Aus- tin and Tempepossess some of the attributesof college towns, particularlyin areas closest to campus,what makesthe college town as envisionedby this study different is that the impact of a collegiateculture is more concentratedand conspicuous. In towns like Ithaca,New York,and Manhattan,Kansas, colleges and theirpeople shape the urban personality. To gaugea college'sinfluence on a town, I consideredmy firsthandknowledge of numerouscollege towns and askedquestions about hundredsof cities with colleges and universitiesthat can be answeredstatistically: Is the collegethe largestemployer in town?What is the enrollmentof the college,compared with the populationof the city?What percentageof the labor force works in educationaloccupations? Using these and otherindicators, published sources about cities with colleges,and personalexperience, I chose 59 towns for closer study (Figure2). The study towns rangein sizefrom Eugene, Oregon, with a 2000population of 137,893,to PrincessAnne, Maryland,with a populationof 2,313.In 2000, in all but two towns, college students made up at least 20 percentof the population,perhaps the most basicbarometer of a college'sinfluence. I chose cities from all partsof the United States;in all, thirty-four THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 53

,Cat* nn l0ano0Je0 arf pr Urincetone princess L a'ato pe \a h tl %oae.0 *f-ostburg 6\acl(sbur9 State *Davidson ,GainesvilleLand Chapel Irccplort9 De Springs Statesboro, Yellow* OberWn Athens, Arbor Oxford author) Ann *- Auburn, Greencastle Murray Tuskegee' the Town by lHoughton Carbondale Urbana*Bloomington' Champaign- City. ,Grambling Searcy, Decorah'Iowa *Warrensburg (Cartography ,oLawrence College Northfield* City' #Stillwater study. 'Norman for Baldwin Station, Vermillion Manhattan Langston Marcos, College San selected .Chadron: towns American Laramie, 2-College

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PullrM,. Eensburg* *Claremont CorvallisEgene ,Davis Berkeley .Arcata 54 THE GEOGRAPHICALREVIEW statesare represented. The study towns are home to a rangeof collegetypes-public researchuniversities, private liberal arts colleges, land-grant institutions, regional state universities,church-related colleges, and historically black colleges. Dataon the principalcharacteristics of the studytowns highlight the funda- mentaldifferences between college towns and other types of citiesand between collegetowns and the United States in general(see also Appendix I). * Collegetowns are youthful places. The average median age in the studytowns in 2000was 25.9 years,nearly ten years younger than the median age for other similarlysized cities and the UnitedStates overall. One-third of study-town residentswere eighteento twenty-fouryears old. Nationwide,fewer than io percentwere in thatage group (U.S. Census Bureau 2000). * College-townpopulations are highly educated. Adult residents in the studytowns in 2000 were more than twice as likely as the overall U.S. population and residentsof similarlysized cities to possess a college degree and seven times more likely to hold a doctorate. * College-townresidents are lesslikely to workin factoriesand morelikely to work in education.Adult residentsof the study towns in 2000 were half as likely as the U.S. population overallto work in manufacturingand nearly four times as likely to work in education. Forty-four percent worked in education in 2000; just 7 percentworked in manufacturing.Many college towns resemble company towns, in that a large percentageof adults work for a single em- ployer.Southern Illinois University,for example,employs 5,019people on its Carbondalecampus, a numberequal to half of the total laborforce in the city (NASULGC 2001). * In collegetowns, family incomesare highand unemploymentis low.In 2000 the averagemedian family income was nearlysi$0,ooo higher in the study towns than in similarlysized cities. Indicativeof the economic stability of college towns are their low unemploymentrates. In April 2002 the five metropolitan areaswith the lowest rates of unemploymentin the United States,and thir- teen of the top twenty-six, were small cities with major universities (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2002). * Collegetowns are transientplaces. College students move often and usually leave town as soon they graduate.Professors, too, are relativegypsies. Resi- dents of the study towns in 2000 were twice as likelyas the overallU.S. population to havelived in a differentstate fiveyears before. In many college towns the majorityof the population is from somewhereelse. * College-town residents are more likely to rent and live in group housing. Home- ownership rates in the United States are among the highest in the world. Nearlyseven out of every ten U.S. residentsin 2000 lived in owner-occupied housing. Given the transient nature of students and faculty, college-town residents are much less likely to own their homes. Fewer than 50 percent of study- town residents in 2000 lived in owner-occupied housing. Study-town residents THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 55

werenearly five times as likely as the overall U.S. population to livein dormitories,fraternities, and other group quarters. * Collegetowns are unconventional places. Many of themare home to unusually highconcentrations of people who listen to National Public Radio, vote Green, orbelong to a food co-op. The eccentric nature of collegetowns can be difficult to quantify,but data on commutingpractices provide some insights. Resi- dentsin thestudy towns in 2000were four times more likely to walkto work andseven times more likely to commuteby bicycle than is theU.S. popula- tionas a whole. * Collegetowns are comparatively cosmopolitan. Because colleges recruit studentsand faculty nationally and internationally, college towns are unusually diversein their population makeup. At Oklahoma State University inStillwater, forexample, students came from all fifty states and 115 foreign countries in the fallof 2002 (osu 2002). Asianswere three times more common in the studytowns in 2000than in similarlysized cities. Nearly half of thestudy- townresidents were born in a differentstate, and more than 13 percentwere foreignborn. Becauseof theunusual demographics of college communities, the traveler moving amongcollege towns soon notices an idiosyncraticsimilarity to theseplaces thatmakes them stand out regionally and nationally. As such, Zelinsky was correct in observingthat college communities together represent a kind of "voluntaryre- gion,'made up of localitiesin which self-selected groups of like-mindedpeople-in thiscase faculties, students, and "hangers-on"-have fashioned distinctive places that,though spatially discontinuous, exhibit a highdegree of culturalcoherence (1973, 136). AN AMERICANINSTITUTION The college town is largelyan Americanphenomenon. Nowhere else in the world are so many towns so dominatedby collegesand universitiesas in the United States. In most countries,the majorityof institutionsof highereducation are in largecities and national capitals.3In Europe,birthplace of the university,the oldest and most prestigious colleges are located chiefly in cities such as Paris,London, and Rome and in regionalcenters too economicallydiverse to be consideredcollege towns. As Edmund Gilbert noted, only a handful of exceptions to this pattern exist, such as Ttibingenin Germany,Siena in Italy,and Cambridgein England(1961). Evenin Canada,the country that most resembles the United States in history and government,college towns are rare.Nearly all of Canada'spublic universities arein provincialcapitals or majormetropolitan areas. In onlyone citythat is home to a university with at least 5,ooo students-Waterloo, Ontario-is enrollment at least20 percent of the population, a criterionmet by dozensof citiesin the United States.Those Canadian municipalities in whichcolleges exert the greatestinfluence aresmall towns with smallcolleges, such as Wolfville,Nova Scotia. But even those towns are less shapedby collegesthan are many cities in the United States,because, 56 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW as Henry Srebrniknoted, the all-encompassingcollegiate culture so common in the United Statesis largelyabsent. "In Canada,"he wrote, "studentstreat their institu- tion as they might a companywhere they work:they arriveon campus,attend classes, and go home" (1993, 396). Severalfactors help explainwhy college-dominatedcities are more common in the United Statesthan in otherparts of the world.First, the sequenceof collegedevel- opment versusurban development was differentin the United States.In Europe,cities precededuniversities: Many of Europe'soldest universitiesemerged organically in locationswhere scholars and studentsgathered over time. Intellectualswere drawn to citiesbecause they werethe focus of economic,political, and culturallife (Haskins 1923,6-12; Rtiegg1992, 11-12). Inthe United States, in contrast,large-scale settlement cameafter the emergence ofthe university idea in Europe. Many colleges were founded beforesignificant urban development had taken place in a region. Thesize of theUnited States and its cultural diversity have led to a proliferation of colleges.The large land area meant that more colleges were needed to servea scatteredpopulation. The architects of the U.S.system of governmentsought to recognizethe size of thecountry by delegatingsignificant power to localgovern- ments.Today, each state controls its ownsystem of highereducation, which has contributedto a multiplicationof campuses. The religious diversity of theUnited Stateshas also been important. From the beginning the country was populated by peoplebelonging to a remarkablerange of denominations.Each wanted its own collegeand, because the country was large, many groups wanted at least one college in everystate. This was significant because most early colleges were founded by religiousbodies. Today the United States is hometo a greaternumber of colleges percapita than any other country, so it wasinevitable that many would be founded outsidethe largest cities (Tewksbury 1932). Themost common explanation for why the United States has so manycollege townshas been the perceptionthat college founders believed that a quiet,rural setting,away from the evils of citylife, was the only proper environment for learning.Influential in thespreading of thisidea was the fact that the first college estab- lishedin America,Harvard College, was founded in 1636by graduatesof the Universityof Cambridge,one of thefew early European universities that developed outsidea largecity. Although Harvard has been subsumed by the Bostonmetro- politanarea, it wasfounded at a distancefrom Boston because of thebelief that a citywas no placefor a college(Turner 1984, 23). Harvardgraduates who inherited thisbelief went on to foundnumerous colleges across the country and influenced otherswho decided on thelocation of colleges.Anti-urban sentiments prompted the stateof NorthCarolina, for example,to requirethat the Universityof North Carolinabe foundedat least5 milesfrom any seat of government(Snider 1992, 11). The influenceof anti-urbanismhas been overstated, however. More important in explainingwhy so manycolleges were founded outside large cities was the booster mentalitythat characterized town development. According to DanielBoorstin, even the smallestof villagesimagined itself as the "Athensof the West"and manytown THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 57

leadersbelieved that no communitycould be completewithout a college(1965,152- 161).Civic leaders actively pursued colleges as a wayto assuretheir future, offering land,money, and buildings to persuadechurches and governments to founda college in theirtown. As StanleyBrunn noted, "aside from the statecapital, the state universitywas probably the secondmost importantpolitical prize a city or region couldbe awarded"(1974, 113). A studyof the factorsshaping the placementof stateteachers colleges found that70 percentof suchcolleges founded before 1923 were established in citiesthat haddonated sites or money(Humphreys 1923,34). This was also true of othertypes of colleges.The University of Missouri,for example,was placed in Columbiaafter localresidents outbid citizens of six othercounties by offeringthe state$82,381 in cashand $35,540in land.Backroom deals and unethicalbehavior were common. Townleaders in Lawrence,Kansas, bribed the legislatorswho weredeciding where to locatethe Universityof Kansasfor $4 a vote (Griffin1974, 25). Large cities appear to havebeen lesslikely to enterthe biddingfor colleges,perhaps because they had other industriesand thus were not as desperateto find waysto guaranteetheir economicsurvival.

DIVERSITY AMID LIKENESS Althoughcollege towns share many attributes, their individual personalities vary. Thevarying nature of collegetowns strongly reflects the characteristics of the schools locatedin them.Schools differ in theirmissions, the fieldsof studythey offer, their entrancerequirements, the geographicalareas from which they draw students, and the extentto whichthey regulate the livesof undergraduates.They attract students and facultywho reflectthose differences and who, in turn,shape the characterof the citiesin whichcolleges are located. Collegetowns like Iowa City, Iowa, or ChapelHill, North Carolina, are home to largestate universities that are referredto as "flagshipuniversities" because they receivethe largestshare of highereducation expenditures in theirstates. The re- searchorientation of such universities,their large graduate-student populations, and theirhistoric liberal arts emphasis mean that the townsin whichthey are lo- catedtend to havea strongerintellectual climate than do othertypes of college towns.They are more likely to havebookstores that cater to non-mainstreamtastes, activemusic scenes, and movie theaters that show offbeat films. Studies have found that studentsand facultyin the socialsciences and humanitiesare more liberal in theirpolitical views than are those in the physicaland appliedsciences, so such townsare more likely to supportleft-leaning causes and candidates (Ladd and Lipset 1975;Hamilton and Hargens 1993).Flagship universities also attract students and faculty from a wide area, so the towns in which they are located tend to be more sophisticatedculturally than do other types of college towns. Localsare more likely to read the New YorkTimes.4 Ethnic restaurantsare more common. Townslike College Station,Texas, and Manhattan,Kansas, are home to universitiesthat were founded as land-grantcolleges to provideagricultural and mechanical 58 THE GEOGRAPHICALREVIEW education to rural and working-classpopulations (Eddy 1957).Although flagship and land-grant universitieshave become increasinglyalike as agriculturaleduca- tion has diminished in importance, most land-grant institutions retain a strong rural orientation because of their historic associationwith farmersand their continued presencein ruralareas through extension programs.At KansasState Univer- sity in Manhattan,for example, two-thirds of the in-state undergraduatescome from counties that are outside metropolitanareas. At the Universityof Kansasin Lawrence,in contrast, nearly 80 percent come from metropolitan counties (KSU 2002; KU 2002). Land-grantuniversities also differfrom flagshipsin their emphasis on the physicaland applied sciences.The rural and small-town origins of students and the comparativeconservativeness of people in the sciences tend to make college towns in which land-grant universities are located more conventional than flagshipuniversity towns. Warrensburg,Missouri, and Statesboro,Georgia, are examples of towns that are home to regional state universitiesthat began as teachers colleges. Although most former teachers colleges have expanded their missions, teacher training re- mains the focus (Dunham 1969). Because most states have several such colleges, they draw the majority of their students from nearby areas.At Central Missouri State University,for example,one-third of all undergraduatesare in the College of Education,and 60 percentcome from counties within o50miles of the school'scam- pus in Warrensburg (CMSU 2001). With the limited curricula and comparatively homogeneous studentbodies of regionalstate universities,the towns in which they are located lack the intellectualclimate and culturalsophistication of other types of college towns. The impact of a collegiateculture is less conspicuous,and such towns tend to be more representativeof the regions in which they are located than are other types of college towns. Towns such as Searcy,Arkansas, and Williamstown,Massachusetts, which are home to privatecolleges, stand apart from other college towns because the schools in them are so different.Most attracta more select student body because of their entrance requirements,cost, or ideological orientation. They draw a higher percentageof studentsfrom out of state.Private colleges also typicallymaintain greater control over their students.At many,all unmarriedstudents are requiredto live on campus,so town and gown areless integrated.At WilliamsCollege in Williamstown, for example, 83 percent of undergraduatescome from outside Massachusetts,and 93 percentlive on campus (WilliamsCollege 200oo3). Most privatecolleges are smaller than stateinstitutions, have grown comparatively little since WorldWar II, and place less emphasison athletics.As a result,towns with privatecolleges lack the high-rise dormitories, massive sports complexes, and dense concentrations of student bars and apartments so typical of large university towns. So far I have focused on general attributes of college towns, many of which can be measured statistically. But much of what makes college towns distinctive, the elements of life that help give them their peculiar flavor, cannot be quantified. Some of these characteristics are also present in other types of places. College towns are THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 59 distinctivebecause most of them possess a constellationof these traits,not just one or two, and because the theme describedis more noticeablein towns in which colleges are large relativeto the size of the city.

THE CAMPUS AS A PUBLIC SPACE In manyways the campusis the centerof life in the collegetown, much as the centralbusiness district was in thepre-automobile city or theshopping mall is in suburbia.With their residential areas, restaurants and bookstores, recreational facilities, concert halls, sports stadiums, landscaped grounds, and full calendarsof events, campuses often function like self-containedcities. They are centers of culture. They are entertainmentdistricts. They act as parks and historic sites. They have symbolic and public relations importance.They are a hub of activities that serve not only students and staff but also the largerpopulation of the town and region. As such, the campus serves both as an environment for learning and as a public space. The college campus is largelyan Americaninvention (Turner1984). The belief that colleges should be set in a parklikelandscape originated at Harvardand has been followed almost without exception ever since. The tradition of placingbuild- ings far apart in an open landscapehad its origins in concernsthat were pragmatic and philosophical.The earliestbuildings at Harvardwere made of wood, so firewas a danger.Separating them reduced the risk that fires would spread.But Harvard's foundersalso believed in the Puritanideal of community and thought that the college should be an integralpart of the town that surroundedit. The distinctlyAmeri- can notion that college should be a total experience and not be limited to the classroomhas also shaped the evolution of U.S. campuses.Whereas European uni- versitiesdevote comparativelylittle attention to extracurricularactivities (Schwinges 1992), U.S. collegesand universitiesspend millions of dollarsto maintaintheir campuses and provide a rangeof activitiesfor students,staff, and people with no direct connection to the educationalinstitution. The campus of the Universityof Oklahoma in Norman is typical (Figure3). Sprawlingover 2,ooo acres,it is active day and night, year-round.Indicative of the multifacetedrole campusesplay, its campus includes parks,formal gardens,a duck pond, an eighteen-holegolf course,a public swimming pool, conferencefacilities, a largehotel, and an airport,as well as eighteenrestaurants, five bookstores, cappuccino bars, and convenience stores. Concerts are regularlyheld at the Fine Arts Center and the CatlettMusic Center.The universityrecently built a $38million museum of natural history. Rotating exhibits are featured at two art museums, and sporting events drawmore than a million people a yearto campus.Once studentsleave town for the summer,children invade the campus for cheerleadingcamps, debate com- petitions, and the like. Everyyear the Universityof Oklahoma spends more than $1 million to landscape its grounds. Since becoming the university'spresident, former U.S. Senator David Borenhas initiateda majorbeautification program and has promisedto make 60 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG.3-With their culturalattractions, recreational facilities, and parklikeopen spaces,college campuses, like this one at the Universityof Oklahomain Norman, are often the focus of college-townlife. (Photographby the author,April 1997) the campus "in essence the 'CentralPark' of the metropolitanarea" (Boren 1996). Hundreds of trees have been planted. More than 250 wooden benches have been installed.Ornamental fountains, statues, and monuments have been erected.Even though many featuresof the campus have no explicit role in the educationalmis- sion of a university,every college presidentknows that a handsome campus is as importantas a first-ratefaculty for drawingstudents, pleasing alumni, and attract- ing donations.

RESIDENTIAL LANDSCAPES IN COLLEGE TOWNS The social differencesthat exist in college towns have led to the emergenceof distinctive residentiallandscapes. Many college faculty and staff, along with townspeople, do not want to live near college students because of their lifestyles. For students, the college years presentthe first chance to live relativelyfree from adult interference,so students, too, prefer to live among their own. At non-commuter colleges students are normallyrequired to live in dormitoriesfor at least their first year. Post-WorldWar II growth of universitiesled many to build massive dormi- tory complexes.Most public universitieshave devoted a significantchunk of their campuses to such facilities. THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 61

FIG.4-Greek Revival-stylefraternity houses, like this one at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York,are characteristic landscapefeatures of fraternitydistricts in college towns. (Photograph by the author,December 2002)

After their first year, students begin to sort themselves out accordingto their interestsand lifestyles.Away from home and perhapslost in a universitymuch larger than their high school, some choose to postpone independenceand formalizetheir social lives by joining a fraternityor sorority (Hale 200ooo).In most college towns, fraternityand sorority houses are concentratedin one or two areas.Often, several line a single street, typically called "fraternityrow" (Figure4). With their classical mansions and the unusualtraditions and activesocial lives of the people who live in them, the fraternitydistrict is a landscapeunique to college communities.Raucous parties pour from fraternityhouses every weekend. Pledge-week rituals, formal dances,and the buildingof homecomingfloats are local spectacles.Fraternity houses can makebad neighbors,which probablyexplains why they are so often relegatedto 62 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG.5-Bookstores, such as this one in the Aggievilledistrict of Manhattan,Kansas, are more common in campus-adjacentcommercial districts of college towns than in other types of urban places. (Photographby the author,December 1999) a single area.Contrary to popularperception, fraternity houses at most universities are privatelyowned and located off campus (Anson and Marchesani1991). Although membershipin Greek-lettersocieties is declining and some elite private collegeshave abolishedthem (Reisberg2000), fraternitiesand sororitiesremain an integralpart of studentlife in most collegetowns. At state universities,one-quar- ter to one-half of undergraduatespledge. And even though fraternitiesand sorori- ties have long been criticized for their elitist (and bigoted) selection processes, dangeroushazing rituals,excessive drinking, and anti-intellectualattitudes-indeed, it is difficultto find noncriticalaccounts of life in such societies-they can serve a usefulpurpose for studentswho desiregreater social interaction.'"For a certainkind of boy at a certaintender age, fraternityis simply a given,"wrote the novelist Rich- ard Ford (1986, 231). "Ago-along guy,who wants friends.For this kind of boy con- formity is a godsend.And I was that kind of boy." Many students prefer to rent large homes near campus with friends or live in apartments.Campus-adjacent neighborhoods are often dominatedby such rentals. Most college towns have at least one neighborhoodthat is home almost exclusively to students. Informally,it is often called the "studentghetto" and is characterized by dilapidatedhouses, beat-up couches on porches, automobilesparked on lawns, and bicycleschained to anythingthat does not move. Such neighborhoodsemerged when enrollmentsmushroomed following WorldWar II, collegesbecame less able to house their students, landlords saw an opportunity, and homeowners sought refugefrom the influx of young people. Residencesoften filtereddown to students from faculty and other homeowners as the housing stock deteriorated. THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 63

Neighborhoodssuch as UniversityHill in Boulder,Colorado, and the College- towndistrict in Ithaca,New York, are the frequent subject of proposalsseeking to controltheir spread and improve their appearance (Staeheli and Thompson 1997). Manycollege towns have implemented ordinances designed to discouragethe con- versionof single-familyhomes into rental properties. In a decisionthat could prove significantfor college towns, an Indiana court in 2002rejected a Bloomington ordi- nancewhich stipulated that no morethan three unrelated adults could live in any dwelling(Paine 200oo2). Many college towns have similar ordinances. Couches are so centralto the imageof the studentghetto that an entrepreneurin Ithacacreated a posterthat is a parodyof touristposters such as "TheDoors of Dublin."It features thirty-threephotographs of couches on Ithacaporches above the banner, "Couches of Collegetown."Some see the proliferation of coucheson porchesas less benign. TheBoulder City Council recently enacted an ordinanceprohibiting upholstered furnitureoutdoors in responseto severalriots on UniversityHill in whichcouches were burned (Madigan 2002). Most college towns have one or more older neighborhoods near campus that have resisted the invasion of undergraduatesand are home to large numbers of professors.Often these neighborhoodswere marketeddirectly to faculty through universitypublications. In Norman, Oklahoma,one such neighborhoodwas actu- ally platted as "FacultyHeights." The faculty enclave is a neighborhood of classic homes and tree-lined streets,where residentsvigilantly seek to preservethe area's characterand preventincursions by students.John Jakle,in a study of Urbana,Illi- nois, found that Universityof Illinois faculty members were concentratedin that city's Carle Park neighborhood and observed that professorswere more likely to own houses that were architecturallydistinctive as a way to set themselvesapart as an "educatedgentry class"(1983, 37). Gorman Beauchamp,in a portrait of Burns Park,a facultyenclave in Ann Arbor,Michigan, noted that residentsof such neighborhoods are more likely to own a passport,subscribe to the New YorkReview of Books,and espouse liberalcauses and less likely to go to churchor fly the U.S. flag. "Ahyes, Burns Park,"he wrote, "wherethey vote left and live right"(Beauchamp 1995, 337).

COMMERCIAL DISTRICTS IN COLLEGE TowNs The presenceof unusual densitiesof studentsand highly educatedadults has led to the developmentin many college towns of distinctivecommercial districts, full of trendy shops, coffee houses, ethnic restaurants,and bars (Figure5). In some towns these areashave developed separatelyfrom the city's centralbusiness district,perhaps because downtown was too far from campus for students to travel regularly in a pre-automobile age. The campus of Kansas State University, for example, is three- quarters of a mile from downtown Manhattan. The original road from campus to town was unpaved and impassable for much of the year. In the late 1800sa student and local businessman, recognizing a market need, opened a branch of a downtown laundry across the street from campus. From this nucleus grew the univer- 64 THE GEOGRAPHICALREVIEW sity-orientedAggieville business district,which today is more successfulthan Man- hattan'sdowntown (Walter1995). Regardlessof whether they are independent of a city's downtown or one and the same, two differencesdistinguish campus-adjacentcommercial districts from the business districts of non-college towns: Certain types of businesses are more abundant,and numerous businesses cater primarilyto the needs and desires of a college community. Businessesthat are more numerous in college towns than in other cities of similar size include coffeehouses,bookstores (sixteen of which are within a fifteen-minutewalk in Ann Arbor), pizzerias,bicycle shops, recordstores, copy shops, ethnic restaurants,and laundromats.The most conspicuous difference is the largenumber of barsper capita.Eighteen bars are found in a six-block areaof Manhattan'sAggieville district and thirty-two in a slightlylarger area of downtown Athens, Georgia. College-townbar districtshave caused increasingproblems for local police and universityofficials, whose abilityto regulatestudent behaviorhas diminished since the 196os. Occasionally,the mixture of students and alcohol gets out of hand. In recentyears student celebrationshave turned violent in severalcollege towns, often in conjunctionwith sportingevents (Strauss 2001). In April2003, for example,eighty- seven people were arrestedand twenty-threewere injuredin Durham,New Hamp- shire, when students went on a rampage after the Universityof New Hampshire hockey team lost in the NCAAchampionship game (Dekoning 2003). Alcohol-fueled disturbancesbecame such a regularoccurrence at Halloween in Carbondalethat Southern Illinois Universitynow closes for the last week of October.City officials enacted an ordinanceforcing bars to shut down for the weekendbefore Halloween and on Halloween night (Luke 2001). Businessesthat are somewhat unique to college towns among cities of similar size becauseof their unusual demographicsinclude movie theatersthat show independent and foreign films, art galleries,tattoo parlors,shops that specialize in the cultural kitsch of the 196os, stores that sell college T-shirts (half a dozen are in Norman, Oklahoma,and healthfood stores.Vegetarian restaurants, such as the Grit in Athens, Georgia,and the ABC Caf6 in Ithaca,New York,may be more common per capita in college towns than in any other type of urban place. Although not overtlycommercial in nature,another distinctive attribute of campus-adjacentdis- tricts is the presenceof student-orientedreligious organizations, such as the Baptist Student Union, the St. Thomas More Catholic Student Center,and the Methodist Wesley Foundation.

CENTERS OF THE NEW ECONOMY Just as every nineteenth-century college had to have its neoclassical administration building fronting on a quadrangle, every twenty-first-century university must have its research park. The research park is the most conspicuous evidence of an economic shift that is transforming some college towns (Luger and Goldstein 1991). Growth in federal funding for research and pressure from state governments for THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 65

universitiesto becomemore self-sufficient has prompted many institutions to market theirintellectual products more actively. They have established research parks to createpublic-private partnerships, business incubators to nurturethe formation of new companies,and separateoffices to markettheir patents. In the process,researchuniversities have become engines for a "neweconomy" based on innovation andcreativity. New knowledgecreated on campushas, in turn,triggered high-tech developmentoff campus.Richard Florida noted that "the presence of a majorre- searchuniversity is the basicinfrastructure component of the creativeeconomy- moreimportant than the canals, railroads and freeway systems of pastepochs" (2002, 291-292). Ann Arbor,for example,has been key to Michigan'sefforts to reverseits eco- nomicfortunes following the declineof its automobileindustry. The rootsof the relationshipbetween the Universityof Michiganand private industry run deep. In 1920 the universitycreated a departmentto undertakecontract research for cor- porations.During World War II it becamea majordefense contractor. After the war,federal expenditures for research grew rapidly, and the linesbetween academe, government,and industryblurred. In the 195osa coalitionof university,government, and businessleaders mounted a driveto makeAnn Arborthe "Research Centerof theMidwest." They persuaded Parke-Davis pharmaceuticals (now Pfizer) and BendixAerospace Systems to locateresearch facilities in the city.In 1962the AnnArbor Research Park was built. Such developments created "an atmosphere of high technology"that helpedattract smaller research firms to the city (Dolgon 1998,1999). TodayAnn Arboris a high-techhub. Technologycompanies employ 15,ooo peoplein the area,and the cityis hometo morethan 300 softwarecompanies. The presenceof the Universityof MichiganMedical Center has spurredthe develop- mentof a growinghealth care and life sciencessector. Pfizer employs 3,000 people in the city and in 2001oannounced a $300oomillion expansion(O'Donnell 2001; Wahlberg2001). AnnArbor is hometo Internet2,the NationalCenter for Manufac- turingSciences, and a majorEnvironmental Protection Agency emissions testing center.Research parks are ubiquitous on the city'speriphery, and new ones are gob- blingup realestate outside the citylimits. Although Ann Arbor has seen moderate declinesin its technologysector since the "dotcom" bust of 2001,the continued growthof Pfizerand the insulatingeffect of the universityhave lessened the impact of downturns(Hilton 2002).

PLACESOF PERSONALDISCOVERY The college years are widely acknowledgedas a time of individualawakening, but too often what happensin the classroomis given exclusivecredit for this. Countless teenagerswho go away to college with traditional aspirationsof becoming busi- nessmen, lawyers,or teachersdiscover something new along the way and abandon those goals. Awayfrom home, thrust into communities in which young people are dominant, exposed to an eclectic mix of lifestylesat a time in their lives when they 66 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW areimpressionable, many studentsare changed forever. Some drop out. Othersnever leave town. Often the experiencesthat triggersuch life changesoccur not on campus but in the nightclubs,coffeehouses, and student apartmentsso characteristicof college towns. This is particularlycommon in college towns such as Athens and Lawrence, which are home to flagship universities. Such universities typically have strong programsin art, music, or literaturethat attractyoung people who see college as more than just a path to a job. Athens, for example, is world famous for its music scene. The people who helped create that scene were originally students in the Universityof Georgia'sLamar Dodd School of the Art. Music was something they did for fun when they put down their paint brushes (Brown 1991).Eventually, others became involved. Today,Athens is a bohemian pocket in the South. Many of those who have advancedthe city's reputation as a cultural mecca came there to attend college but never left. Rockbands such as the B-52s and R.E.M.were a natural outgrowth of the nurturing environment for experimentation that exists in college towns. Vic Chesnutt, for example, came to the Universityof Georgia from the small town of Zebulon,Georgia, with the goal of becoming a schoolteacher.Once he dis- coveredthe city'smusic clubs he stopped going to class (Chesnutt1999). Today he is an eccentricsinger-songwriter who has produced nine criticallyacclaimed albums. BarrieBuck came to Athens to study law,married (and later divorced)the guitarist for R.E.M.,and now owns the 40 Watt Club,the most successfulrock club in town (Buck 1999).But Athens is a breedingground for more than just music. JoniMabe, who grew up as the daughterof the mayorin Mount Airy,Georgia, came to Athens to study art. Today she operates her famous traveling"Everything Elvis" exhibit from a house in the city'sBoulevard District (Link and Hammes1998). Pete McCom- mons entered the University of Georgia in 1958, moved to New York in 1962 to attend graduateschool but returnedto Athens six years later.He is the editor of the local alternativeweekly newspaper,Flagpole (McCommons 1999). College towns from Boulder, Colorado, to Burlington,Vermont, are full of people with similar stories. Even though such people make up a small percentageof city populations, because they are active and creativethey influence life in college towns to a degree disproportionateto their numbers.

"ALL THINGS RIGHT AND RELEVANT" With their abundantyoung people and traditionallyleft-leaning faculty, many college towns have become bastions of liberalpolitics. They have been pioneersin the slow-growth movement. They have fought the development of shopping malls and Wal-Marts.They have nurtured environmentally friendly industry, housing, and public works. They have sought to preserve green space, restore waterways, and build bicycle paths. Their local governments have attempted to shape policy outside their boundaries by establishing positions on national and international issues of the day. At the same time, such towns have been criticized for being elitist, too expensive for THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 67

FIG.6--As the hundreds of bicycles that surround this campus food facility in Davis, California, attest,residents of college towns are more likelyto travelby bicyclethan are residentsof other types of cities. (Photographby the author,May 2001) the non-academicpeople who work in them, and unlivablefor those who do not sharea liberalworldview. Davis, California,home of one of ten campusesof the Universityof California, for example,has sometimes been called "the most liberaltown in America."It has slowed sprawl with rigid growth regulations.It has fought to maintain the city's downtown as its commercialfocus by preventingthe construction of a suburban- style shoppingmall and keepingout most chain retailers.It was one of the firstcities in the United Statesto institutecurbside recycling. It has the most restrictivesmok- ing ordinancein the nation: Smoking is even banned outdoors within 20 feet of a doorwayunless the smoker is moving (Ignelzi 1994; Fitch 1998). Davis was the first municipalityin the United Statesto createbicycle lanes on city streetsand today has 98 miles of bicycle paths and lanes (Figure6). One-quarterof Davis residentscom- mute by a means other than privateautomobile (U.S. Census Bureau2000). Over the years Davis has declareditself a nuclear-freezone, the nation'sfirst pro-choice city, and a sanctuaryfor Sandinistarefugees from Nicaragua. In Davis and other college towns, the political culturestarted to shift in the late 196os and early 1970sas academics and others who came of age during the Viet- nam Warbegan to make up an increasingpercentage of college-town populations. The balance of power shifted still further in 1971, when eighteen-year-oldswere given the right to vote. The very next year,with many students voting for the first 68 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG. 7--Footballfans fill downtown streetsin Auburn,Alabama, to celebratean AuburnUniversity victory over rival Universityof Alabamain November 1993.(Photograph by Todd Van Emrnst;repro- duced by permissionof the photographer) time, a liberal coalition of candidateswrested control of the Davis City Council from the business intereststhat had long dominated local politics (Lofland 2001). Similar changes occurred in other college towns. The dramatic shift could not be explained by the student vote alone; rather,it reflected a growing anti-establish- ment attitude that developed in the wake of the Vietnam War and the killings at KentState University in Ohio. City policies in Davis became more self-consciously liberal.Some scholarshave observed that the brand of liberalismpracticed in college towns such as Davis is selective (Loflandand Lofland1987), while others have arguedthat the city's policies are in truth regressiveand intolerant,seeking to preserve the way of life of an educated elite. A local newspapercolumnist, who has made a career of lampooning local liberals, dubbed Davis "the city of all things right and relevant." The left-leaning characterof college towns is also evident in election results. Davis residentspreferred liberal Democrat GeorgeMcGovern over RichardNixon in the 1972presidential election. They rejectedProposition 13, California's infamous taxpayerrevolt, in 1978 (Fitch 1998). In the 2000 presidentialelection, Davis voters preferredAl Gore to GeorgeW. Bush by a two-to-one margin. Green Partycandi- date Ralph Nader received nearly io percent of the vote (Yolo County Elections Office 2000). Similarpatterns are evident in college towns nationwide. Although Nader receivedjust 2.7 percent of the popularvote nationwide,he won 25 percent THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 69

of thevote in Amherst,Massachusetts, 19 percentin Missoula,Montana, and 11 percentin Lawrence,Kansas (Olsen 200ooo; Leip 2001l; Dalquest 2002).

STADIUM CULTURE Differentpriorities are evidentin collegetowns in whichcollege sports are king. Stadiumsand arenas tower over campuses and are often the mostprominent build- ingson the landscape.Tens of thousandsof fansdescend on townsfor games. Such pilgrimagesare economic boons andcan leavea permanentimprint on the land- scapeand local way of life.College football has been so importantto the develop- mentof PennsylvaniaState University and to StateCollege, the town in whichit is located,that a localmagazine tried to imaginewhat the townwould be like if Joe Paternohad neverbecome the university'sfootball coach. It imagineda downtown full of boarded-upbuildings and emptystorefronts and a universitywith half its currentenrollment, a crumblinglibrary, and a meagerendowment (Poor- man 1998). LikeState College, Auburn, Alabama, home of AuburnUniversity, is a football town.On a half-dozenweekends every autumn, the town is transformed.Auburn's footballstadium holds 86,063 people, twice as manyas livein the city.Visitors who attendgames spend an estimated$31.7 million annually.6 Auburn sports parapher- naliaare ubiquitous in businesseson CollegeStreet: framed newspapers, autographed pictures,and playerjerseys, for example.Stores sell an unimaginablearray of Au- burn souvenirs.Friends and strangerspassing on the streetexhort "War Eagle!," the Auburnbattle cry. If Auburnwins, fans fill downtownstreets and throwtoilet paperinto trees (Figure7). To businessesin collegetowns like Auburn,football seasoncan be as criticalin determiningfinancial success as the Christmasseason is to merchantselsewhere. When Auburn wins, said one storeowner, "there's more beer drank,there's more T-shirtspurchased, and there'smore money given to churcheson Sunday"(Johnston 1999). Footballpermeates all aspects of lifein Auburn.City officials say that its signifi- canceis overratedbut acknowledgethat it took a post-gametraffic jam to con- vincea stateofficial to pushfor the widening of themain highway into town (Watson 2002). The longtimemayor admitted that footballso governsthe mood of resi- dentsthat she regularlychanged the agendafor CityCouncil meetings if Auburn lost on the precedingSaturday, postponing action on any controversialissues (Dempsey1999). Cities other than college towns have large stadiums and universities with big-timesports programs. But the size of stadiumsand the crowdsthat attendgames in collegetowns are far larger relative to the sizeof the communities. If YankeeStadium had as many seats per capita as does Auburn'sfootball stadium, it would hold 16 million people. As Michael Oriardnoted, "football'slocal importance tend[s] to be inverselyproportional to the community's size and status."In college towns like Auburn,"the football team [is] the chief source of local pride" (2001, 70). 70 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

TOWN-GOWN RELATIONS Relationsbetween a college and its town are not alwaysamicable, however. Colleges and the communitiesthat surroundthem havebeen in conflictsince medievaltimes, when institutions of learningwalled themselvesin like monasteriesfor protection from townspeople (Barr 1963). Although town-gown relations are rarelyviolent today, even when a college and its town have good relations they are seldom in complete harmony.Much of that tension is the result of what happens when so many young people descend on relativelysmall cities, but other issues also surface again and again in college towns nationwide (Selland 1981;Lopata 1986; Kane and Roser 1989; Nichols 1990).7 Town-gownrelations have been especiallytense in recentyears in Newark,Dela- ware, home of the University of Delaware.Although the intensity of town-gown hostilityin Newarkis unusual,the sourcesof tensions arecommon to collegetowns. The most divisive issue has been the erosion of single-family neighborhoods by student housing (Figure8). The universityhas built little housing since the 196os, but enrollment has doubled. The city has had to absorb the increaseddemand for student housing. Landlordshave bought many owner-occupiedhouses and turned them into rentals.Entire neighborhoods have been transformedin this way (Vargo 1999). Year-roundresidents have protested, and city officials have tried various means of slowing the trend. In 1999 Newark'sCity Council implemented its most aggressivestrategy yet, adopting an ordinance that prohibits new student rentals within a legally defined distance (typically 750 feet) of an existing student rental (Hale 1999). Conflicts caused by student behavior are another source of friction in college towns. Student drinking is considered such an issue in Newark that the university has become active in a national anti-binge-drinking campaign sponsored by the RobertWood Johnson Foundation and has expanded its student judicial code to include off-campus behavior (University of Delaware Messenger 1999; Hale 2000). The city has taken a more punitive approach, increasing fines for under- age drinking, revamping its noise ordinance, and instituting a zero-tolerance policy for noise and alcohol offenses. It recently took over enforcement of liquor laws from the state government and increased its liquor-license fees to pay for stricter enforcement (Besso 2003). It also hopes to persuade the university to prohibit students from graduating if they owe fines for alcohol offenses (Brown 2002). The enlargementof campusesand the building of new campus facilitiesare also common sources of tension in college towns. Given that colleges are exempt from propertytaxes, whenever they buy propertyit is taken off tax rolls,which reducesa city's tax income. Newark,like other college towns, has been forced to annex sur- rounding areasin order to maintain its tax base (Lopata1982). Residentsand government officialshave also opposed universitybuilding projects that they believe would have adverseeffects on the city,such as the building of a parkinggarage adjacent to a residentialneighborhood (Gopal1999). Universitiesare often viewed with THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 71 conflicting emotions in college towns: welcome because of the economic benefits and qualityof life they bring,but resentedbecause they are seen to act without regardfor the interestsof permanentresidents.

FIG.8-Erosion of single-familyneighborhoods by student housing, such as these rentalproperties in Newark,Delaware, is a common source of town-gown tension in college towns. (Photograph by the author, March 2000)

THE FUTURE OF COLLEGETOWNS What does the futurehold for college towns?Some say that the growth of Internet- based distance education will eventually mean the extinction of the bricks-and- mortar university,which would also mean the end of the college town. Skeptics arguethat Web coursesare merelytechnologically enhanced versions of correspon- dence courses,which have hardlytransformed higher education. Still othersbelieve that college towns are representativeof a new kind of geographythat is the resultof 72 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW a changing economy (Lewis 1991).Rich Karlgaard,publisher of Forbesmagazine, recentlytold a universityaudience that, because college towns have strong research infrastructures,relatively inexpensive real estate, and the culturalamenities neces- sary to attract creativepeople, they are poised to become the big winners in our increasingly innovation-driven economy (Fagan 200ooo). College towns are also being discoveredas high-qualityplaces in which to live by people who have no direct connection to a university.Lawrence, for example, has seen its population grow by nearly 30,000 since 1980, despite the fact that enrollment at the Universityof Kansashas remained about the same. College towns that are within commuting distance of major metropolitanareas are growing rapidly because of an influx of young professionalsdrawn by the culturalattractions, youthful energy,and small-town feel for which they are known. College towns are also being marketedas retirementdestinations (Mangan1994). One builder of retirement developments,the Pennsylvania-basedKendal Corporation, specializes in developing retirementcommunities in college towns, marketingthem not only to retiredfaculty and administratorsbut also to alumni and others for whom the sun and sedentarylifestyles of Floridaand Arizonahold little attraction.Realizing that retiredfaculty and alumniwho are close at hand are more likelyto donate money or think of alma materin theirwills, some colleges,such as the Universityof Michigan, are developing their own retirement communities or entering into partnerships with private developers (Pastalan and Schwarz 1994). Clearly,college towns arechanging. Many of the adjectivesonce commonly used to describe them-words like "sleepy,""idyllic," and "unhurried"-are no longer accurate.James and BarbaraShortridge observed that the movement of lifestyle migrantsto college towns threatensto erode the characteristicsthat made such communities attractivein the first place (2001). The fastest-growingcollege towns are acquiringsome of the negativeattributes they long resisted,such as traffic,sprawl, high real estate prices, and chain-storeculture. Will college towns merely become the enlightenedexurbs of the informationage, David Brooks'squintessential "latte towns"(2000)? Perhaps,but as the Shortridgeshave also noted, migrantsto college towns are drawnto them becausethey match the existing image.It could be argued that newcomers in places like Lawrencehave intensified those characteristicsfor which college towns are known. Most college towns, moreover,are too remote to experiencesignificant non-university-related growth. Overall, the college town will remaina place apart,a unique type of urban community,shaped by the sometimes conflicting forces of youth, intellect, and idealism that have been a critical but underappreciatedpart of Americanlife.

NOTES

1. The only general study of university communities that has been published is Gilbert 1961, which, though acknowledgingthat college-dominatedcommunities are most abundantin the United States,focuses on universitytowns in Englandand Germany. 2. The largerresearch project on which this study is based does include three college towns that are part of majormetropolitan areas: Berkeley, California; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Claremont, THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 73

California.I chosethem because they remainrelatively self-contained college communities despite theirmetropolitan locations. Berkeley and Cambridge were also included because of the importance of the universitieslocated in themto the historyof highereducation in the UnitedStates. 3. Myobservations about the relative absence of collegetowns outside the United States are based on a comparisonof collegeenrollments and city populationsin eighteencountries using data from Associationof Universitiesand Collegesof Canada2001, InternationalAssociation of Universities 1998, StatisticsCanada 2001, the WorldGazetteer 2002, and The Worldof Learning2001. 4. Tenof the twenty-fivemetropolitan areas outside the NewYork metropolitan area in which marketpenetration of the Sundayedition of theNew York Times is greatestare small cities with flagshipuniversities (Audit Bureau of Circulations200ooo). The household penetration rate for the Sunday NewYork Times is greaterin IowaCity than in Bostonor Philadelphia. 5. Fora sympatheticbut objectivehistory of Greek-lettersocieties, see Owen1991. 6. A 1996 study reported in Day 1998 found that visitors spent $27 million that year. I adjusted thatfigure for inflation. 7. A professorand residentof the collegetown of Oxford,Ohio, created a Webpage on town- gown issues:[http://www.users.muohio.edu/karrowrs/College/].

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APPENDIX I-POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS OF REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWNS, 2000a

ENROLLMENT NAME OF THE TYPE OF IN THE COLLEGE OR COLLEGE OR TOWN COLLEGE OR TOWN AND STATE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY POPULATION UNIVERSITY

Ann Arbor,Mich. Universityof Michigan Flagship 114,024 38,103 Athens, Ga. University of Georgia Flagship 101,489 21,288 Auburn,Ala. Auburn University Land grant 42,987 21,860 Brockport,N.Y. SUNY Brockport Regional 8,103 8,524 Davis, Calif. University of California,Davis Land grant 60,308 26,094 Decorah, Iowa LutherCollege Church 8,172 2,621 Ellensburg,Wash. CentralWashington University Regional 15,414 8,050 Grambling,La. GramblingState University Black 4,693 4,716 Greencastle,Ind. DePauw University Private 9,880 2,223 Ithaca,N.Y. Cornell University,Ithaca College Private 29,287 25,165 Manhattan,Kans. KansasState University Land grant 44,831 21,529 Newark,Del. Universityof Delaware Flagship 28,547 20,888 Norman, Okla. Universityof Oklahoma Flagship 95,694 24,890 Searcy,Ark. Harding University Church 18,928 4,665 State College, Pa. PennsylvaniaState University Flagship 38,420 40,538 Warrensburg,Mo. CentralMissouri State University Regional 16,340 11,282 Williamstown,Mass. Williams College Private 8,424 2,035

All 59 study towns 2,200,608 2,193,608 Averagefor the 59 37,298 16,492 study towns Total for the 281,421,906 - United States Total for urban 8,486,346 clusterswith a population of 25,000-49,999 Sources:U.S. Census Bureau2ooo; HigherEducation Directory 2002. a The seventeentowns includedin this table representdifferent types found in the study sampleof fifty- nine college towns. 78 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

APPENDIXI-Continued

ADULT POPULATION ADULT RATIO OF WITH A POPULATION ENROLLMENT POPULATION COLLEGE WITH A TO MEDIAN AGED18-24 DEGREE DOCTORATE TOWN AND STATE POPULATION AGE (%) (%) (%) Ann Arbor,Mich. 33.4 28.1 26.8 69.3 9.3 Athens, Ga. 21.0 25.4 31.3 39.8 5.8 Auburn,Ala. 50.9 22.6 44.6 56.0 10.3 Brockport,N.Y. 105.2 22.4 44.6 36.5 3.7 Davis, Calif. 43.3 25.2 30.9 68.6 11.5 Decorah, Iowa 32.1 29.8 31.4 30.6 3.4 Ellensburg,Wash. 52.2 23.6 39.3 32.0 3.5 Grambling,La. 100.5 21.6 54.9 46.9 5.3 Greencastle,Ind. 22.5 27.1 27.3 17.5 1.8 Ithaca,N.Y. 85.9 22.0 53.8 57.9 7.7 Manhattan,Kans. 48.0 23.5 39.2 48.2 7.0 Newark, Del. 73.2 22.6 43.6 51.3 6.7 Norman, Okla. 26.0 29.3 21.4 39.8 3.5 Searcy,Ark. 24.6 30.5 23.4 28.4 1.7 State College, Pa. 105.5 21.8 65.5 69.2 14.2 Warrensburg,Mo. 69.0 23.4 36.5 37.2 4.6 Williamstown,Mass. 24.2 35.6 27.5 53.6 8.5

All 59 study towns 44.2 - 33.3 50.0 6.8 Averagefor the 59 58.6 25.9 36.1 46.2 6.7 study towns Total for the United - 35.3 9.6 24.4 1.0 States Urban clusters, - 34.8 12.4 19.9 0.9 25,000-49,999 THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TOWN 79

APPENDIXI-Continued

POPULATION POPULATION POPULATION EMPLOYED EMPLOYED MEDIAN LIVING IN A IN IN FAMILY DIFFERENT COUNTY MANUFACTURING EDUCATION INCOME IN 1995 TOWN AND STATE (%) (%) ($) (%) Ann Arbor,Mich. 9.3 28.8 71,293 35.5 Athens, Ga. 11.8 22.4 41,607 40.4 Auburn,Ala. 7.1 28.6 55,619 52.4 Brockport,N.Y. 8.5 20.6 50,828 42.3 Davis, Calif. 3.3 31.7 74,051 46.9 Decorah, Iowa 10.9 35.7 49,668 35.5 Ellensburg,Wash. 3.3 25.8 37,625 49.5 Grambling,La. 3.2 41.7 27,857 35.3 Greencastle,Ind. 20.2 17.7 41,250 32.9 Ithaca,N.Y. 3.5 46.3 42,304 56.0 Manhattan,Kans. 3.2 27.1 48,289 49.9 Newark, Del. 9.5 25.5 75,188 34.2 Norman, Okla. 7.0 17.5 51,169 31.1 Searcy,Ark. 13.2 16.3 41,334 35.7 State College, Pa. 2.9 41.5 54,949 64.3 Warrensburg,Mo. 8.2 22.7 45,845 49.3 Williamstown,Mass. 6.7 38.8 67,589 31.7

All 59 study towns 7.0 43.9 51,717 41.2 Averagefor the 59 7.2 28.9 49,861 42.7 study towns Total for the United 14.1 8.8 50,046 17.9 States Urban clusters, 15.5 10.5 42,404 23.0 25,000-49,999 80 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

APPENDIXI-Continued

POPULATION POPULATION LIVING IN LIVING IN POPULATION FOREIGN- RENTAL GROUP WALKING ASIAN BORN HOUSING QUARTERS TO WORK POPULATION POPULATION TOWN AND STATE (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) AnnArbor, Mich. 50.6 10.9 15.8 11.9 16.6 Athens,Ga. 56.1 8.1 4.3 3.1 8.4 Auburn,Ala. 52.8 9.0 3.9 3.3 4.9 Brockport,N.Y. 49.5 27.8 23.6 1.0 2.6 Davis,Calif. 52.9 4.9 4.6 17.5 17.2 Decorah,Iowa 29.3 26.5 30.0 1.6 4.2 Ellensburg,Wash. 60.9 13.9 15.2 4.1 6.6 Grambling,La. 55.1 42.3 10.6 0.1 0.9 Greencastle,Ind. 37.3 22.8 16.6 1.4 2.2 Ithaca,N.Y. 72.0 25.3 41.2 13.7 16.0 Manhattan,Kans. 52.7 12.9 11.0 3.9 6.5 Newark,Del. 43.3 23.6 13.0 4.1 7.4 Norman,Okla. 39.5 6.3 3.0 3.5 6.0 Searcy,Ark. 39.1 16.3 5.3 0.5 2.1 StateCollege, Pa. 77.1 27.9 40.6 8.8 11.1 Warrensburg,Mo. 52.4 16.7 9.6 2.8 4.5 Williamstown,Mass. 23.2 27.9 26.0 3.1 7.5 All 59 studytowns 51.8 13.3 12.9 6.3 13.2 Averagefor the 59 50.6 18.5 15.9 4.7 7.7 studytowns Totalfor the United 31.3 2.8 2.9 3.6 11.1 States Urbanclusters, 35.2 5.3 3.9 1.8 6.8 25,000-49,999