SI published an article listing "college footballs greatest college towns." Somehow or another Charlottesville came in at #10.
The University of Virginia's campus is as beautiful as it is historical, and if you don't get your full dose of Thomas Jefferson history there, make a trip to Monticello to visit his home. (Actually, no matter what, visit Monticello.) The downtown mall is a great spot to shop and eat off campus, and it's worth straying even farther and spending time in the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains, too.
The rest of the top 10:
9. College Station, Texas
8. Knoxville, Tennessee
7. Oxford, Mississippi
6. Boulder, Colorado
5. Columbia, Missouri
4. Ann Arbor, Michigan
3. Austin, Texas
2. Athens, Georgia
1. Madison, Wisconsin
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Yeah dog, you don't need heated parking garages in Athens in the winter. Athens is easy number 1 for me.
Also, Blacksburg should be ahead of Charlottesville every time if we are talking aesthetics. Everyone I know who has visited VT who isn't a VT fan has said its one of the most beautiful campuses they've ever seen.
I don't think they are rating just the college campus, but the town overall. As much as it pains me to say this, when I first visited Charlottesville a couple of years after graduating from VT I was both saddened and impressed by how nice it actually was. If we're just talking the campus, though, you could put Virginia Tech's up against any other in the country, IMO.
Why is College Station in there if they're rating the towns?
That's a great point, I don't know. I grew up in Texas, and I've never heard anything about College Station being particularly nice.
Also makes me wonder about Oxford and Columbia. I've never been to either, but I can't imagine almost any place in Missouri (and literally anywhere in Mississippi) making a nicest place list.
There are some nice places in Misery, but they're all where the people ain't. And yes I spelled it correctly
I have been to Columbia, MO a number of times and thought it was underwhelming as a college town. Its a nice place, but never had the college town feel to me. Knoxville is the other way around, has the college town feel, its just not all that nice of a place. I have been to Boulder, but not long enough to really weigh in, it seemed like it had all the things that would make it a great college town, local businesses with a lot of tradition catering to the college, nice outdoorsy free stuff to do, moderate pricing with good quality, proximity to a larger urban area that facilitate alumni engagement. I would say the same with College Station, but have only been there on business so take it as weak opinion.
Columbia has no place on this list, no offense to those living in the great State of Misery. I mean Missouri. Darned spell check.
*and if you don't get your full dose of Thomas Jefferson history there, make a trip to Monticello to visit his home. (Actually, no matter what, visit Monticello.)*
I recently visited Monticello and even there, you don't get a full dose of Thomas Jefferson... I was very disappointed in how little they talked about him and glossed over a ton of what would've been interesting tidbits about him on his own house tour.
Their town is trending down on T.J. from what I've seen recently.
*and it's worth straying even farther and spending time in the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains, too.*
this is a very backwards way of saying "travel to Virginia Tech"
It truly is amazing what TJ built at a compromise of $0.60 on the dollar
Austin is not a college town.
Neither is Ann Arbor
Fair warning.... don't check the SI list of Top 10 upsets. Just don't, for a variety of reasons.
Looks like its been forced upon us
Sigh.....
and a double sigh for realizing who posted it. That thread won't end well.
I was expecting to see ODU on there, but I guess - in the end - that being 36 inches away from a 3-8 season made it not so much of an upset.
Hence why I said to avoid it for multiple reasons. For those in it, and also for the meaning behind the one that wasn't.
I'm not sure I understand all the criteria for this determination, but in terms of football game day experience, I don't know how UVa could be on this list. Maybe Bronco paid off the writer?
This cannot be correct. The name of the list contains the word "football".
To me a "college town" is one where the town is pretty much "defined" by the college located there. Think Blacksburg, State College PA, Lafayette and South Bend, IN, Manhattan, KS, Norman, OK etc. . While UVA is a big part of Charlottesville, it doesn't dominate the way the examples above do in terms of students to total population. Charlottesville as the metro area has ten times the population of UVA while Blacksburg as an area(even including Radford and Christiansburg) is only five times the population of VT. And Oxford MS and State College and Clemson are even more so in this respect.
State College is a larger Blacksburg, with New Yorkers.
I think most people in America consider places like Charlottesville, Athens or Knoxville to be 100% college towns. I know for certain that the people who live in those places do. Even in Austin or Columbus OH, which are small-to-mid-sized cities, the colleges largely define the town, because those schools have student bodies of ~40,000 and 45,000, respectively.
I think what you are describing with Manhattan, Norman, and Blacksburg, etc., are large universities that were founded in the middle of nowhere. And I don't mean that disrespectfully at all. But 95% of us would never have heard of Blacksburg if it weren't for Virginia Tech.
I totally agree. Being from Charlottesville, the town truly revolves around UVA. I get the original comment's point because yes Tech controls Blacksburg more given Blacksburg's smaller size, Charlottesville is still a quintessential college town. Without UVA it would have been an unremarkable, small-stop town on I-64 in the middle of the state. With UVA, it's very similar to Chapel Hill and Athens with an added bonus of having a president's house nearby.
A couple president's houses. Monroe's house is around the corner from Jefferson's.
The downtown mall is a great spot to shop and eat off campus.
Having been there 100+ times and having family that lives there, I can say with full confidence that neither of these two claims are true IMO.
A more appropriate title would be "Cities we like that also happen to have a college and a football team"
This was what I was going to say. I like Charlottesville, but it doesn't feel like a "town" at all. It definitely feels like a city.
Blacksburg, however, is a town and it very much feels like one. And to get to most of those big box stores and chain restaurants you have to venture outside of the town of Blacksburg. In Charlottesville it's all along that clusterfuck that is HWY29 which is part of the CITY of Charlottesville.
Plus I agree with the above sentiment about the gameday experience. You could be in Charlottesille and not know there is a football game going on. Gameday in Blacksburg is truly special (and very noticeable).
True. I mean, technically, Williamsburg has college football and is a better town, overall, in my opinion.
These articles are basically SI turning to clickbait for revenue.
I know that we are all talking about Hoo'ville being #10 but a bigger tragedy is Knoxville at #8....
I live near Knoxville and totally agree that it's not a "college town". Yes, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is fantastic and the Old City and Market Square are decent places to hang out. But Knoxville is a fairly large city and it has all the problems that medium to large cities have. Replace Ktown with the Burg or State College (or similar), where the only game in town is the university and you truly get that college town atmosphere.
If the list doesn't have Blacksburg as a College Football Town, then it simply isn't a valid list. Also half the places listed are cities and therefore not "towns."
Charlottesville is a healthcare town.
Blacksburg, Harrisonburg, Athens, Austin, etc. are college towns.
Not quite. And really the only reason why there are healthcare jobs is because of UVA Medical Center (Martha Jefferson, while nice, isn't nearly as big and prominent). I picture Roanoke as a healthcare town/city if anything,
If you had to come up with your own, what would your Top 10 College Towns be?
Thinking mine would include these, with 2 fill ins...
- Clemson, SC
- Blacksburg, VA
- Corvallis, OR
- State College, PA
- Athens, GA
- Oxford, MS
- Chapel Hill, NC
- Charlottesville, VA
I grew up in Charlottesville. I never once thought of it as a college town, which is why I decided to go to Tech.