Best college towns, my ass!

Friendly reader feedback for the New Yorker

Imitation, flattery, and The Big Picture

3 Comments

• eyeball said:

  Good to see that filler material on-line is just as bad as filler material in print.

  May 20, 2009 7:58 PM

• Aaron Read said:

  Just because Boston has an assload of colleges doesn't mean it means the criteria of a "college town" as Cohen pointedly notes: it has to be friendly to college students.

  Boston has a titanic love-hate relationship with the colleges.  As in, most of the city loves to hate them.  Similarly, NYC doesn't care about its colleges...it's just too high on the smell of its own piss to notice them.  Oh wait, that's because they've been sniffing A-Roid's piss and getting a contact high.  :-)

  BTW Adam, Cohen does specifically mention Austin and other "college towns" not qualifying because they're ONE-college towns...and she feels part being a true college town is to have multiple colleges for students to interact with each other.

  May 20, 2009 10:59 PM

• Ryan said:

  There's some crazy logic in this blog. Boston can't be on that list; it's a medical town! D.C. has several large colleges inside the city and just outside. GW, American, Georgetown, CUA and even a commuter's city college. I'm probably missing one or two (and huge apologies for whatever I'm missing, knowing me, it's probably glaring). It has great public transportation & far more "reasonably priced tourist attractions." The Smithsonians and monuments are free. Plus, where is there a better place in the world to get an internship? (And I'm not just talking politics - great for communications, journalism and the like, too). Stuff to do. The Nats are like $10 bucks, probably including a hot dog =p Despite the heat, I loved my time in DC. Great scenes, good places for food, lots of other cool cities and colleges nearby, yada, yada, yada.

  And who cares of Montreal is in Canada? For basically the price of going to UMASS Amherst, one can get an elite, Ivy-caliber education at a place like McGill... and it's far easier for you to get in there than Harvard, because Americans have to pay full price (which is still cheap compared to American colleges). Heaven forbid someone experience a little culture. Sheesh.

  Luckily for this blog, the webicle is equally atrocious. Amherst #1? -- and for being 2 hours away from Boston? Has that person ever been to Amherst? Few would go all the way to Boston on any normal experience -- there are other city "flavors" much closer, like in Connecticut.

  Where's the Tri-City area in NC? That should definitely be on this list -- it has major research universities that truly rival anything in Boston w/UNC, Duke and Wake Forest. Plus, NC State is just gigantic. Plus, there's all that ACC interstate rivalry if Division 1 sports is in the Globe's criteria... programs that put UMASS to shame -- and that college kids down there actually GO to.

  May 21, 2009 3:14 AM

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