Quote:
Originally Posted by hipster duck
So one thing I find very nerdy about this thread is that we've dug up student enrollment to population ratios but we haven't entered a discussion about the essence of what makes a certain town a "college town". I think that would be a far more interesting discussion.
Not to sound snooty, but most CEGEPs and most community colleges don't really add to the "college town" flavour of a place. That's not because CEGEP or community college students aren't smart enough, or "fun enough", or "active enough", or whatever. It's because CEGEPs and community colleges largely cater to existing students in the community that they grew up in. You finish high school and then you enroll in some courses in a college across town and come home on the bus. On the weekend you hang out with your old friends and you only come to campus - and the area surrounding the campus - to study or work on group assignments.
For me, the whole point of having a college town is to have a place where young people get a taste of living away from home for the first time. They come to a place not knowing a single other person and spend the next few years forging new friendships and exploring what independent life is like.
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Agreed. This is one of the reasons why Kingston's central core would qualify as a student town, IMO. 95% of all students at Queen's come from outside the Kingston region so they're living on their own for the first time. And what makes it interesting here is that the university for the most part only provides dorm rooms for first year undergrads. So upper year undergrads as well as grad students have to find their own living accommodations; the vast majority rent in the urban neighbourhoods nearby.
The most common living arrangement is for a group of 4-6 students to rent a house together in the surrounding residential neighbourhoods; the so called "student ghetto" where some 80-90% of the population are university undergrads. In these neighbourhoods, the built form is dense yet still low rise (Victorian-era rowhouses and semi-detached with small yards) so thousands of undergrads manage to fit into their own houses all within a close walking distance of each other and to the university. This allows for all kinds of things--like backyard parties and such--that creates the "college town" atmosphere. This is contrast to places like Waterloo where students are more likely to live in apartment towers that were built specifically for students, and they're more likely to live a bus ride away from campus instead of just a walk away. The reason why Kingston didn't end up like Waterloo in that regard is mostly due to the city council's traditional opposition to high rises in the inner city, and the fact that the transit system historically was very poor (both have changed, but only very recently). Which made both high rise student living, or living in areas away from the campus, very unattractive, forcing the students to congregate into their own little ghetto of converted rowhouses in the central city.
Students live in a bubble. Often literally called the "Queen's bubble" in the local media. They have their own neighbourhoods, their own hangouts in the downtown core, and their own social circles. There's actually very little interaction between students and permanent residents. So their own bubble is effectively a college town, even though it exists within a larger city.