Anyway, here's the WaPo article. Who am I to quibble with the choices of restaurants and concert venues (just because I live here)?
The carefully planned area around the Capitol building, called Capitol Square, is packed with trendy restaurants, bars, shops and music venues that appeal to residents as well as visitors. And the campus? It's a straight shot down State Street, past about a mile of beer and coffee bars, restaurants, boutiques, ice cream shops, a modern art museum and performing arts center.I love the phrase "a mile of beer."
It’s a place where you can get your fill of traditional Wisconsin indulgences, like Friday night fish fries and old-fashioneds made with brandy, while finding a healthy balance, as the locals do, in countless outdoor activities — water sports, cycling and running in warmer months; cross-country skiing, snow shoeing and ice fishing during the long winter.I'll just say I don't think the locals confine cycling and running to "warmer months." You've got to have some special skills to be one of the winter cyclists, but they're out there, and Madison runners run all winter. The only question is whether it's warm enough to wear shorts, and there are plenty of locals who say yes on any random above-zero day.
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112 comments:
My first thought was Williamstown, MA. Hanover, NH maybe second...
When I lived there, the joke was that the isthmus from west to east was UW, the Capitol, and finally Oscar Meyer. Or simply, baloney, baloney, and baloney...
Hard to beat Athens, GA and Chapel Hill, NC.
The problem using Williamstown is essentially the campus is the town...but maybe that’s the point.
Nothing says "quintessential" Wisconsin like fried cheese curds and "a mile of beer" just saying.
My quintessential college town was Gainesville, FL. At the time I lived there, the population was about 1/3 students, 1/3 other university affiliated, and 1/3 everybody else. The town moved to the rhythms of the university. The streets were quiet in football Saturday, and the local government milked the students for every dime they could.
A state capital cannot be a college town because it has a life away from the college.
Squeeze is touring the US starting in February I think. Daughter and I just got our tickets for the KC date in July.
Althouse said...
The most college town college town I've ever seen is Williamstown, Massachusetts. If you want to talk about quintessence.
No, it's Faber.
And if you mention quintessence again, I'll have your legs broken.
Don't forget The Quintessential Dictionary by I M Hunsberger, a nice thousand words and examples that, if memorized, lets you read all of Buckley without looking anything up. I recommend making flash cards.
>
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
― Michael Crichton <
The ONLY thing that Williamstown has going for it is the Clark Art Institute. Specifically, that wonderful room in which the walls are filled with priceless impressionist art.
The college itself has long been corrupted by the same far-left inoperable cancer -- long past the point of cure or redemption -- that we see in most other liberal arts colleges. If the place were bulldozed tomorrow, nobody would miss it within a couple of years.
Althouse said
"I'll just say I don't think the locals confine cycling and running to "warmer months."
Grilling is also a winter activity in Wisconsin and the whole northern tier of states. There are some local variations. Rule 1. First brush off the snow. Northern grillers disagree on whether to wear shorts if it's snowing. They do put on shoes - around where I was, moccasin-type slip-ons, no socks, certainly not boots. The first time I saw this, which was during a snowstorm in The Winter of 40 Below, I was so impressed I went out to take a picture. However, by the time I got on my hat, scarf, jacket, gloves, warm pants and boots, the steaks were done. You see, if you brush off the snow, the grill warms up quickly. In the dark, flying sparks amid falling snow.
Grinnell, Iowa.
No tent city, but plenty of homeless around the carefully planned square.
And Madison is so white it looks bleached.
I love the phrase "a mile of beer."
I think they sell those in English pubs.
If you can down all 5280 feet in one gulp it's free.
Isla Vista is the quintessential college town. It's a town that exists solely for the pleasure of UCSB students.
The most college town college town I've ever seen is Williamstown, Massachusetts.
My vote would go to Lexington, Virginia, home to Washington & Lee University (1800 students) and Virginia Military Institute. And hardly anything else, except for the cemetery where Stonewall Jackson is buried and the Lee Chapel, where Robert E. Lee and family are buried. Also Cocoa Mill, which makes America’s best chocolate truffles.
I was offered a full scholarship to Williams College but I rejected it because I didn't want to play football anymore.
Now look at me.
Regrets, I have a few.
Northfield, Minnesota. Carleton College and St. Olaf College.
Cannon River runs through it.
Quaint downtown area with bars.
Two beautiful campuses.
My oldest daughter is Carleton, '14.
That was a long time ago before Williams went commie.
Columbia SC was awesome college town in the late 1980s
Still remember spring visit to Williams for admissions interview. Driving side of a hill, middle of the woods, sign saying, Welcome to Williamstown. Nothing but trees.
When I came back to WI from my stint in the USAF, my best bud lived in Madison. I would go down and crash at his place on the weekends.
I never liked Madison. It always seemed dirty to me. Dirty in all senses of the word. I'm ok if I never see it again.
When I went to graduation school, I biked to work every day there wasn’t snow on the roads. It’s not like there’s anyplace for a grad student to park. Only had 2 bikes stolen.
Princeton at that time I'd call a quintessential college town. Now not so much.
Obviously meant graduate school or gradual school as T.S. Garp would say, where you gradually get tired of going to school.
Madison has 250,000 people. That puts it in the top 100 population wise.
If you were to diagram the sentence, I believe you would have a very long branch dedicated to the adjectival prepositional phrase that modifies "mile". That is to say, the object of the preposition "of" which describes the "mile" is not the simple single noun "beer" but the compound noun phrase including the beer, the coffee, the shops, and all.
For the type of people who care about a quintessential college town, having it also be a seat of government isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
I'd argue that Davidson, NC would be the quintessential college town. The town was even named Davidson College prior to the 1890s. It has an award winning restaurant and a quaint downtown area.
Faber college was modeled on Dartmouth and Hanover NH which is a great college town.
Tucson AZ is a college town plus a huge AF base. Better weather than Madison WI, too. Also better than Hanover but winter in Hanover is fun for those who like winter. My friends would be getting their cross country skis out before the first snow. Some had skis on rollers.
I grew up in Chicago, which cured me of any affection for winter. 71 in Tucson yesterday, 6 in Chicago.
California was paradise before Jerry Brown.
Are college town typically packed with trendy restaurants, bars, and shops?
When I was in college eating out and drinking in bars were rarities. Far cheaper to eat in, or maybe get a pizza, and drinking mostly happened in someone's apartment.
And none of us could afford shops...
Arkadelphia, Arkansas, population about 10,000, is home to two small universities (are there still colleges anymore?).
It's isolated from any big city.
A true college town.
For me, the money quote was this: "Madison is like Sara Lee -- nobody doesn't like it."
As our Beloved Professor Althouse pointed out,
Colleges and Universities are NOT the same thing
Is UW even the largest employer in Madison?
They just love using "quintessential," no matter its appropriateness. It's one of those gotta-have journalisming words.
Find places to put "quintessential" and "overarching" and "GARNER" and hit Publish!
What goes good with Coronavirus?
Lyme disease.
I guess personal bias would lead me to say Gainesville.
And there is nothing a Floridian hates mare than a northerner talking about how much colder it is where they came from. On behalf of all Floridians, nobody gives a shit about how the weather is where you came from. Grab a pink flamingo and a palm tree and get in line.
Dr K said...
Tucson AZ is a college town plus a huge AF base.
And, a Speedway! Don't forget the Speedway! That boulevard has GOT to go Somewhere!
trendy restaurants, bars, and shops
Stuff white people like.
I believe I've seen Squeeze more than any other band.
I went to grad school in Columbus Ohio and I biked to School in the middle of winter. Your eyeballs would freeze, it's very uncomfortable
I agree. how can you be a "college town" when you're the state capitol?
UC davis, now there's a college town. Its the college and cows.
The most college town I have ever seen is Evanston, IL. Was in graduate school at Northwestern for 4 years in the late 80s-early 90s. Of course, Evanston is joined at the hip with Chicago.
If I limit myself to just small colleges, then Berea, KY, but my experience in such places is fairly limited.
Stuff white people like.
Yeah, so what. I'm a white person and I like my stuff.
I left Madison in 1975 to find work in the Twin Cities. The Metro had similarities, but it was big enough that the effects of the University and the State Government were diluted enough that one could ignore either.
West Coast - The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, California. A Consortium of 7 small private colleges patterned after Oxford University's college set up. The first college, Pomona College was founded in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California, and in the 1920s, it became the founding member of the Claremont Colleges consortium (total of 7 today). The College campus was built like a New England town (trees, etc.).
It’s a place where you can get your fill of traditional Wisconsin indulgences, like .. . . . old-fashioneds made with brandy,
DH and I visited family for a couple of days four years ago. I wanted to return for longer period (if nothing else than to visit more Frank Lloyd Wright sites). One of the best events was "Movie Night on the Terrace" (hat tip to Meade and Madison Man for that suggestion).
But old-fashioneds made with brandy is a Wisconsin indulgence? Maybe Madison aint' so great after all.
I'm partial to College Station, but I also agree that better examples come from towns with colleges rather than universities. College Station has gradually moved away from being quintessential as the university grew. A&M may still be the biggest business in College Station, but it has attracted enough other businesses that it has lost some of the uniqueness it once had.
The ideal college town IMO should not be as isolated as Hanover or Williamstown. It should be close enough to other cultural, sports and entertainment resources to offer a full range of activities to students, while still having the small town feel. Chapel Hill satisfies this requirement because of the proximity to Durham and Raleigh. I haven't been to Austin, but maybe Austin has both cultural range as well as college feel. Princeton has these features.
I also think that one can get "college town" feel at a school like Tufts or Boston College, while still having all the resources of Boston and surrounding New England.
"And Madison is so white it looks bleached."
That's not true. The city is about 7% African American. It is odd that the Post didn't make an effort to include any Black Madisonians in the photos. It's almost like the locals self-segregate and the Post didn't bother to visit any of the Black parts of town.
There was work-around that the University has used in the past.
OT -- my bad -- but Ken Starr is going full erudite College Professor on the Senate Floor. I bet Althouse would love it.
packed with trendy
Already that disqualifies it as a quintessential college town, unless quintessential means millennial, rather than traditional.
And, a Speedway! Don't forget the Speedway! That boulevard has GOT to go Somewhere!
Maybe you know. I sure don't.
Grandfather: Since the invention of the quintessential college town, there have been five quintessential college towns that were rated the most passionate, the most pure.
This one left them all behind.
The end.
Madison rocks. But baby it gets cold outside. What that has to do with the band shell park at Daytona Beach Pier stumped me.That was once the heart of the spring break and the summer trips for the High School and college students from Atlanta. And baby it was hot outside.
BTW, the answer is Annapolis, MD.
But the mainstream media certainly isn't about to go there.
Ah Williamstown MA
..ice sculptures along frat row on the walk down to Spring Street;
..free coke at the concession stand if you collect a case of empties under the bleachers at football games;
..exploring the field house (and the ice house) at the end of Spring Street;
..comic books and penny candy at Bemis' news stand;
..watching the pioneer cabin being built in the traffic circle;
..ice skating in winter and tadpole collecting in spring at the pond through the woods behind our house - now a drain basin at the Clark Art Institute parking lot;
..learning to ride a bike no-hands on the downhill from the Chapel to the Congregational Church;
..reading Dr Seuss and viewing stereoscope pics at the Public Library - before it move to Pine Cobble.
..being a pest at Henry George's dairy farm;
..swimming at Brooks' pond on Bee Cave Road.
GREAT place to grow up, but I would na wanna live there now. That was 65-70 yrs ago. Passed through there a couple of decades ago and the wokeness was major oppressive.
Yeah, the town was mostly the college back then, but there was also Sprague Electric in North Adams - now the MASS MOCA.
Boulder, with about 100K people, certainly qualifies as a big government town, with CASA, CCAR, CIRA, CIRES, ESRL, INSTAAR, JILA, LASP, NEON, NIST, NSIDC, NTIA, RASEI, SWPC, UCAR, UNAVCO, USGS. Plus CU and stuff like Naropa.
There was work-around that the University has used in the past.
That guy's a good friend of mine. I Photoshop him into all my selfies.
He's Canadian, you know, so you won't actually see him very often.
Michael K said...
Maybe you know. I sure don't.
Haven't you encountered the Arizona "How could you be so dumb, everybody knows where that is!" mentality yet?
SQUEEZE! And you posted their best song ever!
Best lyric: "He smokes himself into double vision
Leaves his mind on an indecision
Thinks he's invented imagination
Says that god is some relation"
Closely followed by "Piccadilly".
Best lyric: "A man behind me talks to his old lady,
He's happy that she is expecting his baby.
His wife won't be pleased, but she's not been 'round lately."
Thanks as always, Ann!
Tank went to law school in Newark, NJ.
Not the best.
Missoula MT became a college town when they got rid of most the mills.
Never quintessential tho.
Wow, you people have been in a lot of places! All I know after a career as an alum and liberry perfesser at my hometown Overgrown Normal School University is that higher education is a multiverse unto itself: I've visited maybe six of the places listed (the campuses, not just the towns or cities) and never for long enough to get any understanding of the town-gown relationship.
I do know that what has passed for a student strip since I was in short pants has been gathered (garnered?) into the spiffy redevelopment public-private partnership yaddayadda as part of the university's and city's big ambitions.
On the other end of the scale locally, my father's alma mater (Presby-affiliated, highly-ranked, expensive as hell [only one reason of many I didn't apply]), and movie-set gorgeous) is starting to attract attention; it certainly drew many of our friends and their kids.
About six months before I retired I was asked to be in a focus group on university image. I argued that far from going after some mythical "college town" status we should identify as the City (and Regional) University we already are.
Narr
Faber College is just east of here
Squeeze at Daytona Beach... yes!!!
One of my favorite bands.
The Madison I remember from the 60s and 70s had lots of grubby bars and cheap restaurants, none of them the least bit trendy.
“ California was paradise before Jerry Brown.”
You ain’t lyin’ !
As great as it is, whatever you do, don't travel there, especially not by plane.
And racism. Don't forget the racism. Madison is the quintessential racist college town. By the numbers perhaps the most racist city in America.
John Henry
“ UC davis, now there's a college town. Its the college and cows.”
Meh. Berkeley in the Central Valley.
And don't forget Worcester, MA. Worcester Polytech, The College of Holy Cross, Worcester State, Clark University, and Assumption, among others. Or is that too many for quaint and quintessential? Yeah, I think it is.
Pullman, WA and Moscow, ID.
Especially back when the drinking age was 19 in Idaho.
Two universities surrounded by wheat fields. Either you were a farmer or a student. That's it.
“I guess personal bias would lead me to say Gainesville.”
Florida white trash and home of Florida Man.
If I have to pick a uw town, I prefer uw Stout.
Nice town, nice school.
John Henry
Wow, I saw this show. I liked Squeeze a lot.
Gainesville? Ha ha ha ha ha!
I went to State College on business once, and was pleasantly surprised. I may move there when I am ready to settle into one place, or Ithaca, NY.
Austin used to be great before it turned into Tech-Bro/California ex-pat trendy. Austin is that great band you got to see at a bar and now only plays festivals in front of high fivers who keep yelling for the "hit." Even San Marcos where Texas State is just south of Austin is cooler now. Gainesville produces tedious, pretentious pseudo-dissidents like Cookie who need to remind you that they live in New York in every conversation.
It's almost like the locals self-segregate and the Post didn't bother to visit any of the Black parts of town.
The writer seemed to stay on the near east side. Overwhelmingly white.
My favorite College town is Chestertown MD, home to Washington College -- that makes it a college town I guess. Very quaint small town.
As David Begley said above, Northfield has both Carleton College (my alma mater - rah! rah! sis boom bah!) and St. Olaf (boo! hiss!). It has an excellent, alliterative motto: "Cows, Colleges, and Contentment." It also had a Malt O Meal factory, which you could smell when the wind was right.
And boy was it cold and snowy! (You're welcome, Farmer! :) )
I saw Squeeze last September and they were fantastic, best show I've seen in ages. I see they're on tour again, opening for Hall and Oates this year. I'll be there.
South Bend, Indiana has Notre Dame and St. Mary's.
Notre Dame, of course, has a beautiful campus and good football team.
But South Bend has a terrible crime problem and the current mayor has done NOTHING about fixing it.
Gettysburg, Pa, where I went to college was a perfect town, our side of the tracks, and the tourist side of the tracks, quite literally. In 1863 the 11th Corps formed up and dressed ranks on what would become our frat house lawn. The train tracks (think of the unfinished railroad cut Gettysburg Battle aficionados) now used by the tourist train was in our backyard and woke us up every weekend morning starting at 0800 with it's damn whistle. The local businesses were not dependent on the college, so the 'town and gown' controversies were limited. Also, Carlisle, PA, with Dickinson College and the Dickinson School of Law (disclosure, my FIL taught there). Both Gettysburg and Carlisle required no cars, or even bicycles, you could walk everywhere. Gettysburg had a wonderful beer distributer who delivered kegs to our frat. If I remember it was Old Swillwaukee for $21 a keg delivered.
stevew: I interviewed at Holy Cross (dad's alma mater) on my junior year New England college tour. Worcester definitely not "quintessential college town" in early seventies. Maybe today.
"I saw Squeeze last September and they were fantastic, best show I've seen in ages. I see they're on tour again, opening for Hall and Oates this year. I'll be there."
Difford and Tilbrook are such a great songwriting duo. Argy Bargy is definitely one of my "Desert Island Discs."
For Squeeze fans, heres a Youtube link to a full concert in 1981, right in their prime Argy Bargy/East Side Story period. I remember this originally broadcast on MTV's In Concert series. It's really good. Squeeze
Daytona Beach is such a shithole...
I would think college town would require a metric of say, college students/non-college students. Madison be much less of a college town than say:
1) State College, PA
2) Chapel Hill, NC
3) College Park, MD
Williamstown would only have a .3 ratio, whereas the above would be close to .8-1.0
Lexington, VA would only have a .5 ratio.
Gainesville would also be below .5
At one time, Pullman, Washington would have a population of 35,000 during the school year, and just 10,000 during the summer. Spokane is an hour to the north, and Salt Lake City somewhere to the south.....yeah, pretty much in the middle of no where.
Go Cougs!!
And racism. Don't forget the racism. Madison is the quintessential racist college town. By the numbers perhaps the most racist city in America.
I was watching the Joe Pera show and he mentioned that Milwaukee was the most segregated town in the U.S., so maybe it's a Wisconsin thing.
Boston, is of course, the best college town, with a quarter of a million students.
Boston, is of course, the best college town, with a quarter of a million students.
Maybe that explains Boston traffic.
At one time, Pullman, Washington would have a population of 35,000 during the school year, and just 10,000 during the summer.
Moscow ID is only about 14 miles east. I can remember when the loser of the game had to walk to the other campus.
Thanks, jerpod! That's a treat!
Saw Squeeze open for Sting way back in October of '91 at the Concord Pavilion in the Bay Area. Great seats, outstanding show!
Valparaiso Indiana......said no one ever.
It explains the high quality Boston trim.
Middlebury, VT, most radical, progressive, liberal, college town in the US; therefore quintessential collage town. Nice people with terrible ideas. Their Breadloaf summer program has indoctrinated almost every secondary English teacher in the US.
"Middlebury, VT, most radical, progressive, liberal, college town in the US; therefore quintessential collage town."
That's where I wanted to go to college, but it was back in the days when you didn't just go wherever you wanted and use loans to cover the cost. It was much cheaper to go to a state school.
See what I mean about Howard having a point sometimes?
When you wanted to go there, you probably would have gotten a good education.
As for bands, we had 'Nixon's Head' and the 'Fleshtones' play in our living room, plus others I can't recall. The Fleshtones were by far the best small stage group I've seen.
Madison -- 40 square miles surrounded by reality
Or maybe Charlottesville, where you can have a picnic lunch on the lawn in front of the Jefferson-designed Rotunda, spend the afternoon pulling down a Confederate statute, then, for a little madcap night action, clock a rightie with a bicycle lock while wearing a black Antifa mask.
I have lived in more than 10 locations in the United States but my favorite place to live was Madison. Wonderful restaurants, more than I could get to, exciting sporting and entertainment events and Wisconsinites really are easy to like. Are there ugly buildings on the isthmus campus? Indeed! And that is a condition that goes with large universities.
As for public university towns, my favorite is Oxford, OH - onetime home of the Miami University Redskins.
Then there is the tiny liberal arts school located high above the banks of the Ohio River just west of Madison, IN, Hanover College is unique. Besides a small 1,100 student headcount, the school claims Mike Pence and Woody Harrelson as graduates.
,
Bloomington, IN!
Go Hoosiers!
Hmmmm: The racial makeup of the city is 78.9 percent white, 7.3 percent black, 0.4 percent American Indian, 7.4 percent Asian, 2.9 percent other races, and 3.1 mixed race. Hispanic or Latino of any race consisted of 6.8 percent of the population. Wiki: Madison, WI Demographics
So compared to the nation as a whole Madison has proportionately 1/2 the black population and almost 1/3rd of the Hispanic population? Geez Professor, that's an awfully white city--not sure we can praise #MadisonSoWhite as an exemplar of a "college town" without noting the serious demographic racism involved.
Seems a bit ugly don't you think?
Ann Althouse said...
"Middlebury, VT, most radical, progressive, liberal, college town in the US; therefore quintessential collage town."
That's where I wanted to go to college, but it was back in the days when you didn't just go wherever you wanted and use loans to cover the cost. It was much cheaper to go to a state school.
Oh dear! Middlebury VT demographics:
White: 86.90%
Asian: 5.71%
Two or more races: 4.21%
Black or African American: 1.85%
Other race: 1.28%
Native American: 0.04%
I dunno, Professor; I have to think in other cases an affluent white person stating a clear preference for living in places with much-lower-than-avg minority populations would rate a comment from nice centrist people like you.
Why is it, may I ask, that *some* clearly-racist choices like that (using the centrist-approved operative definition of racism) get a pass while some are scorned and identified as ugly?
Baffling.
I liked Rocky's Pizza in the Sun Prairie suburb of Madison. They serve a good gluten free pizza. My son and I were directed there by a manager at the COSTCO across the way on our road trip (Ann's right road trips are better than airlines) from San Antonio to Oshkosh, for the big airshow.
The funny thing was that my son completely misunderstood what she said. I found it on the phone GPS while I noticed he was having trouble. Asked why, he said he couldn't find it. When I showed him my phone he exclaimed "Rocky's! I thought she said Racquis." I couldn't help but laugh. I explained it was her Wisconsin accent. I have a pretty good built in English Dialect translator in my head based on my four decades of domestic and international travel. He had trouble understanding the whole four days we were there. His final observation was "I've never been more aware of my own accent."
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