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Comment by d33lio | Hacker News Reader

Why would any adult want to live in a loud college town filled with children? This is candidly why I decided to take a break from Boston. It's nice once and a while when you go out / do anything social to be able to meet people who actually have jobs, are your own relative age and aren't well... college students. I really enjoyed my time in boston as a college student, but we all know one weird friend in their mid to late twenties who still thinks it's "cool" to hang out with college kids - that's also really freaking weird.

However, I'm also VERY excited to return to a small office / co-working space.

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I can't speak to Boston, but in the couple college towns I've lived in, it really depends on where you go... there were certainly plenty of places where so-called townies frequented way more than the students, even in towns were the seasonal student population dwarfs the local one.

And before anybody jumps on you, I fully agree with the sentiment, college students in party mode can be extremely annoying to deal with if you aren't in the same mindset.

6th Street in Austin is a really good example of this phenomenon.

It seems weird to me to call Boston a college "town" but, yeah, you probably don't want to buy a place next to a frat. In Ithaca, I'm not going to live in Collegetown (where there's a lot of student housing and hangouts). But in my experience, it's generally pretty easy to get away from maximum student disruption.

Yes, Boston is far too large of a city to be classified as a "College Town".

And the GP commenter asked a completely valid question. The answer is clearly that most families with remote working parents and most mature couples that can remote work are not likely to prioritize a college town as a place to enjoy their years or raise a family.

Young single people who remote work seem to be the target of these efforts. And that is great because there are an increasing number of them.

This could help stimulate the socialization and dating scene for young single adults as well. Instead of relying on moving where the jobs are and doing online dating with random strangers.

Time will tell.

>not likely to prioritize a college town as a place to enjoy their years or raise a family.

Maybe. I'd probably argue that, if you want to live in/near a smallish town/city that isn't on the outskirts of a large city, you may find ones with colleges often better than those without. Leave aside the students, there is a significant group of professionals (and alumni visiting from time to time) that can make those towns more interesting than a random small town out in the country someplace.

Of course, tourist towns can have similar although that comes with its own set of problems.

> if you want to live in/near a smallish town/city that isn't on the outskirts of a large city, you may find ones with colleges often better than those without.

Right the tradeoff is how much value your adult personality derives out of the "collegiate" side of the town over the "students" side of the town.

Ian Faith: The Boston gig has been cancelled...

David St. Hubbins: What?

Ian: Yeah. I wouldn't worry about it though, it's not a big college town.

- This Is Spinal Tap

Definitely agreed that it's weird to "go out" (even if you're just trying to have a nice beer at a decent brewery) in college towns once you're no longer of college age. I once considered living in Burlington VT and the college kid scene was enough to eliminate it from my list of options entirely.

However, as someone who lives in a top-10 major US city right now... college towns are nice. The older I get, the more I want to buy a house, have a lawn, a garage, etc... and not only is that so expensive in my city that I'll never be able to afford it, I also don't trust my city to, say, prevent homeless folks from camping on my front lawn, breaking into my garage, stealing my bikes, etc. Or even bother cleaning my street once in a while so it isn't covered in garbage. So college towns seem like a more and more reasonable balance where I can work remotely, actually afford a house (I know they're still expensive, but not quite NYC/SF/Austin expensive), go on trips without too much traffic, and remain relatively insulated from crime. Plus they're walkable, have nice restaurants/breweries/bars/etc, and I could even adjunct teach as an option in the future.

Living in a college-adjacent town (Lansing, next to Michigan State University in East Lansing) has been pretty ideal. Somehow, students tend to stay in East Lansing for the obnoxious benders, but grad students and professors live in Lansing and the scene tends to be calmer, with nicer/cooler restaurants and bars. I never expected to stay around here for an extended time, but I have yet to be bored, and the small size means I have a lot of connections in the community.

And houses are -cheap-

Not only are there students in college towns, but there are a large number of highly educated faculty, administrators, and support staff in college towns. If you know the right places to go, the intellectual and artistic lives of adults in college towns can be very high level.

Also, Boston is full of colleges and universities, but has so, so, so much more. It’s all easily avoided if you care to.

There are plenty of places in Boston to avoid the college crowd. For the most part you won't see them in the nicer (i.e. more expensive) places.

If you live in South Boston, Mission Hill, Allston or certain parts of Cambridge that's all you'll be exposed to. The South End, Beacon Hill, and the entire South West sections of Boston (JP, Roslindale) are almost completely devoid of any college students.

> Why would any adult want to live in a loud college town filled with children?

Most college students aren't 'children' or 'kids', they're adults just like you.

Because it's still a town? It just happens to also have a college in it. The transient population results in more stuff (industry, services, transportation, ...) than you'd get otherwise, minus the traffic and real estate prices. There are still people of all ages just like any town. You have to go out of your way to meet students, so just don't do that.

Live in the outskirts? 'College town' doesn't have to mean living in a house with 8 other people.

Where you live is only half the problem. The other half is that the modern undergrad has, apparently, unlimited free time. A consequence is that if I want an ice cream cone in Berkeley I have to stand in a line 45 minutes deep. It's actually sort of a big issue!

Sounds like a great place to open something

Actually it's a notoriously bad environment for retail businesses, with astronomical rents, high labor costs, endless red tape, and a thriving industry of extortion from "neighborhood benefits organizations" and other organized criminals.

Boston has a lot of students but it's also a major coastal city. I probably wouldn't live there--but that would be because it's urban (and expensive), not because there are a fair number of students there.

a non-trivial number of people in their mid-to-late twenties are college students. not everyone starts college immediately after highschool or finishes in exactly four years. this is pretty common at non-elite schools. if you're a 25 yo full-time college student, who tf else are you going to hang out with?

College towns are good because of the kinds of adults that live there, not because of the students.

Did you live on the green line?

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