<p>Alexandre, that statistic simply doesn’t work, because of the way city boundaries are drawn in the United States. Some cities cover just a few square miles while others cover hundreds. </p>
<p>Say you had City A, of 50,000 people, whose municipal boundaries only cover 5 square miles. Assume that other towns and cities in the 100 square miles surrounding City A have a population of 500,000 people. Compare this with City B, which looks absolutely identical, except its municipal boundaries extend out to cover 100 square miles. City B has a total population of 550,000 (of whom 50,000 live within the central area of 5 square miles). Although City A might have a college population of 20,000 in the central 5 square miles, and City B might have a college population of 40,000 in the central 5 square miles, only City A would fit your criteria. </p>
<p>This is just an illustrative example - it is usually far more nuanced than that and what makes a good college town is more a matter of where a college is located (and how that affects social life, including the extent to which students are “sucked” off of the campus on weekends), not what city it is in.</p>
<p>Bottom line is that technicalities or statistics don’t make college towns, college towns make college towns. See <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/2460128-post37.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/2460128-post37.html</a> for my list.</p>