Wayne State in Detroit.
DePaul, Roosevelt, University of IL Chicago all have campuses in or near the loop in Chicago.
Wayne State, some CUNY schools and McGill look very good. I will definitely at some point check out some of the schools in Boston. Thanks!
St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn also offers some fine programs and spills into the city – https://www.sjcny.edu/brooklyn
It is also fairly inexpensive, as far as these things go, with good FA.
Marymount Manhattan College is very urban. It’s located in a posh area of the Upper East Side. Actually it’s quite close to CUNY Hunter College.
You could look at European universities. Plenty of grit in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome…
Unless Milwaukee has been cleaned up more than I recall, the Marquette campus was always right in there with the local urban poor and homeless.
I was going to say tongue-in-cheek that you could go to Rice and start spraying your own graffiti on the live oaks … but you never know who you’re dealing with.
Surprisingly enough, University of Michigan. The borders between “campus” and Ann Arbor are very fluid. And there are homeless people all over Ann Arbor. And crime.
In addition to the University of Pittsburgh, consider Portland State University & several San Francisco schools (Univ. of San Francisco, San Francisco State & Golden Gate University plus others).
If the OP wants a good linguistics program (or much of linguistics program at all, even) then s/he may need to compromise on the setting. Linguistics is a relatively low-demand major. Some of the schools mentioned above may otherwise be attractive, but apparently do not offer that major. Check the “majors and minors” pages.
Boston, not gritty??
haha that comment wasn’t mine but , if what you’re used to is somewhere like San Francisco, no Boston is definitely not gritty!
I certainly didn’t feel any grit around BU 
We didn’t tour Northeastern.
If academics are even half as important as artsy graffiti, dubious sanitary conditions, abundance of dirt and sweat … then these should be considered. All of these offer authentic urban living with museums, public transport, homeless, sports, theatres, basically a wholesome and interestingly genuine experience of city life.
Harvard, MIT, Yale, UPenn,
UChicago, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins
Rice, Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Carnegie Mellon
I’m sure if academics aren’t an issue then you can find conditions these schools may not provide.
Honestly, your kind of genuine life is better than clinically sterile bubbles and it sure can give youth a rich life experience helping them grow into more enlightened adulthood.
@Riversider nice list, but I wouldn’t call Georgetown gritty. It’s green and bucolic compared to others on your list. And the part of DC that is Georgetown is rather swank.
Drexel is urban and gritty.
Portland State is right in downtown Portland and has a linguistics program.
Did anyone mention UVM? It’s in an urban area and I’ve noticed one or two pieces of grit.
Most of San Francisco is not gritty - just a particular section of downtown that’s very visible. For whatever reason, people see that area and assume the whole city must be like that.
Um…simba9, if we are talking the city, there is much that is gritty beyond just “a particular section” of the downtown area. The homeless population does not confine itself to the tenderloin. I have friends living in a number of (pricey) neighborhoods around the city that have issues with crime and homeless people on their doorsteps etc. sure some further parts and the suburban east/south bays and Marin are better. But there is a lot of grit in the city and it’s not just one spot.