<p>mattmom,
Sorry but students/families aren’t coming to visit the Philly suburbs or the local history—they’re coming to visit the Philly schools. Villanova is in the 'burbs so maybe that’s an exception, but comparing the physical space around places like U Penn, Temple, Lasalle, even St. Joseph’s, I doubt many would find those areas “really nice.” Furthermore, there’s a reason why Philadelphia struggles to retain its college graduates (for contrast, look at Boston) and that lack of retention is a major ongoing strategic loss for the city and region. </p>
<p>Compare Philly’s college environments to the physical space around Rice, Vanderbilt, Tulane, U North Carolina, Davidson and that makes for a pretty sharp difference. I will stop at the Durham area close to Duke; it ain’t very attractive. But Duke’s campus is mostly insulated from that in a fashion dissimilar from what one would find in Philly. Sorry, but we disagree.</p>