<p>Actually according to the Harvard police (stalcommpol.org), Harvard is much more dangerous.</p>
<p>New Haven’s population is actually much larger than 125,000 - the small population figures you are citing are from the “Town” boundaries of New Haven, which, because New Haven is one of the oldest cities in the country, were established in the 1700s long before the advent of large cities in the U.S. The reason population has declined since 1960 is the same reason the population of lower Manhattan has declined - because people have much smaller families these days (especially in a place like New Haven or Manhattan, where the percentage of young singles is higher than that of any other area in their home State), and because some land has been redeveloped from housing to high-density office space.</p>
<p>The real boundaries of New Haven encompass surrounding “towns” and hold over 500,000 people. A good way to measure the real size of cities is to look at the population density in their central (downtown) area. New Haven has a much denser downtown population than places like Denver, Seattle, Baltimore, etc. </p>
<p>Another good way - in fact, the ONLY way - to measure actual population is to use the U.S. Census Bureau figures on metropolitan areas. The census directly explains that you can’t compare cities using their traditional (1700s) boundaries because they vary so much - some cities have city lines just outside the center, while others, like Wichita or Albuquerque, have city lines that lie dozens of miles from the center, and therefore contain 10+ times the square milage of a city like New Haven, which is only 17 square miles in area. By the metro area measure as well, New Haven is a very large city - it’s actually part of a New Haven “NECMA” metropolitan area holding over 2,000,000 residents, and is also a part of the New York City “CMSA” metropolitan area, which holds 22,000,000 residents.</p>
<p>Incidentally, New Haven is also the wealthiest metropolitan area in the country, after San Francisco. Probably explains the million-dollar condos being built everywhere. I’ve been to all the well-known college towns (Athens, Auburn, Charlottesville, Chapel Hill, Westwood, Madison, Ann Arbor, Austin, Northampton, Bloomington, etc.), and New Haven is easily one of the 10 best college towns in the country right now, but I think that will rapidly change over the next 5 years, making the city too gentrified/expensive to qualify as one of the top 10.</p>