<p>Uchicago (campus) sounds a LOT like columbia. I havent been to UofC, but ive been to Northwestern (2 years ago, long before i ever considered going to either school). Columbia is “urban” in that it is in manhattan, but certainly isnt in the most Urban part of manhattan, and it does have a main quad and grouped campus buildings and such (unlike NYU). I didnt really like the feel of columbia’s campus (but then, it was at the end of winter when i was there, and everything just looked dead, with muddy snow on top), so im happy i didnt apply.
Northwestern definitely has a lot of perks, I really dont think that theres a bad choice to be made when deciding between them, and definitely feels more city-school than suburb. (Its definitely not suburban like Stanford, which has no access to San Francisco or San Jose’s transit.)</p>