I’m looking for urban colleges with a more self-contained campus. I’m interested in psychology and art majors, and would prefer North-Eastern colleges. Any suggestions?
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Fordham, Northeastern, Clark, Holy Cross, Boston College, University of Rochester, Skidmore, Seton Hall
Macalester is Midwest, but meets your criteria.
https://www.american.edu/aumaps/upload/Main_Tenley_Vicinity.pdf
https://www.cmu.edu/assets/pdfs/cmu_map_8.5x11.pdf
https://maps.georgetown.edu/
https://www.howard.edu/explore/map/
https://www.sarahlawrence.edu/media/about/pdf/sarah-lawrence-college-campus-map.pdf
I wouldn’t consider Skidmore urban.
In addition to those mentioned, Brown, Providence College, Johns Hopkins.
U of Pittsburgh ( there has been some debate on CC as to whether this is in the northeast)
Definitely the University of Vermont in Burlington. To me, a top five college town. Very beautiful, downtown right on Lake Champlain, and campus just a ten-minute walk away.
Maybe Smith College (women’s) in Northampton, which is more of a decent size town than a city. It’s a great town, though, and the school is right adjacent to downtown. It is also part of the five-college consortium, which would allow you to take classes, etc. at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and U Mass Amherst. That might give you some great options for psych and art.
And good recommendations above. I’d second Clark, Holy Cross, Providence, and maybe Fordham (don’t know surrounding area well)
I’d add Tufts, although I’m not sure about art there. Just don’t know.
I agree about Macalester, certainly not New England, but maybe what you are looking for. And New England cold.
Would you consider Seattle/Portland? They may be too far, and travel costs may be too high, but they are some fun college towns with schools that fit your criteria. Just asking.
Good luck!
Tufts actually has a great fine arts program because they merged with the Museum of Fin Arts School about 2 years back.
http://www.mfa.org/news/smfa-tufts
UVT and Burlington are great if you consider that urban. I consider Burlington a city, albeit a small one, but I’m from northern New England and we don’t have huge cities. We had some guests visiting this past weekend and had this conversation as we explored a great local small city which they thought of as a town. 
In addition to those already mentioned, NE+urban+self-contained colleges include:
George Washington, Loyola-MD, UPenn, Columbia (and Barnard), Yale, Trinity (Hartford), Boston University, and Harvard.
Would add Trinity, maybe Vassar (great arts programs, but Poughkeepsie is more an aging industrial town than “city”).
OP, what are you thinking in terms of your definition of “urban”? I personally think of Northampton as a large town; Burlington as a small city; Providence, Hartford, Worcester, and Rochester as cities; Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh as large cities. A family member who lives in China doesn’t consider anything under 5 million people to be a city at all.
Also, what are you looking at in terms of admissions? There’s a tremendous Brown/RISD program, but a student has to be accepted into both schools, which is extremely difficult. Obviously, the same with Harvard, Yale, and some of the other schools listed, but certainly not many of them. Good luck!
Temple, Penn and Drexel are Philadelphia schools integrated into the surrounding neighborhoods, but not to the extent of GWU or NYU. St. Joe’s is a lovely, well-defined campus in a more residential section of the city (sort of like Loyola in Baltimore).
Not in the Northeast but American University in Washington is an urban school with a campus. Tufts and Brandeis are suburban schools that are close to Boston with easy access. Temple is of course right in Philly as is Drexel.
Some of these might have been mentioned, but I don’t think so–
Syracuse–amazing art program
Tufts–and it has a unique museum program/ art orientation
Cornell (Ithaca is a large town or small city, very nice)
Ithaca college – lots of art here.
U of Rochester
RIT–interesting art majors there;
RPI–some art
Union College
Alfred–yes to art including one of the best ceramics programs.
Colgate (in a small town . . . . )
Stevens Institute of Technology (Hoboken and a short ferry ride to NYC)–some arty stuff here among the tech
Rutgers
Quinnipiac
Connecticut college
Someone mentioned Vassar but its visual arts program isn’t as well developed as other arts programs there.
Did someone mention Clark?
Just to put things in perspective:
Boston is about one tenth the size of New York. It is a small, but somewhat dense city.
Cambridge+Somerville has the same population as Providence in half the area
Somerville is the 15th densest city in the country; Cambridge the 26th; Boston is 51st.
Burlington VT has half the population of Newton.
Wellesley is a town
City… Population…Area (sq miles)…Colleges
NYC …8.1M…300…Columbia, Barnard, Fordham
Boston…650K…48… NEU, BU
Cambridge…107K…6… MIT, Harvard
Somerville…76K…4…Tufts
Providence…179K…21… Brown
Worcester…185K…38… Holy Cross, WPI, Clark
New Haven…131K…20…Yale
Newton… 85K…18…BC
Waltham…61K…13…Brandeis
Burlington…42K…15… UVM
Wellesley…27.6 …10…Wellesly, Babson, Olin
You didn’t say what type of art, but Temple has the Tyler School of Art.
Many of the colleges suggested here are in no way urban and not at all self contained (BU).
A campus with grass quads and one of the nation’s best psychology programs is Clark University in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts.
Columbia, Penn, and Yale are my favorite urban campuses with strong programs across the board. All three are reaches for anyone but worth a shot if you’re interested. I like Georgetown and Chicago as well.
Wow, thanks so much everyone! I really appreciate it!
Macalester is actually on my list because I’m from Minnesota and I love the surrounding area there, but I wanted to check out other options as well. I’d definitely consider Seattle/Portland - the travel cost isn’t so much an issue, it’s more the weather I was thinking about, but it seems like a great area.
@TTG In terms of what I consider “urban”, I guess so long as there’s stuff to do I’m not super picky! Burlington, Boston, Providence are all places that appeal to me. I love having a mix of city life with more natural parts. For admission, I definitely won’t be getting into Yale, Harvard, etc, which is completely fine by me. I do have a pretty good shot at many of these other schools I think, so that’s not too much of a worry (at least at the moment).
A couple other things - For what type of art, I was thinking more along the visual arts/graphic design side of things. I’d also love for it to be on the smaller scale of students, but its not totally necessary!
Right now my list is pretty long… I’m not sure of the best ways to narrow it down? But Macalaster, University of Vermont, Washington University in St. Louis, Vassar (just to name a few)