Why do many college towns have such a large sphere of influence? What affects how extensive it is?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Considering their populations and such. It always seems like around college towns, you have perhaps a few layers of left leaning rural precincts. The political sphere of influence often extends beyond the County the college town itself is in, even though I doubt enough staff would commute to and from precincts in the next County over enough to make it D-leaning. Idk.

Some examples are:

Ann-Arbour, MI
Durham/Chapel Hill, NC
Ithaca, NY
Charlottesville, VA
Asheville, NC
Princeton, NJ
Iowa City, IA

However, you also have some colleges/college towns that really don't seem to have very extensive political influence.

Stony Brook, NY
Tuscaloosa, AL
College Station, TX
University of California, Orange County, CA

And some where the impact is hard to tell because they're already in hyper-liberal part of a large city. Would that part of the city still be hyper-liberal without the college? Hard to say:

Cambridge/MIT, MA
NYU, NY
University of Washington, Seattle, WA

[ProgressiveModerate]

Also ig another question is what makes some colleges so much more liberal than others, even once you account for if a school is religious and region. Texas A&M vs U Austin is a prime example that ik has been discussed before.

[TDAS04]

Some examples are:

Ann-Arbour, MI
Durham/Chapel Hill, NC
Ithaca, NY
Charlottesville, VA
Asheville, NC
Princeton, NJ
Iowa City, IA

Madison, WI would be a great example.

[vitoNova]

My college town was an island of blue surrounded by exurb hell.  lol.

90% of the students weren't even native Virginians, but from NY, NJ, CT, etc, and went home on the weekends.   I tagged along several times. 

[Sol]

I can speak to the North Carolina cases, and hopefully that will prove illustrative.

First of all, Asheville isn't a college town in the way that these other communities are college towns, since UNC-Asheville is a small liberal arts school with a relatively light footprint. Asheville seems based on vibes like it would be a college town, but it isn't really.

In the case of Chapel Hill and Durham, there are several factors at play. There are going to be some people who prefer living in more rural places but who share cultural preferences and interest with urbanites. Towns like Hillsborough and to a less extent Pittsboro are pretty attractive if you want a more small town lifestyle but want to be able to go to see world class musical acts on Duke's campus or at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro. The result is that these surrounding communities have become quite left-leaning; Hillsborough iirc has one of the highest percentages of writers of any town in the country. Even rural areas around Chapel Hill are highly left-leaning; you have lots of organic farms, ecologically optimized farmhouses, etc.

The other factor is cost. Chapel Hill has always been a fairly wealthy community, partly because it's a bit of a suburb in disguise; it actually has a lot of residents who commute to Durham, RTP, Raleigh, etc. and who live there for the high quality of services and extremely good municipal schools. So it's always been a bit pricier than is typical for North Carolina. Durham used to be very cheap but has seen a ton of gentrification in the past 15 years or so. Neither is New York expensive but the area has gotten a lot less affordable. The result is that a lot of people working lower-paying jobs can't afford to live in Chapel Hill anymore or Durham for some.

Consequently, a lot of these people live in farther out exurban or quasi-rural communities; places like Northern Orange County, Mebane, rural Chatham County, or other parts of Alamance. This is amplified by the fact that Orange County has pretty restrictive land use, meaning there aren't as many large-scale housing developments in the northern and western parts of the county, which reduces availability and pushes people to towns in Alamance. These folks are still moderately Democratic leaning, so this helps to extend the "sphere of influence" you talk about.

I think these two patterns obtain in a lot of college towns, at least in the case of large schools with more liberal cultures. The counter-examples you cite are either conservative schools (more on that below) or schools in massive metropolitan areas. (Irvine is actually quite Democratic too, more than is typical of a far-flung Orange County suburb!)

Also ig another question is what makes some colleges so much more liberal than others, even once you account for if a school is religious and region. Texas A&M vs U Austin is a prime example that ik has been discussed before.

Well, as you say region accounts for most of it. Another big element is land-grant schools vs. non-land grant state flagships; the former tends to skew to the right of the latter since it entails having a lot of kids studying ag for their family farms, engineers, etc. as opposed to liberal arts majors. This doesn't usually matter as much in more liberal states (NC State and Iowa State still vote quite D) but in states like Texas that actually matters quite a bit.

Another big factor is historic counter-cultural presences. Austin has long had a rich arts and social activism scene; that's not true traditionally of College Station.

[Tintrlvr]

Considering their populations and such. It always seems like around college towns, you have perhaps a few layers of left leaning rural precincts. The political sphere of influence often extends beyond the County the college town itself is in, even though I doubt enough staff would commute to and from precincts in the next County over enough to make it D-leaning. Idk.

Some examples are:

Ann-Arbour, MI
Durham/Chapel Hill, NC
Ithaca, NY
Charlottesville, VA
Asheville, NC
Princeton, NJ
Iowa City, IA

However, you also have some colleges/college towns that really don't seem to have very extensive political influence.

Stony Brook, NY
Tuscaloosa, AL
College Station, TX
University of California, Orange County, CA

And some where the impact is hard to tell because they're already in hyper-liberal part of a large city. Would that part of the city still be hyper-liberal without the college? Hard to say:

Cambridge/MIT, MA
NYU, NY
University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Fundamentally I think there are two things at play. First, how essential to the local economy is the university (especially, qua university, as opposed to running the local hospital system or something similar)? The ones with the largest political spheres also have the most influence on the local economy, and their political influence comes from their economic relevance (the workers employed by the type of jobs that form in that halo are much more likely to be liberal). Somewhere like Stony Brook or UC Irvine is just less relevant to the surrounding economy because they are only a small part of huge urban/suburban areas. And second, how liberal is the university itself? Texas A&M and University of Alabama are not that liberal to begin with, so even though they have a substantial economic influence on College Station and Tuscaloosa, respectively, they aren't having that strong of a liberal political influence so don't show up that significantly when looking only at partisan politics.

One other note is that being a college with a lot of commuters (again, like Stony Brook or UC Irvine) certainly reduces political influence since there won't be a halo of recent graduates living in the immediate vicinity but instead dispersed across the larger metro area, especially in places that are more desirable for young people than far-flung suburbs.

The answer then to your question on the last three universities is (i) they don't have that much influence now because they are embedded in large urban areas where their overall economic and cultural impact is diluted (though MIT is part of the larger Boston college agglomeration that does in the aggregate have a major cultural impact on the Boston metro as a whole) but (ii) they would have a huge influence if they were relocated to a rural area because they are very liberal and would have a major economic impact in a rural area.

[pikachu]

I wouldn’t put Princeton in the same category as Ann Arbor and Madison. While it matters to the local economy, it doesn’t have the associated hospital system that causes the economic dominance that Tintrlvr alludes to. (RWJ, which is associated with Rutgers, is more dominant.)

Big pharma is a bigger influence on the region’s economy, and the state government is also a major employer that is culturally ways away from Princeton. A lot of people also just live around Princeton because it’s a straightforward commute to NYC. The demographics of Princeton’s surrounding cities  are a tell - it’s a combo of Asian ethnoburbs, Trenton, and bronz-populated suburbia, not the type of places that you’d associate with a university.

[ListMan38]

Will speak to Michigan and Mississippi, as those states are where I've lived

Ann Arbor (U of Michigan): the big thing there is just how large U of Michigan is

East Lansing (Michigan State): I'd say its kinda baked into the area, Lansing probably is Lean/Likely D even without the campus next to it.

Houghton (Michigan Tech): Houghton is really small, as is Michigan Tech, so not much influence

Kalamazoo (Western Michigan): 50/50 on size vs being baked into the area

Ypsilanti (Eastern Michigan): its literally between Ann Arbor and Detroit lol

Detroit (Wayne State): should go without saying

Mount Pleasant (Central Michigan): kinda baked into the area

Oxford (Ole Miss): Tends to get a lot of more left-leaning transplants from nearby states, plus being not far from Memphis tends to contribute. Still, the outer parts of Lafayette county are very right-leaning, which evens out the County in voting.

Starkville (Miss State): Kinda the opposite of Ole Miss as it seems to be a lot more in-state entry, where the left-leaning Mississippians tend to self-select (being in the Golden Triangle area)

Hattiesburg (Southern Miss): Southern Miss is basically all of Forest County's population

Alcorn State/Delta State/Mississippi Valley State/Jackson State: They being HBCUs in the Delta makes them kinda baked-in to the Delta politics

[Tintrlvr]

I wouldn’t put Princeton in the same category as Ann Arbor and Madison. While it matters to the local economy, it doesn’t have the associated hospital system that causes the economic dominance that Tintrlvr alludes to. (RWJ, which is associated with Rutgers, is more dominant.)

Big pharma is a bigger influence on the region’s economy, and the state government is also a major employer that is culturally ways away from Princeton. A lot of people also just live around Princeton because it’s a straightforward commute to NYC. The demographics of Princeton’s surrounding cities  are a tell - it’s a combo of Asian ethnoburbs, Trenton, and bronz-populated suburbia, not the type of places that you’d associate with a university.

I'm going to disagree somewhat on Princeton. It's certainly the case at the county level that Princeton is not that important (Mercer and Middlesex Counties would still be solidly Democratic; Somerset County would still lean Democratic; Hunterdon County would still be relatively solidly Republican), but at the local level not just in the town of Princeton but also the nearby towns, you can clearly see a white liberal halo around Princeton that you can't see nearly as well around, say, Stony Brook. But the reason seems fairly obvious to me: As a super-prestigious university, Princeton draws people globally at the tops of their professions to the area around it at a level that even a well-regarded research university like Stony Brook does not, and just as significantly creates a halo of very high prestige (and higher living standards) for the area that doesn't attach to the area around a solid but not tippy-top university like Stony Brook. So Princeton's influence on its immediate surroundings is stronger than its size or economic influence within the larger metro area would suggest due to its extremely high prestige.

[Electric Circus]

I'm not sure that there's a systematic explanation.

This is beautifully illustrated by State College, Pennsylvania. Penn State is a state university with an enormous student population. It is truly in the middle (we could say "centre") of nowhere. It's situated in the middle of a large valley, so there's plenty of room for residential sprawl without commuting out of nearby towns.

Drive ten miles in any direction from State College, and it's hard to find a place that doesn't feel like it's in the middle of deep red Pennsylvania. In most directions, you're there in five miles.

Contrast with one of the examples given here, Cornell. The Finger Lakes is a resort area. The mix of agriculture also differs from much of Upstate New York, with orchards and vineyards along the lakes rather than the typical Upstate pattern of dairy farm after dairy farm. That explains more of the pattern beyond Tompkins County than proximity to Ithaca and its colleges. There are also several other small colleges in and around the region (Hobart, Keuka, etc.).

There was more to explain in that area a decade ago. With the post-Obama drift of dairy farming areas and small post-industrial cities and villages away from the Democratic Party, there aren't nearly as many blue precincts to explain in Ithaca's vicinity.

[kwabbit]

I wouldn’t put Princeton in the same category as Ann Arbor and Madison. While it matters to the local economy, it doesn’t have the associated hospital system that causes the economic dominance that Tintrlvr alludes to. (RWJ, which is associated with Rutgers, is more dominant.)

Big pharma is a bigger influence on the region’s economy, and the state government is also a major employer that is culturally ways away from Princeton. A lot of people also just live around Princeton because it’s a straightforward commute to NYC. The demographics of Princeton’s surrounding cities  are a tell - it’s a combo of Asian ethnoburbs, Trenton, and bronz-populated suburbia, not the type of places that you’d associate with a university.

I'm going to disagree somewhat on Princeton. It's certainly the case at the county level that Princeton is not that important (Mercer and Middlesex Counties would still be solidly Democratic; Somerset County would still lean Democratic; Hunterdon County would still be relatively solidly Republican), but at the local level not just in the town of Princeton but also the nearby towns, you can clearly see a white liberal halo around Princeton that you can't see nearly as well around, say, Stony Brook. But the reason seems fairly obvious to me: As a super-prestigious university, Princeton draws people globally at the tops of their professions to the area around it at a level that even a well-regarded research university like Stony Brook does not, and just as significantly creates a halo of very high prestige (and higher living standards) for the area that doesn't attach to the area around a solid but not tippy-top university like Stony Brook. So Princeton's influence on its immediate surroundings is stronger than its size or economic influence within the larger metro area would suggest due to its extremely high prestige.

Which towns are you referring to? I can see this for Montgomery and Hopewell, but not that much for Lawrence. The other surrounding towns are Asian suburbs. For the former two I’d estimate a small effect, but the demographics play a role. I would have to do some research but I’d say about 75% of the Whites in Montgomery are college educated. This could be because it’s next to Princeton, but Montgomery and Hopewell have settings very similar to the rich towns of Westchester County. They are close to transit to a major city yet have low density and access to nature and space that White educated liberals love. I’m from the area so that’s my take. Princeton isn’t really thought of as a hub. It has the nice downtown area but there’s no concentration of jobs there. Pharma complexes are scattered all around and those are the largest employer of White liberals.

[Tintrlvr]

I wouldn’t put Princeton in the same category as Ann Arbor and Madison. While it matters to the local economy, it doesn’t have the associated hospital system that causes the economic dominance that Tintrlvr alludes to. (RWJ, which is associated with Rutgers, is more dominant.)

Big pharma is a bigger influence on the region’s economy, and the state government is also a major employer that is culturally ways away from Princeton. A lot of people also just live around Princeton because it’s a straightforward commute to NYC. The demographics of Princeton’s surrounding cities  are a tell - it’s a combo of Asian ethnoburbs, Trenton, and bronz-populated suburbia, not the type of places that you’d associate with a university.

I'm going to disagree somewhat on Princeton. It's certainly the case at the county level that Princeton is not that important (Mercer and Middlesex Counties would still be solidly Democratic; Somerset County would still lean Democratic; Hunterdon County would still be relatively solidly Republican), but at the local level not just in the town of Princeton but also the nearby towns, you can clearly see a white liberal halo around Princeton that you can't see nearly as well around, say, Stony Brook. But the reason seems fairly obvious to me: As a super-prestigious university, Princeton draws people globally at the tops of their professions to the area around it at a level that even a well-regarded research university like Stony Brook does not, and just as significantly creates a halo of very high prestige (and higher living standards) for the area that doesn't attach to the area around a solid but not tippy-top university like Stony Brook. So Princeton's influence on its immediate surroundings is stronger than its size or economic influence within the larger metro area would suggest due to its extremely high prestige.

Which towns are you referring to? I can see this for Montgomery and Hopewell, but not that much for Lawrence. The other surrounding towns are Asian suburbs. For the former two I’d estimate a small effect, but the demographics play a role. I would have to do some research but I’d say about 75% of the Whites in Montgomery are college educated. This could be because it’s next to Princeton, but Montgomery and Hopewell have settings very similar to the rich towns of Westchester County. They are close to transit to a major city yet have low density and access to nature and space that White educated liberals love. I’m from the area so that’s my take. Princeton isn’t really thought of as a hub. It has the nice downtown area but there’s no concentration of jobs there. Pharma complexes are scattered all around and those are the largest employer of White liberals.

Hillsborough, West Windsor (yes very Asian American but also more Democratic than it would be based purely on demographics), the Amwells (not strongly Democratic but much more Democratic than otherwise similar areas further from Princeton). And Lawrence and even Ewing too in the areas closer to Princeton; obviously not once you are in the areas directly adjoining Trenton.

[kwabbit]

I wouldn’t put Princeton in the same category as Ann Arbor and Madison. While it matters to the local economy, it doesn’t have the associated hospital system that causes the economic dominance that Tintrlvr alludes to. (RWJ, which is associated with Rutgers, is more dominant.)

Big pharma is a bigger influence on the region’s economy, and the state government is also a major employer that is culturally ways away from Princeton. A lot of people also just live around Princeton because it’s a straightforward commute to NYC. The demographics of Princeton’s surrounding cities  are a tell - it’s a combo of Asian ethnoburbs, Trenton, and bronz-populated suburbia, not the type of places that you’d associate with a university.

I'm going to disagree somewhat on Princeton. It's certainly the case at the county level that Princeton is not that important (Mercer and Middlesex Counties would still be solidly Democratic; Somerset County would still lean Democratic; Hunterdon County would still be relatively solidly Republican), but at the local level not just in the town of Princeton but also the nearby towns, you can clearly see a white liberal halo around Princeton that you can't see nearly as well around, say, Stony Brook. But the reason seems fairly obvious to me: As a super-prestigious university, Princeton draws people globally at the tops of their professions to the area around it at a level that even a well-regarded research university like Stony Brook does not, and just as significantly creates a halo of very high prestige (and higher living standards) for the area that doesn't attach to the area around a solid but not tippy-top university like Stony Brook. So Princeton's influence on its immediate surroundings is stronger than its size or economic influence within the larger metro area would suggest due to its extremely high prestige.

Which towns are you referring to? I can see this for Montgomery and Hopewell, but not that much for Lawrence. The other surrounding towns are Asian suburbs. For the former two I’d estimate a small effect, but the demographics play a role. I would have to do some research but I’d say about 75% of the Whites in Montgomery are college educated. This could be because it’s next to Princeton, but Montgomery and Hopewell have settings very similar to the rich towns of Westchester County. They are close to transit to a major city yet have low density and access to nature and space that White educated liberals love. I’m from the area so that’s my take. Princeton isn’t really thought of as a hub. It has the nice downtown area but there’s no concentration of jobs there. Pharma complexes are scattered all around and those are the largest employer of White liberals.

Hillsborough, West Windsor (yes very Asian American but also more Democratic than it would be based purely on demographics), the Amwells (not strongly Democratic but much more Democratic than otherwise similar areas further from Princeton). And Lawrence too in the areas closer to Princeton; obviously not once you are in the areas directly adjoining Trenton.

Hillsborough has the same demographics as Bridgewater and voted identically, 56-42 Biden so that seems unaffected. The Amwells might be that way because of proximity to Pennington/New Hope/Lambertville. West Windsor and Plainsboro there is an effect, but only a modest one. It might be 70-30 instead of 75-25 if not for Princeton.

[Tintrlvr]

I wouldn’t put Princeton in the same category as Ann Arbor and Madison. While it matters to the local economy, it doesn’t have the associated hospital system that causes the economic dominance that Tintrlvr alludes to. (RWJ, which is associated with Rutgers, is more dominant.)

Big pharma is a bigger influence on the region’s economy, and the state government is also a major employer that is culturally ways away from Princeton. A lot of people also just live around Princeton because it’s a straightforward commute to NYC. The demographics of Princeton’s surrounding cities  are a tell - it’s a combo of Asian ethnoburbs, Trenton, and bronz-populated suburbia, not the type of places that you’d associate with a university.

I'm going to disagree somewhat on Princeton. It's certainly the case at the county level that Princeton is not that important (Mercer and Middlesex Counties would still be solidly Democratic; Somerset County would still lean Democratic; Hunterdon County would still be relatively solidly Republican), but at the local level not just in the town of Princeton but also the nearby towns, you can clearly see a white liberal halo around Princeton that you can't see nearly as well around, say, Stony Brook. But the reason seems fairly obvious to me: As a super-prestigious university, Princeton draws people globally at the tops of their professions to the area around it at a level that even a well-regarded research university like Stony Brook does not, and just as significantly creates a halo of very high prestige (and higher living standards) for the area that doesn't attach to the area around a solid but not tippy-top university like Stony Brook. So Princeton's influence on its immediate surroundings is stronger than its size or economic influence within the larger metro area would suggest due to its extremely high prestige.

Which towns are you referring to? I can see this for Montgomery and Hopewell, but not that much for Lawrence. The other surrounding towns are Asian suburbs. For the former two I’d estimate a small effect, but the demographics play a role. I would have to do some research but I’d say about 75% of the Whites in Montgomery are college educated. This could be because it’s next to Princeton, but Montgomery and Hopewell have settings very similar to the rich towns of Westchester County. They are close to transit to a major city yet have low density and access to nature and space that White educated liberals love. I’m from the area so that’s my take. Princeton isn’t really thought of as a hub. It has the nice downtown area but there’s no concentration of jobs there. Pharma complexes are scattered all around and those are the largest employer of White liberals.

Hillsborough, West Windsor (yes very Asian American but also more Democratic than it would be based purely on demographics), the Amwells (not strongly Democratic but much more Democratic than otherwise similar areas further from Princeton). And Lawrence too in the areas closer to Princeton; obviously not once you are in the areas directly adjoining Trenton.

Hillsborough has the same demographics as Bridgewater and voted identically, 56-42 Biden so that seems unaffected. The Amwells might be that way because of proximity to Pennington/New Hope/Lambertville. West Windsor and Plainsboro there is an effect, but only a modest one. It might be 70-30 instead of 75-25 if not for Princeton.

New Hope/Lambertville are teeny-tiny, far too small to meaningfully affect anything beyond their very immediate vicinity, i.e., a few blocks into West Amwell (look at the Pennsylvania side of the border). Certainly not somewhere like East Amwell that is well away from them. And Hillsborough is fundamentally different from Bridgewater; among other things, Bridgewater is a much more recent swing - Hillsborough voted for Obama when Bridgewater was nearly 60% Romney. Looking at a map Hillsborough is fairly clearly oriented southwards along 206 while Bridgewater is more eastwards along 22 and 287, too, which makes them much less comparable.

[kwabbit]

I wouldn’t put Princeton in the same category as Ann Arbor and Madison. While it matters to the local economy, it doesn’t have the associated hospital system that causes the economic dominance that Tintrlvr alludes to. (RWJ, which is associated with Rutgers, is more dominant.)

Big pharma is a bigger influence on the region’s economy, and the state government is also a major employer that is culturally ways away from Princeton. A lot of people also just live around Princeton because it’s a straightforward commute to NYC. The demographics of Princeton’s surrounding cities  are a tell - it’s a combo of Asian ethnoburbs, Trenton, and bronz-populated suburbia, not the type of places that you’d associate with a university.

I'm going to disagree somewhat on Princeton. It's certainly the case at the county level that Princeton is not that important (Mercer and Middlesex Counties would still be solidly Democratic; Somerset County would still lean Democratic; Hunterdon County would still be relatively solidly Republican), but at the local level not just in the town of Princeton but also the nearby towns, you can clearly see a white liberal halo around Princeton that you can't see nearly as well around, say, Stony Brook. But the reason seems fairly obvious to me: As a super-prestigious university, Princeton draws people globally at the tops of their professions to the area around it at a level that even a well-regarded research university like Stony Brook does not, and just as significantly creates a halo of very high prestige (and higher living standards) for the area that doesn't attach to the area around a solid but not tippy-top university like Stony Brook. So Princeton's influence on its immediate surroundings is stronger than its size or economic influence within the larger metro area would suggest due to its extremely high prestige.

Which towns are you referring to? I can see this for Montgomery and Hopewell, but not that much for Lawrence. The other surrounding towns are Asian suburbs. For the former two I’d estimate a small effect, but the demographics play a role. I would have to do some research but I’d say about 75% of the Whites in Montgomery are college educated. This could be because it’s next to Princeton, but Montgomery and Hopewell have settings very similar to the rich towns of Westchester County. They are close to transit to a major city yet have low density and access to nature and space that White educated liberals love. I’m from the area so that’s my take. Princeton isn’t really thought of as a hub. It has the nice downtown area but there’s no concentration of jobs there. Pharma complexes are scattered all around and those are the largest employer of White liberals.

Hillsborough, West Windsor (yes very Asian American but also more Democratic than it would be based purely on demographics), the Amwells (not strongly Democratic but much more Democratic than otherwise similar areas further from Princeton). And Lawrence too in the areas closer to Princeton; obviously not once you are in the areas directly adjoining Trenton.

Hillsborough has the same demographics as Bridgewater and voted identically, 56-42 Biden so that seems unaffected. The Amwells might be that way because of proximity to Pennington/New Hope/Lambertville. West Windsor and Plainsboro there is an effect, but only a modest one. It might be 70-30 instead of 75-25 if not for Princeton.

New Hope/Lambertville are teeny-tiny, far too small to meaningfully affect anything beyond their very immediate vicinity, i.e., a few blocks into West Amwell (look at the Pennsylvania side of the border). Certainly not somewhere like East Amwell that is well away from them. And Hillsborough is fundamentally different from Bridgewater; among other things, Bridgewater is a much more recent swing - Hillsborough voted for Obama when Bridgewater was nearly 60% Romney. Looking at a map Hillsborough is fairly clearly oriented southwards along 206 while Bridgewater is more eastwards along 22 and 287, too, which makes them much less comparable.

Princeton is affecting these town by changing the vibes of the area more or less, not through spillover. New Hope and Lambertville definitely do that. They are LGBT hubs and their combined downtown isn’t that tiny compared to the Nassau Street area in Princeton. They are extremely expensive to live in so someone who likes their vibe might live in mid Bucks or the Amwells. The median Democrat in the Amwells is likely someone who works at a pharmaceutical company and likes the farmland and proximity to the cute small towns and Princeton as well. They probably aren’t directly associated with Princeton or even go to it that often. 

[Vosem]

Considering their populations and such. It always seems like around college towns, you have perhaps a few layers of left leaning rural precincts. The political sphere of influence often extends beyond the County the college town itself is in, even though I doubt enough staff would commute to and from precincts in the next County over enough to make it D-leaning. Idk.

Some examples are:

Ann-Arbour, MI
Durham/Chapel Hill, NC
Ithaca, NY
Charlottesville, VA
Asheville, NC
Princeton, NJ
Iowa City, IA

However, you also have some colleges/college towns that really don't seem to have very extensive political influence.

Stony Brook, NY
Tuscaloosa, AL
College Station, TX
University of California, Orange County, CA

And some where the impact is hard to tell because they're already in hyper-liberal part of a large city. Would that part of the city still be hyper-liberal without the college? Hard to say:

Cambridge/MIT, MA
NYU, NY
University of Washington, Seattle, WA

When you look at things like precinct results from the 1980s, this seems strongly correlated with having been liberal enclaves for a very long time. Schools like Texas A&M may still have a conservative reputation, but they once voted Republican outright, while places like Charlottesville or Ithaca or Iowa City were already liberal enclaves even before the drift of educated voters leftwards started happening really earnestly (before the 1992 cycle, in other words). I think in places where this reputation is old it has meaningfully warped 'usual' migration patterns.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Some examples are:

Ann-Arbour, MI
Durham/Chapel Hill, NC
Ithaca, NY
Charlottesville, VA
Asheville, NC
Princeton, NJ
Iowa City, IA

Madison, WI would be a great example.

Reason I didn't include Madison is the city is too large to really be a college town at this point, even though Madison has a huge political sphere of influence and the college is really important.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

*Ann Arbor

[Coastal Elitist]

University of California, Orange County, CA

UC Irvine has political influence Katie Porter wouldn't be a congressional rep without it. It makes Irvine way more left wing.

[NorCalifornio]

The countryside around college towns voting D was a surprising pattern to me when I first noticed it, but once I gave it some thought it started to make a lot of sense.

When you think about the types of liberals who would want to live out in the country, what springs to mind? To me, "hippie professor" is basically the archetype of a rural white liberal, especially one who lives outside of town.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Weirdly enough this seems to never happen happen in Minnesota.