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Old Posted Nov 20, 2022, 7:47 AM
CaliNative CaliNative is offline
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"Where the "Brains Are"--Most Important University Towns/Cities

We have a biggest/most aesthetic, beautiful skyline thread. Next up, what are the cities and towns with the most important and best universities, in the U.S. and Canada, Europe, Asia, anywhere? There of course are Boston and SF Bay area, each with important research universities in the top ranks (Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Stanford etc) but there are many others. L..A. area has UCLA, USC, Caltech, UC Irvine, Claremont Colleges etc. Chicago has U. Chicago, Northwestern etc. New York has Columbia and NYU, with Princeton not far away. Canada: another Montreal vs. Toronto match? Europe? Asia? Best/most academially brilliant smaller university towns? Princeton, Cambridge, Oxford...?

Much room for debate and ranking lists with this topic. This topic may have been done before so this may be the latest iteration to bring it up to date and reignite the debate. One list I'd like to see is Nobel prize recipients teaching at universities in a city, or perhaps student admission test scores at various universities, graduation rates, etc. Where are the academic "gods" concentrated? The illustrious minds? The research achievers? Which cities can claim the most important scientific/mathematical discoveries & discoverers in the recent past, say last 25 or 50 years? The most important social science centers? Cultural, music and artistic centers? So we can perhaps also discuss besides university concentrations of talent, cultural institutions like art museums, important musical orchestras etc. Intellectual hotspots, where you have a reasoable chance of bumping into geniuses in the supermarket, like you would stars in L.A. Objective data is important, but your experiences in various cities and subjective opinions are OK too.

Last edited by CaliNative; Nov 20, 2022 at 4:29 PM.
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