Our football blog series is back! Like last year, we’re using the football season as an impetus to ask ourselves how we stack up against other, similar regions. How does Ann Arbor compare to other college towns in the US?
Game eight! We’re 2/3 of the way through the season, and perhaps focusing more on the city and college comparisons than the football comparisons at this point… Either way – this weekend’s game gives us another opportunity to compare Ann Arbor to an additional American college town.
Arguably, New Brunswick, NJ, was one of the first ever American college towns. Rutgers is the nation’s eighth oldest institution of higher learning—one of only nine colonial colleges established before the American Revolution, and is celebrated its 250th anniversary last November. As American universities go, that’s old. The New Brunswick Campus is the oldest and largest campus of Rutgers; it is the site of the original Rutgers College. It is spread across six municipalities in Middlesex County, New Jersey, chiefly in the City of New Brunswick and adjacent Piscataway. It is composed of five smaller campuses, and a few buildings in downtown New Brunswick. Rutgers University is referred to as The Birthplace of College Football as the first intercollegiate football game was held between Rutgers and Princeton on November 6, 1869.
Now to set the context before we present the infographic:
- New Brunswick is a lot smaller than Ann Arbor (about half as big), though Rutgers has a larger student body enrollment.
- Though not a large city itself, New Brunswick is within 25 minutes of Newark, and about 45 minutes of New York.
- New Brunswick is just one town in the midst of others of similar population, unlike Ann Arbor, where the population is more concentrated.
ICYMI – Here are links to this year’s series on our athletic (and economic) competition!
- Ann Arbor vs. Colorado Springs
- Ann Arbor vs. West Lafayette
- Ann Arbor vs. East Lansing
- Ann Arbor vs. Bloomington
- Ann Arbor vs. State College
