Or a couple a days in another college town.
I love college towns. So being in the neighborhood I couldn’t resist spending a couple a days in Burlington.
Home of the University of Vermont. Not to mention Lake Champlain.
Which is not at all like Hogtown Creek.
Fun fact. Ben & Jerry’s opened its first store in Burlington. And so finding a “We Must Dismantle White Supremacy” sign on the window of an ice cream shop is not at all surprising.
Burlington has a downtown that is about five times the size of GNV’s.
Which is kind of surprising since Burlington is less than half GNV’s size and UV has closer to Santa Fe College’s enrollment than UF’s.
I talked to a guy who has had a high end clothing store (not pictured above) here for decades about how Burlingtons downtown is sustainable.
He told me they rely a lot on Canadian day-trippers, leaf peekers, lots of tourists and a fairly strong business community due to Vermont laws that make it a favorite refuge for the insurance industry.
All the business types here are very bullish on “shop local.” Mention Amazon and you are liable to be run out of town on a rail. Tarred and feathered.
They do seem to have a lot of rules though.
Oh, and Burlington is an activist town. A town of many messages.
A town of murals.
And a town with much graffiti.
I should also mention that Burlington’s homeless problem is much more apparent than GNV’s. Indeed, shops on Church Street were barely closed before people were unrolling their sleeping bags in the doorways.
I attribute this to the fact that Vermont doesn’t try to hide its homeless problems.
As opposed to Florida, where we prefer to chase our homeless out into the woods so nice folks won’t be made uncomfortable by having to see them.
Yes, that’s an editorial comment from an old editorial writer.
Anyway, Burlington is a pretty cool college town. Warts and all.
This is Ron Cunningham, trained observer of the human condition.
FreeGNV 