Visited Univ. of Oklahoma yesterday...

[Matt]

- the mall is a joke, but they have a minor ad campaign in and around campus to try and rebrand it as a college-student friendly ****-free zone... again, a joke

if a place actually has to advertise being a "****-free zone" then they clearly are not a ****-free zone

[Cow Pie]

Just wondering, has university mall become how eastlake or tampa bay center use to be?

Right now its like East Lake was at its worst... the entire area is a demilitarized zone... the sooner that thing goes under and closes the better.

Once closed I would not see why USF would not buy it out and turn it into a University Village area that would be safe and profitable.

[BullsFanInTX]

Columbus is like Tallahassee or Austin or Sacramento... it existed and grew because of for State Government and the university.  It is not a metropolitan area that grew as a city.

So yes, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh = Large Cities

Columbus & Austin = Small Cities

Population numbers and "corporate headquarters" don't really count.

I take it you have never set foot in Austin.  Austin is a very large city.  The skyline is far bigger than Tampa's.  Takes 2 hours to get from one side to the other during rush hour.  Austin is THE largest city in the country without a professional sports franchise.  In some ways, Austin makes Tampa look like a small city.  If you had a person who had never visited either city before and knew nothing about either city (Austin or Tampa) drive through both cities, and then ask them which city was bigger, they would pick Austin 95 times out of 100.  Austin is the 15th largest city in the US by city population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin

[hightechbull]

a couple observations from my 4th (and final) year

- there are far more "bulls country" banners in local business and on the road now than when i started school

- more people in bulls attire out and about in public

- the mall is a joke, but they have a minor ad campaign in and around campus to try and rebrand it as a college-student friendly ****-free zone... again, a joke

- i can think of several bulls-themed businesses around campus, 2 of which were built in the last year

bull pride in the area will grow exponentially as long as USF continues to produce intelligent and loyal grads as it has in the past decade or so (and beyond for all you who came before  ).

Hey, plenty of us old timers have been loyal grads for 10, 20, 30+ years.  It was the constant complaining about the lack of football from us crotchety old geezers that got the ball rolling for football at USF.  ;D

[2000bull]

Just wondering, has university mall become how eastlake or tampa bay center use to be?

Right now its like East Lake was at its worst... the entire area is a demilitarized zone... the sooner that thing goes under and closes the better.

Once closed I would not see why USF would not buy it out and turn it into a University Village area that would be safe and profitable.

ah...eastlake...I remember going to the movies there late at night before it closed...That was scary. I also remember walking through there and there being like a total 30 people in the mall including those working there.....that place was ridiculous

[Guest hm101]

a couple observations from my 4th (and final) year

- there are far more "bulls country" banners in local business and on the road now than when i started school

- more people in bulls attire out and about in public

- the mall is a joke, but they have a minor ad campaign in and around campus to try and rebrand it as a college-student friendly ****-free zone... again, a joke

- i can think of several bulls-themed businesses around campus, 2 of which were built in the last year

bull pride in the area will grow exponentially as long as USF continues to produce intelligent and loyal grads as it has in the past decade or so (and beyond for all you who came before  ).

Hey, plenty of us old timers have been loyal grads for 10, 20, 30+ years.  It was the constant complaining about the lack of football from us crotchety old geezers that got the ball rolling for football at USF.   ;D

and thank you for that

[Matt]

Austin is the 15th largest city in the US by city population.

not to argue that Austin isnt a big city but city populations dont really tell the whole story since it all depends on what the city limits are.

tampa has very small city limits compared to how many people who consider themselves living in "tampa" arent actually in tampa.

but i think having a professional sports team really validates your city on the national scale.  thats why cities spend so much money to keep teams.

[Matt]

btw...i looked at Austin's wiki page....

no way is that sky line bigger than tampa's.

i guess when ever you are talking about the size of something texans always like to exagerate.

[Joe]

Matt I think he was referring to metro areas

[Matt]

here are the DMA (designated market area) rankings.  Most businesses, advertising, sports teams uses this to judge area sizes. 

http://www.hangernetwork.com/Top100MarketList_2.html

and size of the city doesn't have much to do with what this topic was originally about.  it has more to do with size of the city when the University was opened.