CanadaRAM said:
without cal poly, san luis obispo would not even make it on the map and it's amazing how the school visionaries eventually built up to all those buildings, students, and staff basically in the middle of nowhere
when the school hit a few hundred people, back when they were a vocational school, who knew to make it into a state college, and then into a university and keep on getting bigger and bigger
if cal poly state university adds another 10,000-15,000 more students and becomes more the size of the huge san diego state university down south, they will have to expand san luis obispo, which is inland, all the way to the ocean (pismo beach) and i guess that will happen in the future
the old san luis obispo oldtimers used to tell me how great the city used to be before all us college kids came in and wrecked it...and that was back in the early 80s...today, san luis obispo's downtown is kind of wrecked with all the big companies or flashy entrepreneurs who ditched the small town look of the old san luis obispo...oh well
this story plays itself out in many rural college towns all across the country...first the school, then students, and more students, more staff, more families, a century megaplex, starbucks, sears, wal mart, borders, etc and guess what - no more rural town
