Maybe. Living in Boulder, which has both a university and tourism, downtown got pretty gutted by COVID, and like probably everywhere, small local businesses are

Maybe. Living in Boulder, which has both a university and tourism, downtown got pretty gutted by COVID, and like probably everywhere, small local businesses are being replaced with chains (that was already happening). And it was already very difficult to live in the same city you work in (or really go to school in - people commute just to work on their undergrad), if you're in the service industry as you weren't given a living wage to do so in a city that's so expensive. That does take us to the present day problem of pressure from employers to actually do that. Not to be too finger pointy, but the influx of Googlers and similar ilk isn't helping with scarcity of places to live or the skyrocketing price of rentals and buying a home. Double so that Boulder has a very problematic occupancy limit of three unrelated people that may live in a house (even if that house has 5 bedrooms). These problems aren't specific to Boulder, but the Uni and tourism aren't shielding it from these problems. It's not assembly plants and call centers, but it's Uber driving and Amazon Prime delivery.