2. It is like any University City, USA. Strip it of the university and you would have a cone without the ice cream, a shell without its inhabitant, a lake without water… you get the point. Is it an unhappy alliance? I wouldn’t say so. More like a love-hate, push-pull affair. When I lived in Hyde Park, home to the University of Chicago, it was push & hate all the way. Here, it depends whom you’re talking to at what time in the day. I find New Havenites generally a friendly bunch, unreasonably so, considering how much they can be left out of the university powerhouse.