Most of those towns are just bigger versions of Starkville. Oxford's square isn't any better than Starkville's main street to the Cotton District strip, it is just in a square instead of straight.

Athens downtown is cool but again just a bigger version. Auburn is the same. I haven't been to Tuscaloosa in a while for a game but my sister in law works for the university and says in the last 5 years it has gone to shit. A lot of crime now just from the population explosion. A lot of non students moving there now that might have moved to bigger cities before.