US college towns: do they need "State U" to be great?

I don't want to make a hard and fast rule here, but it seems to me that virtually all the great college towns in the United States have public (mostly state) universities, the flagship schools of their respective states. These massive instiutions are large enough to dominate the economy of the town's where they are located and to influence the type of shops, bars, restaurants and "spirit" these places have. Private universities are often smaller with a much smaller influence on the campuses within them. Because they are not state supported, once off campus, it's harder to feel their impact. You can see this when you compare Chapel Hill to Durham or Berkeley to Palo Alto or Bloomington to South Bend. I know there are great college towns for private schools (Princeton may be on the top of that list; others like Evanston are improving and have real potential), but they compare very little with the massive number of great college towns of public instiutions: Ann Arbor, Madison, Austin, Berkeley, Chapel Hill, Charlottesville, Bloomington, Columbia (MO), Boulder, Athens, Tuscon, Iowa City, Gainsville, Lawrence, etc. Is a large, prominent (usually flagship) state university really the type of environment in the US that is likely to provide a great college town environment?>