It's easy to recognize and avoid the student neighborhoods. Find out where the professors and doctors live. Or even the graduate students -- not as wealthy but tend to be quite well behaved. Many are raising families while in grad school.

I live in a college town -- mid sized city in the shadow of a major university in the Midwest. It has everything the OP wants, walking distance to supermarket and shops, easy to get around by bike, enough of an economy thanks to the university and hospitals.

Most of that kind of thing is often limited to a fairly limited area. Worth learning where those areas are, though.

Yeah, the student ghetto. Regular folks live in the college-town-burbs.

Another option is those towns that are formed around some activity like skiing, hiking or surfing(Never surfed but I think it applies here also). They might be not cheap as some random rural towns but atmosphere and services are very good.

You can always organize with the other homeowners to curtail the college's operations! Seems to be a popular strategy.

Slowly suffocate the golden goose! Ever popular indeed.

I have a relative who lived in Lancaster. She liked it. I visited there once and it seemed nice but I was only there for a few days. Also her house was huge.