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Business View Magazine
Urbana, Illinois
An oasis in the cornfields
“An oasis in the cornfields.” That’s how a friend of
Libby Tyler’s, the Community Development Director/
City Planner of Urbana, Illinois once described this city
of 41,000-plus in the east-central part of the Prairie
State. Urbana, located in a county with some of the
richest farmland in the world, is actually part of the
Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area - twin cities that
are best known for being the home of the University of
Illinois, a world leader in research, teaching, and pub-
lic engagement, and the state’s flagship campus of its
public university system.
So, the cornfields are real. But how is Urbana, Illinois
an oasis among the stalks? Well, first of all, there’s the
school: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
was founded in 1867 and is the state’s second oldest
public university. UI comprises 17 colleges and more
than 150 programs of study; its annual budget tops
$2 billion, making it Urbana’s number-one employer,
and it’s ranked among the top 50 universities in the
