Okay, I attend a CUNY school (City University of New York) It’s the system of NYC public Universities.
Where I go, (Brooklyn College). Sports are really given a backseat. In fact, almost every aspect of “Student Life” as it were is very much an afterthought. The students seem to be focused on education primarily. A large majority of students live at home with their parents still or are working and attending night classes. I think to have a good sports program, you have to have a very high sports following. To get to college, for most people I’d imagine, is a bit of an ordeal. Even if you live right off the subway line in Brooklyn it will take you at least 30 minutes to get there. Busses are generally worse. So it puts you in a situation where you only go to campus for mandatory things (classes).
Compare this to your small-town university. I think this has a big influence on the “campus life” aspect of colleges. Colleges located in very large cities (like New York) probably all have the same problem. Just takes too long to get there. Compare this with other schools like Duke, UNC, etc. They are in smaller towns where people could usually get to campus in under 30 minutes.
Um, no, they haven’t won since '49. They lost in '96 and that about the only season where they didn’t suck in the last 50. And no, Northwestern is decidedly not a city school any more than Michigan or Colorado are. It’s close, but they have a contiguous campus, a large quad and large live-in dorms just like any campustown.
Sorry, Villanova isn’t a city school. St. Joe’s, Penn and La Salle haven’t been any better than St. John’s and Fordham, so one can presume that they don’t fit the definition of “any good” as the OP see it. Temple would fit as an exception, though sporadic basketball success and the worst football in the program in the country don’t really stand out as “good”.