Not that small. Lawrence is the home of the University of Kansas.
I've lived all over the country, and Lawrence would rank towards the top for me. It's much like Austin, only smaller and less expensive. And probably more relaxed. The only drawback is that it's surrounded by Kansas.
Yeah, Lawrence is very much a cool college town. Reminded me a lot of Athens, GA.
On another note about Kansas, I was driving from Kansas City to Wichita on a daytrip with my girlfriend at the time. Like 1995, I think. We stopped in a small town along the way and for some reason found ourselves in this dress shop in a strip mall. It turned out to be a boutique type place, with the dresses at 300-400 each. Weird. Who would have thought they had a market there? Cattle and oil money, I guess.
That store also had a small collection of cassette tapes of Turkish pop music for sale, totally randomly. I bought them all.