I've been to Eugene a handful of times, and spent some time people-watching in the downtown area. My overwhelming observation was tattoos. So many tattoos. And general alt - ear gauges, enby types, homeless (mostly old) - some specific people who stood out: a creepy homeless guy high af bothering this girl who was busking on the corner (playing Appalachian folk music on her violin/grad student who had only ever heard bluegrass/American folk as an adult, but liked it); a couple of roided out guys, one of the pair having what looked like tubing running off his arm, which was then wrapped in plastic [never quite figured those two out]; some cross-dressing/trans (invariably dressed in sparkly things and heels while accompanied by a group of folks in jeans and sweats, and the odd grandma who looked just plain tired); some dudes who should've outgrown it practicing ollies on the sidewalk. It was interesting, though beyond that sector of people there were the most basic of basic-looking. Like terrible normcore unfashionable sweatshirts, tennis shoes, frumpy jeans, straight out of 1985. Possibly tourists/families of students, but there were a lot. Some well-turned-out adults who were almost invariably parents of out-of-state students (I stayed at a couple of the nicer hotels).
The student population was, in general, far less funky than the downtowners. Compared to other college populations I've seen, super-norm - neither the preppy intensity of the South and East Coast, nor the overdone LA aesthetic you find in Socal, Arizona, etc., nor the hippie crunch of an Oberlin. And it's all white as heck, with the occasional Asian or Native American, and maybe 3 out of the 4 Black people in Oregon outside Portland.
