I’m from Edwardsville, PA. Wasn’t born there but I basically grew up there and it shaped how I think and react sometimes even today. I still go back to visit often - 3-6 times a year. So yeah – I got a home town.
Born in Chicago. Childhood & grade school in Clarendon Hills; h.s. in Hinsdale; college @ Northwestern University in Evanston (where an aunt still lives).
Young adulthood & career in ChiTown. Lost career after moving to Oxford, Miss. Went up to Memphis for work. A DISASTER!
Relocated to Anchorage, AK; later the MatSu Valley there.
Relocated to Belfast, ME in 2011. Still here but moving again … up the road to … the deal hasn’t happened YET.
I consider Chicago my home town. I would NEVER move back to Hinsdale.
+1.
I can go to a local cemetery and count back at least 8 generations. Very few in my family move away, and that’s OK by me.
I’m an Army brat… we moved nine times by the time I was 19. Born in Germany, moved to Nebraska, then France, then Missouri, then Illinois, then Virginia, back to Germany, then Spain, and then back to Virginia.
I grew up in Portland, Oregon and lived there until I was 30 (except for 2 years in Chicago) but I have zero nostalgia for it. I haven’t been there in probably close to 20 years.
I was born in Huntington Wv & lived there until I was almost 16. Went to college there too. I want part of my ashes scattered there off the river when I die. Haven’t lived there for 10+ years & may never again, but That’s my hometown without a doubt.
Yes. I have a hometown. It was really bizarre bringing my husband to it last year (the year of the funerals - three in the span of three months) - we’re from very different backgrounds. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
Good question. Often I’ll say I’m “from” a place as a rhetorical convenience. For example, when rural life comes up, I’ll say I’m from the little town (population ca. 600) where I went to school K-12. On the other hand, I left that town and never looked back, so when I travel now, I say I’m from Omaha. As to which of these is really my hometown, that’s a difficult question. FWIW, I haven’t been back to the aforementioned village for four years now, and that visit was after an even longer absence. In some contexts that’s my hometown; in others, my hometown is Omaha.
I was born in a town of two thousand, up in a mountain basin where the snow finally melts sometime after Mother’s day. When I was four the family moved 300 miles to the big city where I grew up. Now I live a couple hundred miles from that city, in the area my parents came from, where I feel more at home than anywhere. But if I could move back to the town in the mountains, I would in a heartbeat, even though I barely remember it from my childhood (been back up there several times, it is an awesomely beautiful place).
If someone asks me where I’m from, I’ll say Worcester MA. But, it’s not home. It never felt like home.
I moved there when I was 5 (don’t even know how many places I lived before that - more than 5 though) and left when I was 20. In those 15 years I lived in 2 homes with my family, 9 foster homes, and two apartments as an adult. I never stayed in one neighborhood or school long enough to make good friends or to build any kind of bonds.
My mother still lives there and I go to school there. Other than going to the city for those two reasons, I avoid it at all costs. My current town has fewer than 20k people and I’d be happier if it had about 5k. I like it for the most part but I haven’t been here long enough for it to fill that home space.
My hometown is in West Texas even though we didn’t move there until I was five. I was born in a different state, in the West, but I grew up in that one place in West Texas and indeed did not leave the town until I was 29. So it’s my hometown.
Certainly - it’s Sydney, where I currently live. I was born here and I’ve lived most of my life here.
My definition of a ‘hometown’ is where, if your name is mentioned, locals know who you or your family are.
No, no hometown for me.
I’m not sure. I’ve lived in so many places. Lima, Perú is where most of my family is, but I have family in other parts of the world too. I have lived in my current city since 1999 - the longest I’ve been anywhere. I just recently went back to Lima; had not been back in 40 years. It feels more like “home,” I suppose. I just don’t think I have that same sense of home for a particular place that many people do. Kind of a sad thing, I guess.
Eh? By that standard, nobody from London, Paris, Tokyo, Mumbai, Mexico City et al has a hometown. Hell, by that standard nobody from Canberra has a hometown, to use an example closer to you.
I guess I see a difference between 'what is your hometown’ and ‘where are you from’ or ‘where did you grow up?’ Hometown sounds to me more like a small or perhaps even rural community, one where ‘going home’ means that you’re returning to a locality that holds some familial historic significance for you. This is reflected in the title of the OP: **“Do you have a hometown?” **Going by your standards, everybody *of course *has a hometown and the OP is redundant.
And of course, those from London, Paris* et al *may have haled from a smaller community or suburb within those larger cities, in which case they might indeed have a hometown. This would be especially so if they (or their families) had been involved in the local schools, local government, sporting, artistic or even mercantile activities.
But I would never say (for example) Melbourne is my hometown even though I have lived in this city (of 5 million people) for most of my life. Cities provide anonymity (for good or not so good) and I’ve left no personal footprint in its history.
Does that explain my position?
Oh yes, my hometown is where I live now. I live about 2k from the place I work and that workplace is directly across the street from the hospital where I was born. The church I attend is less than a mile away, and so is the grocery store where I do the majority of my shopping.
Well I have two towns that could claim me: the small town in Eastern Washington I was born in (lived there until I was 26) and Tacoma, where I’ve lived ever since. I would say it took me nine years before I called Tacoma my home. That’s when I stopped trying to compare the weather or activities in Tacoma with my birth town, and just started accepting it as the default.
I read the OP as saying she doesn’t have a hometown because she hasn’t put down roots anywhere, not because there’s nowhere that all the locals know her name.
But yeah, I see your point. Weirdo. 
After all these decades, there might not be any locals left in my hometown who know my name, but it’s still my hometown, the place I grew up and spent my formative years in.