I live in a very small city, and when I find myself fantasizing about my ideal retirement place, it is NOT in this small city, nor in the wilderness or at the beach or even in a quaint country town. No, my dream retirement location is an apartment in New York or Boston or Paris. I’m bored with the medium attractions of a medium place. Given one extreme or the other, I’d choose big city over rural coziness in a heartbeat.
Hell, them Atlantans are so citified, they think collard greens are environmentalists who are into BDSM.
Metropolitan statistical areas aren’t cities, for what it’s worth. The Des Moines area is quoted at over 500k, but realistically, a lot of these people do live in very small towns - they may commute to Des Moines, or shop in Des Moines, but they live in the freakin’ sticks. I’ve lived here many years and I haven’t even heard of some of these places.
All of the places in the 10k-50k and up are definitely suburbs. In 1k-10k, a few are, like Windsor Heights and Pleasant Hill; some, like Polk City, are far enough that, if you live there, people give you the googly-eye for being crazy to commute that distance in Iowa winters, and the only people who live out there are the people who despise “city life” or the people wanting to stretch their residential dollar a lot further. Most of the places in the smallest category are not really anything close to being a part of Des Moines. Hell, Elkhart is closer to Ames; just because it’s in the same county as much of Des Moines doesn’t account for a whole lot. They are just very small towns that happen to be a bit closer to a bigger city; there isn’t anything metropolitan about them.
I had my first ever collard greens when I was in Georgia in November. I always wondered what my salads were missing, and now I know…it was pork. 
To the OP: as a Montreal Alouette fan, I suppose I can feel some sympathy for a Saskatooner, but TBH, people from Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto simply talk down to the rest of Canada, and fuck them. There are people in my grad program from the T-dot who act like they just moved to biggest hick town in existence, and it perturbs me to no end. If you’re from London or Tokyo or NYC or LA or Mexico City, yeah, I can see your point. But you’re some nobody from Vaughn who acts like your God’s gift to Canada. Big man on campus with his 90 minute work commute!
I have never been to the praries. Changed planes in Calgary. Visited Vancouver and Victoria. Spent a blurry weekend in the Okanagan. Some day I will visit pile o’ bones and toon town.
Lucky city folk? Considering all I have heard about the ‘blizzard’ back east recently. And how people have been stuck for days, or taking hours and hours to dig themselves out, I don’t mind owning a plow truck one bit.
We get a couple of hundred inches of snow a year on average, and in 19 years of living here, I have decided to not go into work twice because of snow.
Like I’ve said. Whatever floats your boat. I prefer the sticks.
I think I could get with living in the sticks if there were sidewalks. I like talking walks without getting hit by cars or trampling on people’s begonias.
Richmond is my Goldilocks town. Definitely smaller than any city I’ve lived in before, but not too small that I can’t find a good pockets of culture and random sources of adventure. It’s also got a nice balance of recent urban development, old architecture, and green space within the city proper.
People should try to live in a range of environments before they peg themselves as “city people” or “small town people.” I always thought I loved the hustle and bustle and anonymity of NYC more than anything else, until I moved here. Now I like taking slow go-nowhere strolls and waving to familiar faces that I pass on the street. And having real grocery stores instead of tiny bodegas, and not having to go work with there’s just an inch of snow on the ground! Also, everything is accessible to me within a five-mile radius. I don’t need a car. I can take public transit when I don’t feel like walking. Things are cool here.
I think people are more adaptable to their surroundings than ya’ll are giving credit.
You bet. I’ve been to most all of the major cities in the USA. Born in Chicago. Raised in the country, lived in downtown Denver for years. And the subs.
It’s not for me.
You might prefer sidewalks and that’s just fine. Though, if you have sidewalks it’s not the ‘sticks’. Almost by definition. If I want to go for a walk I have 3 million acres out my back door that I hike. No sidewalks there, I can assure you. Admittedly, I am in a somewhat rare position. Not too many folks have land backed up to National Forest.
Things are cool here too. Am I bragging? Yeah, maybe a little bit. There are things that are a bitch no mater where you live. City dwellers may comment on the great public transit. That is simply not important to me. And I would hate the day that I would have to use it. I will comment on the beauty of the landscape, or being able to take a hike out of my back door and never see another person. Just me and the dogs. Those are the things that I love.
I’m sort of envious of people who are energized by big cities - they scare me to death. Too much noise, too much bustle, too many people, not enough green growing things. It’s a shame too because I love the things a big city can offer, especially the variety of really good food and really good arts. I am not a cook, I hate to cook, but I love to eat well. Ain’t gonna happen in Soddy Daisy, TN!
But I love my peace and quiet more, I guess. I’m pretty much a curmudgeon, really. I like people only in very small doses, and only a few at a time usually. I need to have green and trees and wildlife around me. The drive to stores is worth it, the effort of maintenance is worth it, and I can survive on large town/small city offerings quite nicely. The last time I visited NYC (and I grew up w/in 2 hrs of it) I was overwhelmed by it. Had a killer dinner with friends and couldn’t get out of there fast enough!
Small town it is for me!
Some people are really either very UNadaptable, or just closed minded about how they would adapt to other situations.
I grew up in NYC. I’ve also lived on a horse farm in central, rural Virginia (nearest town, population 9,000), where it was 2 miles to the nearest road and I didn’t lock my door because, really if someone wanted to walk 2 miles to rape me, it would take more than a door lock to stop them. I’ve also lived in a mid-sized midwestern college town. And a small southern town with a large tourism industry. Now I’m in NYC again.
I enjoyed them all in different ways. The only place I don’t think I could live is in the real suburbs, like they have in Long Island where I went to law school – and I pretty much despise San Francisco. Other than that, most places are a mix of good and bad, positive and negative.
City or country, the one thing they can all agree upon is how much they hate the suburbs.
Living in Calgary which seems to have about four transplants for every home-grown Calgarian, I see the attitudes all the time, and I think you’ve nailed it. People from Ontario think they’re slumming it to living in Calgary, and people from BC can’t stop moaning about how flat it is and how they miss their trees and mountains. My response to all of them complaining about Calgary (which I don’t say out loud) is if you don’t like it, go back where you came from. Calgary’s full.
We’ll buy you a beer if you manage to make it to Calgary some day (a good local beer). 
Some people I think can’t be happy unless they’re miserable - Calgary is an easy hour and half’s drive to some of the sweetest skiing/hiking in North American but its gotta be moan moan moan this place is horrible and flat and has no trees. How silly!
I’ve lived in a great many different towns cities and metropolitan areas, mostly from southern Ontario all the way the way to Vancouver Island and truth be told I miss them all.
To me, the best situation is to work and live in a mid sized city (50,000) or less, yet have the amenities of a metropolitan area available for a day trip and the true forest,wild animal/fishing experience within 1/2 hour. Having world class downhill sking available within 1 hour of my doorstep while rarely having to shovel snow helps too.
And my daily 15 minute commute mostly along the shores of Georgia Strait with a view of the coastal mountains sort of caps it all off.
But the rain. The fucking rain and overcast skies in the winter are getting to me.
Hehe. I visited San Franciso a few months ago and absolutely loved it. I was like, “Do they need environmental scientists here? I want to move right now!”
But I agree with you. The more adaptable you are to your surroundings, the better you will be in the long run. Nothing really stays the same. Either you have to move because of a new job or the area you’ve called home starts to change dramatically. Suburbs start feeling like “city”. Rural areas start feeling like “suburb”. Shoot, with the downturn in the economy some cities are losing their populations so fast that they are mere shells of what they used to be. One day Cleveland may be the sticks.
If someone turns down a job because it’s in the “big city” or because “there’s nothing out there”, they could be missing the biggest opportunity of their lives.
Suburbs. Subdivisions of McMansions, ugly-ass strip malls with the same chain restaurants and department stores, and the ever-present false sense of security (My lord, that kind of crime never happens here!). I can deal with a bedroom community of a major city (like Maplewood, NJ, for instance). But if I’m going to say I live in a city, I want to live in the city, not in some unincorporated outskirt of the city where the buses don’t run because the residents are afraid they’ll bring in the criminals.
Snobbery. Even I’m not immune.
I’ll take you up on that! What’s good out there?
Oh, and for the record, I’m from Ottawa, but there’s a difference in attitude between Southern Ontario, Eastern Ontario, and Northern Ontario in terms of their attitudes towards others.
As much as I’d love to live in a small, tranquil town somewhere (what they call a “Seachange” or a “Treechange” here), there’s a very large an agitated elephant in the room that people overlook: There’s no jobs there.
So whilst it would be great to live in a town with a name like Oyster Bay or Eucalypt Creek, the reality is that there’d be no way to earn an income there so you’d either end up on the dole (and that’s not a fun place to be) or driving several hours to the nearest “regional centre” to work in a fairly unexciting job to pay the mortgage.
In yet another example of how living somewhere other than a big metropolis pays off big time, we have this inspiring story from 2010 in central Ohio:
“19-year-old Lindsay Binegar of Greenfield…bought a house with money she won showing prize hogs.”
Photo of Ms. Binegar (sans hogs) here. She was featured on the CBS Early Show.
Try doing that in the middle of Manhattan. Or San Francisco. Or Paris, France.
It is always hilarious though to see people touting their city/area of residence on the basis of the great times you can have if you drive somewhere X hours away. This was especially apparent some years ago when I was job-hunting and had to filter through many ads featuring opportunities where they wouldn’t tell you right off where they were located, but there were splendid things about the place that were supposed to get you to fire that CV off immediately. “Great place to raise a family!” (and that’s about it for things to do). “Four-season climate!” (the winter season lasts as long as all the others combined). “Hiking, skiing, camping and fishing!” (you can get a cabin just as nice as Ted Kaczinsky’s). “Lots of flights daily to (more attractive destinations) from our airport!” (you’ll badly want to get away).
Well, everybody’s gotta be somewhere.
Really Martini, those are excuses. Not reasons. Anyone past 12 years old that has the ability to hold down a job can cook. No time is just another excuse. Don’t want to? That’s fine. But realize it’s just another choice. Nothing more.
This isn’t necessarily true. And another stereotype. I just had a very nice dinner at an actual nice restaurant with friends. A bank manager, a controller for a medical office and my wife, a real estate appraiser. I myself am a programmer/systems analyst. All of these professions do exist outside of huge cities. We are not just a bunch of hayseeds.
In this case “Excuses” and “Reasons” are synonyms. And I can assure you that not everyone who has the ability to hold down a job can cook. I can cook; most of my friends can’t. And how is “No time” an excuse, anyway?
Honestly, I think I’ve been posting here long enough for most of the regulars- and that really should include you- to know that I’m not in the US, and that things are very different here to the US.
Small towns in Australia don’t have many meaningful jobs. There will be a few, obviously- someone has to run the local post office/bank/supermarket/general store/pub/etc, after all- but I can assure you there’s not much call for Systems Analysts or Buying Assistants or Merchandising Co-Ordinators in somewhere like Longreach, QLD (population 3,000) or Coober Pedy, SA (Population 2,000). And these are fairly well known small towns, too- they’re not exactly obscure backwaters.
Now, there are cosmopolitan small towns- places like Byron Bay on NSW’s Far North Coast spring to mind- but most of them aren’t. Even our National Capital (Canberra) only has about 350,000 people in it and I’m reliably informed most of the people who live there and want to go somewhere interesting for the weekend head to Sydney or Melbourne.
So whilst “small towns” in the US may not be full of farmers and hicks, most of the ones in Australia really don’t seem to offer much in the way of meaningful employment- which is why so many people move to the cities and regional centres.
/me quotes Bugs Bunny “Hoboken? I’m Dyyyyin’!”