Well…I lived in a small town until I went to college. I think that gowing up in a small town is good…because you know everybody (also a bad thing…your parents find out about everything you do, ) As Jeff Olson pointed out, I could ride my bike to my friends house. Our parents felt safe if we just ran off for a day because there really wasn’t any danger. Can’t say the same for people living in NYC, Boston, or the like.
But once I became a teenager…bored out of my f*cking skull! Nothing to do! Those years from junior high to junior year were the worst, because none of us even had cars to drive to the closest “city” (not even a real city, Burlington VT, pop. is less than 70,000…and I think that’s when the colleges are in season.) As soon as I was able to leave I did…now I happily reside in Troy, NY. Not the nicest city in the world, but it’s close to Albany, and Albany is cool.
I am with you spooje, I have to have my 7-11 in walking distance, yet the small town life seems so serene. I could do without the “everybody has to know everything about you bit”, hence I live in a huge city and noone knows my business.
I guess I just get tried of looking at the same faces everyday.
I went to the town fair and I had seen everybodys’ face atleast 20 or 30 times. but i work at one of the grocery stores in town.
Oh yeah another bad point- less jobs.
I guess it’s not that bad here. but i wish we had a huge book store. i am forced to buy my books at the grocery store- not a big selection. ah, maybe someday this place will evovle.
I don’t think everyone here is small minded. more so with some of the elder folk. there are a few punks here. then again I did get made fun of for reading a book when I first moved here
When I lived in Sacramento, it was like this. It was the first time I ever “worried” about what I wore to the grocery store, because it would be like a parade of neighbours, colleagues and friends.
One night I was feeling crazy, went to the SAfeway and bought a bulk package of toilet paper, a two pack pregnancy test kit–it was on SALE!–a yeast infection treatment, a packet of urine infection pain relief tablets–those things that make your pee orange, a couple of steaks, some Chunky Monkey and a six pack of Mexican beer. Maybe a can of Spaghetti-Os. Except for the beer and ice cream, I didn’t feel a pressing need for any of those items, I just wanted to see how many people I could run into, since I couldn’t imagine a more awkward basket–Y’know how you’ll run into people you know and they look into your cart and go, “Hmmm…beany weenie, I haven’t had that since I was a kid. Can I come over?”
Shockingly, I didn’t run into a single person I knew. It figured.
When I was growing up very dull new suburbs of South Florida I dreamed of city lights - and tall buildings and dressing up in smart clothes and taking the “el” and striding down the foggy boulevards. I made it sort of -
I moved to a small town in '89- A turn of the century city with a paper manufacturing background on the Kalamazoo River. THough the downtown was about 4-6 square blocks all the businesses were locally owned and prosperous too.
We could walk from our house to
Aries London Grill
Joes Pizza
Plainwell Saloon
Hardings and Big Top grocers
The kalamazoo River
Five city parks - For sand volleyball, basket ball, BB and SOccer,Tennis, Tot Lots and canoe livery
Plainwell Icercream
Deans IceCream
The Fashion Tree A ladies clothing store
EJ’sJeweler’s
Dorgans Hardware
You get the picture _ I loved my small town -
Though the tallest buildings were grain silos and the water tower. I got involved on city commissions and best of all, surrounding the area is wide open spaces of west michigan real estate -woods farms lakes and rivers and other small towns.
I have found that lots of people return to their roots here, they go off to college and come back and go into business and enroll their kids in the schools.
Now I live in a different rural suburb of Michigan where I have to drive everywhere, everywhere except the lake.
I think the problem is that small towns tend to be very homogenous in some aspect [ethinicity, religion, politics], which encourages some people, but not all, to be more open about their opinions because they expect they’re speaking around like-minded people. I can rattle off a few dull examples from some friends’ upbringings that really don’t paint their hometowns accurately, but I already said they were boring and would only labor my point.
I grew up in a town of 300 people, and it was 10 miles to the next town of 300 people. The “ethnic group” was the Luthern family.
I hated it. I hated the people, the isolation, the boredom, the lack of opportunities, the mediocre schools. I couldn’t wait to get out.
25 years later, I think my view of small-town life has softened a little. I now live in suburban Chicago, and I can see that some of the things I considered drawbacks of small towns are really trade-offs. The small homogenous population means that you don’t get so nervous when the kids are running around without your supervision.
I will offer this observation: anywhere you live, there’s a population of people who don’t fit in with the crowd. In a small town, misfits are more likely to be alone; in an urban area, misfits can connect and form their own groups where they do fit in. I think that has a lot to do with the perceived suckiness of small town life. In a small town, if you don’t fit in, you really don’t fit in.
) As Jeff Olson pointed out, I could ride my bike to my friends house. Our parents felt safe if we just ran off for a day because there really wasn’t any danger. Can’t say the same for people living in NYC, Boston, or the like.