Bout 1700 people in the town I live in,Evart Michigan.
In the battle of the small town restaurants, I think my little burg is going to come out ahead of many. 1500 people. A Subway, a Taco Bell, a coffee shop and bakery, an Italian restaurant, a German restaurant, and three bars! Woo!
Now if the residents would stop stealing, everything would be awesome.
I’m in an unincorporated area about 5 miles outside a town of 6400. There might actually be a smaller town that’s closer (I’m not that sure of the boundaries), but the one with 6400 is where I go for groceries, and that’s where the Post Office is and it’s easier to get to. St. Louis is about 45-50 miles away on the far side of town.
There are less than 10,000 people in the town I grew up in, and the one I live in currently. Neither has a mayor of any sort.
My town in Bulgaria has 3000 people and a full-time mayor. He is quite the king of the town, driving around in a silver Mercedes. His office is very nice. He has an enormous house just outside of town and I understand he owns quite a bit of land, too.
Exactly how he does this on the salary of a civil servant in Bulgaria (average monthly salary: ~$200US) is something I was always interested in.
I live in the county seat, which has a population of 1,309. Our mayor and city council are part-time positions. The entire county has a population of 16,036. Before this, I’d been living in an unincorporated village of around 30 people, with no elected officials. Before that I was in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which has a population of 1.7 million residents and God only knows how many transients and tourists.
About a year and a half ago, my wife and I moved to a town of under 1K people. I quipped to my dad – and this is a true fact – that we don’t even have a traffic light to go watch on Saturday nights. The largest town in the county, about an hour away, has ~5K people. The nearest “city” is about two hours away, with ~30K people. Yes, we have a mayor. I don’t know if it’s a full- or part-time position.
Prior to moving here, I hadn’t lived in a town/city of less than 40K people – the smallest was Hoboken, NJ, which in no way fits the “small town” idea.
I have to say, I love it out here in the boonies and hope to never have to move back to a more developed area.
When my family and I moved to Whitby, Ontario, in 1970, it was still a small town of around 15 000 people. It had very much an independent feel; it was the County Town of Ontario County, and had a nice little downtown with its own movie theatre, several blocks of commercial buildings, and a town hall. There was the town swimming pool in Water Tower Park, the Carnegie Library, the two high schools on either side of town, several public schools, the barber shop down the street, and several food stores.
It was all small enough to be encompassed by the mind of a kid on a bicycle. You could go south to the harbour in Port Whitby (very much a separate place then), west across the fields to the town of Ajax, east to the big city of Oshawa, or north up the highway to the distant village of Brooklin. Fields and streams for exploring were just ten or fifteen minutes away by bike, and we lived four blocks from the Four Corners, the junction of Highway 2 and Highway 12 that was at the centre of town.
Sometime in the seventies, Whitby really started to grow, and now it has 110 000 people and has merged with Oshawa in the greater conurbation of the Toronto area.
I live in a town of about 3800, but I think that’s at the height of tourist season when all the part-time people are here (it’s a rich tourist town and there are a fair number of people who own a condo here and live here for either winter or summer depending on which they like better).
I know next to nothing about the local government except that there’s a woman who is trying to have the mayor tossed out of office, but I don’t know why. Nor do I really care, to be honest.
I absolutely love it here, even if I sound a bit grouchy. The scenery is amazing and the people I work with are great and I’ve never lived in such a small town. We have a total of three traffic lights on Main Street. The paper comes out twice a week. It’s eighty miles to Target. It’s a weird little world of its own and I like it.
I spent most of my childhood (fourth grade through age 17) in a town with a population of 1,176 according to Wikipedia.
I hated it.
There is no mention of the mayor on the Wikipedia page. I don’t think we had one.
The page for my village doesn’t mention a mayor, either. We do have one, though. He’s a distant relative of mine.
Of course, everyone in a fifty mile radius of here is a relative of mine. 
Grew up in a city of ~11,000. For a while my permanent address was a village of ~750 (summer population much higher). Lived in a City of ~3000 (the county seat), now live in a city of ~5,000 (same county - the county seat is NOT the most populous). I’m just across the river from a city of ~50,000 so we actually have less stuff than the city of ~3,000.
note that in Wisconsin “town” has a specific legal meaning ( a political division of a county that is not an incorporated village or city IIRC)
Brian
Village of 2,200 people. I don’t know where they’re all hiding. This place ain’t that big. No McDonalds or other fast food, just a small grocery, a couple pubs, and 3 churches. It’s a pleasure to walk down to the store, but people here are somewhat parochial. I feel like an outsider because I wasn’t born and raised here in Cambridgeshire. I’d rather be in a bit larger town, one with people with more varied backgrounds.
Well, according to Wiki, my town is 1.3 square miles with about 1800 people in it (2000 census). We’ve got one grocery and everything closes down at 10, except the few bars in town. We only have one stop light in town, but there are two in our county (although my whole life I’ve been told that the other is illegal due to the fact that there are not enough people per square mile. I assume that makes sense because there are stop signs right under the stop light). I like it here, though. Unfortunately, I have to drive about 35 miles to my job, and my wife drives about a mile to hers. I’m hoping that something closer comes open soon…
Brendon Small
I do. Downtown is a flashing yellow light. I can walk to the post office, town hall, the beauty salon and the pizza place/convenience store. My kids’ private school was right around the corner.
According to Wiki, as of 2004, the population was 942. I do not believe that includes the surrounding areas that have the town as their address but are not part of the town proper.
The town I currently live in has a population between 10 and 11 thousand. Full time mayor, not sure about the city council. Both police and fire departments are also full time.
I grew up in a village of 70 - 80, we had a part-time mayor (my grandfather) and council (my mother was treasurer). No police or fire department of any kind. The nearest place that had any kind of fire equipment was about 12 miles away.
Moved here from Woodlake, CA. About 6500 people, I believe. It was a pretty nice little town, but about 50% of the population spoke no English, and another 30% were not quite “fluent” in English. It made it hard.
Joe
The closest town to my house (where my kids go to school) is 10 miles away and has a population of 600. The largest city in the county has a population of about 6000.
Not now, but I lived for over 10 years in a small town in NJ, pop. about 3500. Full time clerk and a maintenance staff who also collected garbage. Police chief and two cops. Part time everything else - the mayor taught at the boarding school in town. We had two lights - but one might have been just outside town limits. It’s the kind of place where, when I got pulled over for speeding (not very fast) the cop apologized to me and explained that he was trying to keep the out of towners from speeding. No ticket or even warning, of course. There was also a tiny library.
One of our good friends wrote for the local paper, so we knew the scandals. And I also know that if a new mayor fired the staff for not supporting him or her, we would have run him out of town on a rail. Especially if he was the same party as most of the town.
I live in and grew up in a city that had slightly over 9000 residents in 2000, and slightly over 7000 in 1990. I’d venture to guess we were around 5000 in 1980. The town has really been growing over the years.
Back when my folks moved here in 1975 it was a “white flight” destination. It was considered “the boonies” by most people and up through the '80s was pretty low on retail shops.
Now, it’s quite built up. We’ve got loads of retail and chain stores (except no big book store!!).
We’ve had a proper mayor for as long as I’ve been alive, and an elected, part-time city council. I could not imagine anyone ever touting running this city as good experience for national office!