Small Towns/Villages vs Big Cities
Moonshadow
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: 11 Apr 2009
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 26
Location: Portsmouth, Virginia
Either a Regular City or a moderate sized town close to a Regular City. Orange Park Florida is ideal for me. Its a fairly small, yet quite modern, town so close to Jacksonville than some think of it as an extention of Jacksonville thats in another county. Orange Park has very little crime, has a very nice sized mall, Both Target and Wal-Mart for General Discount Retailers, a Hooters, A Dog Track, etc. Yet, even if you can't find something to do in Orange Park, Jacksonville is not too far away. Even St. Augustine is a short trip from Orange Park.
Where I'm at, on the other hand, is your typical Small Town thats stuck in the past. Thomasville and Orange Park are comparable in size, yet Wal-Mart is the Wal-Mart, Target, and Mall for this town, if you get what I mean. The only thing I'm interested in thats here is a nice Slot Car track. The Movie theater normally skips most Sci-Fi movies ( won't be surprised if they don't do Star Trek), the Wal-Mart here has a monopoly, and therefore the selection sucks, nothing new gets built, there's no jobs reguardless of the national economy, and people seem to really think highly of themselves here. They will constantly bash Large Cities "Because look at how dangerous Atlanta is". I HATE Thomasville, or all of SW Georgia for that matter, because its the same old story throughout this region of Georgia. The nearest fairly decent Cities are Valdosta, which is more in South Central Georgia, and Tallahassee, which is in another state, both of which are about 50 miles away.
BTW, the powers that be around here won't seem to let anything in that will create more jobs, yet, they have a Lawyer for a stupid half dead Oak Tree thats being supported by bracing and cables! Hows that for priorities!
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Watching "Rainman" will NOT tell you anything about what I have.
The largest city I lived in was Sunnyvale, California. At the time (early 80's) it was about 100000 population although it was just a set of lines on a map splitting up silicon valley so it seemed like a much larger city.
Since then I have moved to smaller and smaller towns until I ended up in Estancia, New Mexico for four years. It only had a population of about 1000 and just couldn't support decent shopping or activities. At that point I knew how small was too small.
My current location is a few miles outside of a city of 2000 people. There is a neighboring smaller city less than 1km away and with all the people who live up in the foothills like I do I'm guessing the population at 4000 - 4500. It has a decent supermarket along with hardware and lumber stores, restaurants, county fairgrounds, etc.
Again one the nice examples when people make statements and do not look into the numbers - homicide pre 100'000 is in rural areas in the US roughly the same than in the big cities since nearly 10 years:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/city.htm
I gre up in the Detroit area, city + suburbs, over 2 million...
It is turning into the first 3rd world city in the US.
a few pics of abandoned buildings with a video af an abandoned skyscraper in detroit, the largest abandoned one in the city.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5MohVvbja8&feature=related[/youtube]
Small towns are hellish. And I wouldn't even want to imagine what it would be like stuck in a village.
I grow up in the country side in small village: The supervision of village community was tremendous: Everyone knows everything from everyone. Going to the village shop, the butcher, the baker, the post office or one of the three pubs and were well informed regarding the newest gossip. That can be fine if live and behave according to the village standards - it even provides you with an extra social network; if you do not confirm to this standards, this could turn easily into hell.
Being a person very much for my own, I do not prefer to play the role of the village eccentric (or idiot) and I am happy that I left this place quite early.
Even living in a small town, within a small street I felt like like some sort of local oddity. It's amazing how quickly words spread about the strange person who keeps to themselves. It's nearly as if small communities are offended by someone who doesn't conform to their standard of normality - Like it's some act of rebellion, shunning the group and refusing to be part of the herd. And of course, the more they pry, the more we withdraw and go our own way. I also think we can produce an element of unease and wariness among small communities, due to people's unfounded fear of loner types and so-called oddballs.
I can relate to 100% of what's said here. small towns are way too social. the bigger the better.
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ThatRedHairedGrrl
Veteran
Joined: 10 May 2008
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 912
Location: Walking through a shopping mall listening to Half Japanese on headphones
I've lived all my life in small UK towns, and I now live in a village, and I hate it. In these kind of places, if you're remotely 'strange', openly alternative, of non-conventional beliefs or appearance or anything, people look at you like you have two heads.
I worked in London for almost a decade, and while it was interesting, it was also a bit overpowering. I can only take places like London in small doses.
But, I am an urban person, and this is where I'd really like to be. The bluest skies you've ever seen are in...
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"Grunge? Isn't that some gross shade of greenish orange?"
Small towns are hellish. And I wouldn't even want to imagine what it would be like stuck in a village.
I grow up in the country side in small village: The supervision of village community was tremendous: Everyone knows everything from everyone. Going to the village shop, the butcher, the baker, the post office or one of the three pubs and were well informed regarding the newest gossip. That can be fine if live and behave according to the village standards - it even provides you with an extra social network; if you do not confirm to this standards, this could turn easily into hell.
Being a person very much for my own, I do not prefer to play the role of the village eccentric (or idiot) and I am happy that I left this place quite early.
Living in a small community would be a living hell for me and I hope I'll never have to.
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"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live" (Oscar Wilde)
Right now, I'm in a "small city" of 500,000.
It's far too big, sprawling, and dense for me. I'm mostly here since I supposedly have friends here, even though I end up (unwillingly) alone 5 days a week, since I've yet to manage to get into anyone's "inner circle" and only get to hang out with people when there's a group meeting. The other reason is 'jobs', even though I can't find one.
Last year, I was in bay area California (metro of 7 million). That was downright painful.
I think a population of around 10,000 or so would be best. The town that I lived the longest in had a population of 5000.
Seeing as how I'm considering a move at this time, this sort of thing is in my mind.
When push comes to shove, as it frankly has, I find myself pretty much requiring a certain type of environment. And finding this agrees with most Aspies on what they feel the best place is for an Aspie.
A place with a transient population was suggested, such as a college town/student area. Having lived in "outer" parts of Edinburgh where there is more of a community thing, I have found that very difficult with neighbours, the transparency you can have to often troublesome people etc. In some more central parts of town with a more transient population, especially where students live, this type of community does not develop, or have a chance to.
I had wanted to live and try to fit in to areas that are more community-like. That turned out to be, although a perfectly honest mistake, a very troublesome and frankly traumatic mistake. I learned that such an area, where some sort of community has crystallised, is not suitable for me. I have voted "Rural Area" in the poll, because even when I have lived with only one neighbour sharing a common entrance, they have been dysfunctional. I have repeatedly ended up traumatised because of neighbours, and all this makes an isolated house almost a requirement for me. Of course it would need to be within reach of my job, employment and social opportunities, a bus stop (I don't drive). This is not impossible outside Edinburgh, though I suspect very unlikely to attain simply because more is available in town. I'd be prepared to walk 15 or more minutes to a bus stop, but failing this I'm sure to do better living in a more transient locality.
I agree about the small town thing.. probably this would be like a suburb but even more isolating and entrapping.
I am a total city boy. I'm a very big city boy too. The city is amazing. I lived in a small town and it was horrible. There was nothing to do, tons of very closed minded people who hated people who were gay, different in any sort, and for some, if you were black. One boy told me he hated black people and wouldn't mind shooting them. And he said it was because he went to an all black school in Minneapolis (My thinking was "Where'd you go to school? The most ghetto part of Minneapolis?). I mean sure, all those kinds of people live in the big city too, but, what's different is that they aren't as out in the open and easy to find as there's more people. After I graduate high school, I'm going to college in Chicago and that's where I plan to live my life. The public transportation system is amazing (I try to drive as least as possible and would rather use transit as it's better for the environment), it's very diverse, tons to do, tons of beaches, sure Chicago is more pricey then some other cities but it's also cheaper then a lot of other ones too, lots of arts, and the list goes on!
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i grew up in a small town and it was terrible.
i get cabin fever easily if i don't have lots to do and things open all night. and also i prefer the anonymity of a big city.
i am starting to think smaller cities have far more interesting people though. probably because the cost of living is lower and that allows people to be more creative with their lives.
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auntblabby
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Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,731
Location: the island of defective toy santas
i was born on a large military base, and spent my first 8 years in a town with about 40,000 odd folk. then my parents moved us out in the country, to a town with a population of about 1/10th that number of people. i lived there most of my life until my parents passed away a few years back, then i moved even further out into the woods in a little wide spot in the road with a total population roughly 1/100th of where i was born. only a few hundred folk live out here, widely separated over a few dozen square miles. at most i have about a dozen neighbors within walking distance. i just can't handle cities, at least not any longer than the duration [a few hours] of a guided visit.
I feel the same way. I couldn't or at least wouldn't want to live in a small town where I was trapped in the house and couldn't go out to a convenience store at 2am.
That is an interesting observation and may well be true. I live in NYC and don't particularly like it. I liked living in Houston, which is so much cheaper that people I knew were able to take on creative projects that would be impossible here because of the cost. (I knew people in Houston who opened an art gallery, a movie house, a junk/art store. I even started writing art reviews for the city's free weekly just by asking. There was no competition for the job.) I also liked living in Providence.
I currently live in a small city, and I love it here. It doesn't have the rural/village everyone's-in-your-business feel (which is where I grew up), but it's not so crowded that you can't leave the house.
That reminded me of Nick Drake. What will happen in the morning when the word it gets so crowded that you can't look out the window in the morning?
It depends on where in the world you are, in say the PRC that is a regular city (city proper). I know a Latvian who considers a 1 million city pop f*****g huge, but he lives in a city of ~100,000 (is that a city :p) , grew up in a town of 33,000 and likes forests a LOT
Go to a rave or street festival or something in a city then
CHICITY IN THE HOUSE
Think my grandmother feels the same way in many places regarding wanting to return o rural missisippi....problem is there is drama with family members there,
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