What is the smallest city and/or area would you live in? (chapel, college)

[ckhthankgod]

Just curious, but what is the smallest city and/or area could you live in that fits your criteria?

[bawac34618]

I tend to prefer metro areas over 2 million in population. Most cities that size are going to have everything that I look for. With mid-sized cities between 1 and 2 million, it depends on the city itself more than the size. New Orleans and Richmond are very different kinds of cities compared to Oklahoma City and Jacksonville even though they are all around the same size.

[jtur88]

I've lived perfectly fine in four cities with populations of less than 5,000, more than a half-hour distant from a larger city. And a couple with populations in the hundreds, closer but still separate from larger cities.

[Kar54]

I've lived in cities as large as Denver and towns as small as Alamosa, CO. Alamosa is around 8,000. That's just about as small as I'd want to go.

Denver is getting too large for my taste. I now like mid-sized cities like CO Springs, where I'll probably stay. And travel when I get the urge.

[f1000]

I've lived in the heart of the city of metro 10 million+ (LA)...suburbs of metro 4 million (Seattle) & 6 million (Bay Area)...as well as a small city not near any metro.

I prefer hustle & bustle and a lot of places to visit within a short radius, so in general I prefer 5 million+ metros. Seattle was a little small for me.


Anything under 4 million seems sleepy to me, especially having traveled to a lot of big cities around the world. I was recently in a small town of 100,000 and was bored to death. Things were so slow paced and I'm a big-city person.

There were a lot of international students in this small town and I was wondering why the hell they would go there rather than some other big US city.

[UrbanCheetah]

I can't go smaller than 200k city/metro 400k. Unless it's some tropical paradise where I can go swimming and surfing, hiking and exploring daily, I can't do anything smaller then 400k overall. I like to have amenities and some culture. Not saying a town of 5k can't, it certainly can, but it will get old quick, so I would need outdoor activities right in my backyard.

[bler144]

I don't think I could live anywhere smaller than 1.

[UKWildcat1981]

Small cities suck unless they are progressive college towns or cool college towns like Ann Arbor, Athens GA, Madison WI, Chapel Hill but even they get boring. I love cities, more to do, I get bored easy

[Count David]

The smallest I've lived in was Ridgecrest, CA's urban cluster at ~ 25K. Nothing else for an hour in any direction.

The largest I've lived in was the GLAMA, at around 18M.

Done plenty in between.

All have their positives and negatives, so I think I really don't care that much.

FWIW, my favorite was a CSA of 680K people.

[DinsdalePirahna]

I've lived in large, medium and small cities, suburbs and Semi Urban areas and very very rural areas with no neighbors for miles and clear views of the Milky way at Night. I enjoyed almost every where I live except for the Saint Louis Area.