Small town YOUR definition (Omaha, Lincoln: high school, live, estimates)

[PinkElephant]

I know everything is relative but my mom moved to CA during WWII. She settled in the suburbs of Los Angeles til the late 1970's, semi retiring to a town of 1,500. Small grocery store, four gas stations, part time library, less than 100 kids in the high school.

After my stepdad passed, she fully retired to a larger town of 3,000. She still insists neither is a small town, that NE has tons of smaller towns. Which is right, but I was wondering.

What do NE locals call a small town?

[mattpoulsen]

You would call 3000 a small town in Nebraska, although not "real" small. Outside the metro (Omaha and Lincoln) the next biggest town in NE is only about 45,000. After that we have 5 or 6 in the 20,000 to 25,000 range. So really once you get in out state NE a town that is 3000 people isn't terribly small.

You're right, there are tons and tons of very small towns in NE. For example, I was raised in a town of a little over 100 people and there were probably 10 towns within a 35 mile radius with populations less than 1000.

[lisalynn]

So really once you get in out state NE

What does this mean "out state NE"?

[kallen101]

Originally Posted by lisalynn

What does this mean "out state NE"?

west of york county

[Dave1215]

Originally Posted by kallen101

west of york county

Wow... that's like 80% of the state.

[mattpoulsen]

Yeah, "out state" Nebraska is essentially anything other than the Omaha/Lincoln metro. I can say that its "out state" Nebraska because I grew up in north central Nebraska and was an "out stater," if you will. Its not meant to be offensive its just a lot easier to use that as a way of describing the totality of the state less Omaha and Lincoln.

[itsMeFred]

Personally, I tend to think of the western 2/3 of the state as "out state," since the vast majority of the population is in the eastern 1/3.

As far as the original question, having spent the last 15 years in the western half of the state, 3,000 is considered a large town.

To give perspective, we were in Benkelman, NE (population 1000) in the post office a few weeks ago. My son, 9, was looking at the rows of PO boxes and commented very seriously that "Boy, there's a lot of people in Benkelman" lol
Beyond a doubt, it's the biggest town in Dundy county.

We've lived in counties that had fewer people than that, actually. Blaine county, 10 years ago, had 700 people in the entire county. It's smaller now, I believe...
Cherry county, bigger than CT and RI put together has a grand total of 6,000 people in the county.
I've lived on ranches where we were so far from civilization that we only got mail every other day. The carrier would deliver the other side of the route on the off-days.

So to answer your question, your mother is completly right. Fifteen hundred is considered a "good sized town."
Three thousand is downright large.

~Erin

[Dave1215]

Small town - I think differes based on the part of the state... in the metro people think of 20,000 small. Sandhills you might be looking at 100 as small...

[Chris19]

Even though I am not from Nebraska, but South Dakota is similar but with less people overall. To me with being in the southeastern part of SD, a small town is under 2,000 people. It seems like towns over the 2,000 threshold here tend to have a bigger business community. A number of small towns not too far from me have mushroomed from small towns into sizable bedroom communities for Sioux Falls (Tea was about 800 people in 1990 and is over 3600 people now and Harrisburg was under 1,000 in 2000 and is over 3,000 now-the current numbers are local estimates).

It is relative. A town less than 1,000 is definitely a small town to me. But a town close to 2000 is borderline to me (exhibiting small town social characteristics but normally offering more services). A city of 15,000 would not be a small town and cities of these size are often professionally managed (on day to day affairs relating to the cities' departments such as public works).

[Moving South?]

You know you're in a small town when:
* you dial the wrong number and still talk for 15 minutes.
* you only need to dial 4 numbers to call somebody.
* you wave at everybody passing on the street
* you know the name of everybody in your class
* you drive "main" time after time after time.
* everybody thought you were cool for dating somebody from another town.