setting (Columbus, Toledo, Delaware: hotels, home, neighborhood)

[dyt937]

what kind of setting of an area do you like most
urban or rural
or a little in between both?
personally im a big city guy stuck in a small one

[ogre]

Years ago (70's to early '80's), I lived in OH, in a town that came pretty close to fitting my picture of the ideal place. The population was just under 20,000, which was small enough so that it was not unusual to encounter someone you knew while walking along the sidewalks downtown, and maybe stop and chat for a minute or two, but large enough to avoid the fishbowl effect, everyone poking into everyone else's business, that really small towns are notorious for. How far from this population I would consider to be the ideal range probably depends on the individual community's characteristics, but I'd say maybe as small as 10,000, maybe as large as 50,000.

This was the largest town in its local area, so it was the service and retail center for the area. This meant that even though this community had a population that would probably lead most people to think of it as a town rather than a city, it had the variety of businesses, facilities, and services that might be expected in a larger municipality, maybe a very small city. There was a clean and prosperous downtown, a hospital that served the town and surrounding local area, even a general-aviation municipal airport. There were restaurants, a number of hotels, several auto dealerships, an old-fashioned downtown movie theater, and a few small neighborhood shopping areas.

This town was on the fringe of a metropolitan area, so there was a portion of the population that commuted, but the town also had its own economic base, in the form of light manufacturing and a small college. The college was the right size to strike a good balance in its effect on the town's character, being large enough to add something to the feel of the place, without being so large that it completely defined the local character. Between the college and the manufacturing base, there were enough people who lived, worked, and sought entertainment right there in town so that there was a real sense of community you can't find in bedroom town where people drive away to places all over creation to work all day, then return home at night just to spend some time relaxing in the living room in the evening before being off to bed. There were a few details I would have changed if I could have, to make this the truly perfect town, but it was probably just about as close to my ideal as I could have expected in the real world.

So, that's it: a larger town or very small city, prosperous, with an abundance of the basic businesses and services located right there in town, not scattered around all over sprawling suburbia; close enough to a city to offer the best-of-both-worlds life people seek in the suburbs, but not predominately suburban in character, rather with its own economy and a friendly real-town kind of feel.

By the way, the town was Delaware. It's about 20 miles north of Columbus. The way that area has grown, I'd guess that if the Delaware I knew has not been swallowed up by suburban sprawl it soon will be. Which points out one dilemma related to seeking this kind of non-suburban, real-town, hometown USA kind of place close to a city: If the area is not growing, that may indicate that it's economically depressed, but if it is growing, then you run the risk of having your "real town" eventually become just another suburb. That was the ideal for me, though, when I happened to find my way to one town like this, at just the right time in the town's history.

Any towns like this still to be found in Ohio? I'd love to hear about any that are still out there.

[rrtechno]

For a little while I thought you were talking about Defiance. I'm not sure of the population and the fringe is long (50 miles roughly to Toledo and Fort Wayne). The downtown theater is gone and the "flavor" of the downtown has changed somewhat like most everywhere else, but otherwise, I think the description could fit pretty well. I don't live there, I am roughly 20 miles away, but I think in our corner of the state, it is pretty close to your memories.

[ogre]

Originally Posted by rrtechno

For a little while I thought you were talking about Defiance. I'm not sure of the population and the fringe is long (50 miles roughly to Toledo and Fort Wayne). The downtown theater is gone and the "flavor" of the downtown has changed somewhat like most everywhere else, but otherwise, I think the description could fit pretty well. I don't live there, I am roughly 20 miles away, but I think in our corner of the state, it is pretty close to your memories.

I guess if I were to go looking for my dream town, I probably would choose something a little farther from the nearest city, in order to be out of the reach of future suburban growth. I'd still consider it ideal to be fairly close to a city, though. Close enough to spend a day in the city. But that real-town, hometown kind of feel would be worth being a little farther from the city than the outer fringes of a metro area.