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back in 2008 I left an urban area to live in a small rural town, I posted all the good points in 2013 and planned on posting the negatives a month later ,its hard to believe its been 4 years.
small rural towns:
If you are from a large city like NYC a small city maybe 50k to you but in rural america an entire county may only have 20k. a small rural town may have 400 a typical size may have 1500 and a super metropolis is 5k or above.Of course, when towns are this small they really cant support much business.Typical businesses include a greasy diner, and I really do mean greasy, a gun shop(of course),extra gold star if your town has two.A resale shop, your usual assortment of realtors(considering it can take years to sell just one house if it sells at all I cant image how these guys stay in business), a lawyer here and there(you cant escape lawyers)a laundromat,hardware store, barber shop and plenty of bars, if they ever have stumbling home drunk as an olympic event these rural folks would win the gold.One of my favorite places is one of the banks here ,they havent remodeled it since it opened up in the early 60's. I dont do any banking there but I love walking in there,I feel like Im on the set from the old dick van dyke show, I always thought the guys working there should wear skinny ties and all the females there should have the MTM hairdo and wear capri pants.0-0-h, r-0-0-b!!
Towns here try to bring in tourists with food fairs, but once you've seen one you've seen them all,a lot of craft junk a few local bands who arent very good and food that has a lot to be desired. At the last one I paid $8 for a philly cheese sandwich that I swear was made from shredded sneakers and $5 for a bag of home made taffy that less flavor that the wax paper it was wrapped in.The town next door has a wine and arts festival but as a friend says its more of a 'who can get sloppy drunk the fastest', these are not 'art' people.These towns try but dont understand a lot about attracting tourists. one town here has some type of oil musuem,( oil was found here over 100 years ago),but its closed, so now you have to go all over town to find someone who knows someone who can open it up, do they really think people are going to waste hours to do that???South of me there is a large antique center, there is even a big highway sign for it, I went but its just 3 small tool sheds filled with made in china trinkets!!!Other towns have their assortment of antique malls,but they are all closed on sunday, a typical day people like to go out and bum around places like this.Another problem is many of the older generation are very suspicious of any outsiders.Nobody is going to drive for hours and then be looked at like you're here to blow the place up.And for godsake dont walk around with a camera!!!
One thing that surprises me the most is that people just stay inside their homes, even on a nice sunny day in the summer you rarely see anybody outside, maybe a kid on a bike, maybe someone mowing their lawn but usually you can walk from one end of town to the other and rarely see anybody, in fact after 8 years I can walk down any street point to any house and probably couldnt name you who lives there.
Part 8?! Wow, lots of negative people, I guess! We are buying a vacation/investment property in a county that has only 4500 people in rural Colorado with the intention of moving there full time in a few years. I personally love the lack of traffic, closeness to nature, etc. Them city folks can keep the city!
I think it's funny that the OP states that after 8 years he can walk down any street and point to any house and probably not name who lives there. I would bet that not only is the reverse not true (i.e., I'm sure his neighbors know EXACTLY who the OP is), but that given the opportunity, they'd be willing to raise a fund to pay his moving costs back to the "big city". It must get old being a small town Grinch.
I would love to live in a small town, but I feel I'm too weird to be accepted. I like solitude a great deal, but there are times when I like to socialize. I just don't know if it would be a good fit for me. A big city would probably work better for my type of person. Whereas judgmental people are everywhere, there could be problems with the locals who just don't like you if you stand out too much. I know its probably case by case, but still you never know until you move there. Also if you're not native to some locals you can just fagitaboutit!
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