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I like cities. I like rural places. I detest the way of life in suburbs. As such, I read about small towns with interest: they seem to preserve a much calmer, private way of life. I also love nature. I feel at its best, small town living is more civilized than city living; at its worst, it's much worse, of course.
Now, I've read so much about racism in small towns that I am wondering if I can ever be happy in one. Not planning to move anytime soon, I'm just genuinely curious. Is there such a place that is tolerant and has a small but happy percentage of minorities?
I am a half white and half East Indian girl. I don't really look that ethnic but... definitely not like an American either. I have never been the target of overt racism, but my dad has a few times when travelling in out of the way places, and it made me feel really weird.
I grew up in a small town in eastern New Mexico and the town is about 40% mexican/spanish and the rest white with a few african americans, their is also a small university there and it has alot of asian students for some reason plus you have your out of country students,its only a town of 11,000 people.
but I have never heard of anyone being discriminated against, it really dont matter your race or your color really your just another person in most peoples eyes.
I lived in a small town called Lincoln, Maine for a while and noted that race was not much of an issue there. A local private school is in the process of bringing in nearly 100 Asian students to study and learn about the American culture.
Most small towns in more progressive states tend to be more accepting of minorities IMO. But it can totally depend on the town, there are no straight facts for these kinds of things.
I like cities. I like rural places. I detest the way of life in suburbs. As such, I read about small towns with interest: they seem to preserve a much calmer, private way of life. I also love nature. I feel at its best, small town living is more civilized than city living; at its worst, it's much worse, of course.
Now, I've read so much about racism in small towns that I am wondering if I can ever be happy in one. Not planning to move anytime soon, I'm just genuinely curious. Is there such a place that is tolerant and has a small but happy percentage of minorities?
I am a half white and half East Indian girl. I don't really look that ethnic but... definitely not like an American either. I have never been the target of overt racism, but my dad has a few times when travelling in out of the way places, and it made me feel really weird.
Small college towns are likely much more open to different races than other comparably-sized towns. For example, little Cookeville TN (30,000) is home to a university with 11,000 students and has students from 66 different countries.
I don't mean to suggest that non-college towns have higher levels of racism, but if you absolutely want to be sure to be in a town with more open-minded people, you probably can't go wrong if you stick to college towns.
Try Madison, WI population around 200K. Doesn't feel that big. Has lots of lakes. Only 2.5 hours from Chicago. Awesome landscape. Here is a video about Madison and the role of the University there. It's a great video with lots of view points from folks of different nationalities.
Madison sounds great from what I've heard, but it is FAR from being a small town. I'm really talking more of 30,000-70,000 people. Not a hamlet, not a city.
I see. I seriously would consider Madison though. It may be a bit large for you but still look at it or the surrounding towns. A magazine just ranked Mazomanie Wisconsin to be one of the coolest small towns in America. Mazo as us locals like to call it is only about 25 minutes from Madison. Mount Horeb, WI is also pretty cool.
Hmm, yeah, I do like the idea of Madison--progressive but surrounded by rural areas, all-American but not intolerant. The only thing is that it's supposed to have a "hippie" vibe--not sure if I'd like that.
I'm not moving this year or next, but I'll definitely keep it in mind. I really like that it's close to Chicago, one of my favorite cities.
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