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The nearest city to my East is about 12,000 and has Lowe's, Home Depot, Harbor Freight, WalMart, two other reasonable sized grocers, a moderately sized and modern hospital, multiple car dealerships, two tractor dealers, etc.
One thing to understand, though, when discussing this with those in Massachusetts and other New England States: "Towns" there are not towns. They are what the rest of us call "Townships," which is to say, they cover a geographic area somewhere in the neighborhood of 36 square miles (probably not that size in Massachusetts).
Think the town I grew up in has a little under 4000 people right now . For some reason when I moved there 20 years ago, somebody told me we had 6,000 people. And when you factor in the difference between the city center and the census-designated place, it gets even tougher.
Regardless, we have at least 3 if not more stoplights, a McDonalds, a Dunkin Donuts, two pizza shops, at least 4 other restaurants, at least 3 parks, a library, a private Christian school, an elementary school, and a combination middle-high school. No other chain stores or coffee shops though.
We're in the Adirondacks, which is pretty well-known if you're a hiking fanatic but pretty unknown otherwise in my view. So we're no Jackson Wyoming or Sedona or anything like that, with the population of a small town but the amenities of a large city. We don't have any rich people but I daresay we don't really have that many deeply deprived people either.
So with my point of reference being my town, this is how I see it:
>3000 people: hamlet
3500-10,000: small town
10,000-100,000: small city
100,000-500,000: moderately-sized city
500,000-3 mil.: big city
3 mil. and higher: for god's sake why are there so many people sized-city
The nearest city to my East is about 12,000 and has Lowe's, Home Depot, Harbor Freight, WalMart, two other reasonable sized grocers, a moderately sized and modern hospital, multiple car dealerships, two tractor dealers, etc.
Gee, I wish my town of nearly 50,000 had a Home Depot to go with its Lowe's as well as a Harbor Freight. But dang, there are two super Wal-Marts plus a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Center. For a grocery stores it has a Sprouts. I don't think that grocer is found in many towns under 50,000.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie
Gee, I wish my town of nearly 50,000 had a Home Depot to go with its Lowe's as well as a Harbor Freight. But dang, there are two super Wal-Marts plus a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Center. For a grocery stores it has a Sprouts. I don't think that grocer is found in many towns under 50,000.
Until recently (new annexation) our city was only at about 50,000. We have had only Safeway and a Kroger store (QFC) until recnelty when we got Trader Joe's and a Metropolitan market (upscale). We have only two strip malls, no big box stores, but 6 miles in either direction the next cities both have Home Depot and Costco, and one has Lowes. Harbor Freight and Wal-Mart are another 12 miles away. We are actually considered to be a small city, though the 22nd largest city in the state. For me a small town is less than 10,000 people.
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