Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
1) Our (Chinese restaurant / Mexican restaurant / Italian restaurant / deli) is the best there is. This is all we know, and that's good enough... besides, we all love the owners and employees!
2) We won't tolerate your complaints about how life in our town is substandard in any way compared to the larger city you came from. But we will give you directions to get you back to that city as quickly as possible so you won't have anything more to complain about.
3) If you try to change our town in any way so that it's more like the larger place you came from, you'll find it impossible to get any friends in the area. Oh, and nothing will change about our town, either.
4) We will watch your house when you're away, collect your mail for you even if you don't ask us to, and practically guard your possessions as though they were our own. And we'd hope you'd do the same for us.
5) When you're in, you're IN. Prove that you're one of us, and we will support you with our time, talent, treasure, and our very lives.
6) We don't really care about how big or small our town is, or becomes. What we really care about is maintaining the way of life and the sense of community that we know and love.
7) If we love you, we'll let everyone know... which we can do, because we know everyone. If we don't like you... we'll let everyone know.
Im seriously doubting there will be anything that I think is better in the city to complain about, or anything to change. the people that have trouble in a small town must not really want to be there.
#4) Don't assume that farming is easy and anyone can do it. These days the farm boys are heading off to college to get their degrees in things that would make most of our heads spin just to be able to come back do a better job back on the farm.
Never underestimate a farmers knowledge or skills. They know a heck of a lot more then you think.
Also, don't ever assume he's poor because he drives an old beat up truck. It's beat up because it works as hard as he does. And when you slide off the road in your $40,000 SUV, he'll come drag you out with his $100,000 tractor.
Im seriously doubting there will be anything that I think is better in the city to complain about, or anything to change. the people that have trouble in a small town must not really want to be there.
People complain about the following things, when they live in a small town but came from a city.
1) Lack of opportunity.
Well, duh. If there were tons of opportunity, people would flock to the town and it wouldn't be small anymore. Remember that every gigantic city started out as a small town.
2) Lack of diversity.
People from certain cultures are more likely to want to live in densely packed cities. You won't find those people in significant numbers in a small town. If you want diversity, few small towns have much.
3) Being stuck in time, many decades ago.
The residents LIKE IT THAT WAY. You may not be able to understand this, but if a town has a lot of old people who lived just fine "the old way", there will be little incentive to change to any "new way". They're not going to do it just because you want them to.
4) Lack of amenities.
Okay, so our little town doesn't have a mall, a Wal-Mart, a bus system, an all-you-can-eat buffet chain restaurant, and a gigantic big-name hotel. It's a small town. We have small shops, you can drive a half hour to the nearest Wal-Mart if you really must, there aren't enough people to support a bus system so you'll need to find a ride (or walk or bike), we have small cozy restaurants where people know each other, and we have bed & breakfasts in case anyone wants to stay here when they don't know a "local". (But very few people have reason to stay here if they're not visiting a "local"... and if they are visiting a "local", they can stay at that person's house usually.)
People who "have trouble in a small town", as you put it, and as such would complain about how that small town differs from a city, MOSTLY don't want to be there. These are the people who left the city because they hated the congestion, the noise, the stench, the crowds of people everywhere, etc...... and then expected to find the reasons why cities are full of people, in a small town that isn't full of people. You can't have everything. There ain't a small town out there that has every big-city amenity, and there ain't a big city out there that lacks congestion/crowds/noise. These people would like the lack of big-city issues, but complain about the lack of the positive characteristics of a big city.
Don't be surprised or shocked when you have moved from California to anywhere in Montana and people aren't nice to you or automatically roll out the welcome mat.
You are way behind the eight ball and have much to prove to the natives that you are not going to question their way of life, buy large tracts of land and section it off or raise their property taxes exponentially on homes and land they have had in their family for generations to the point to where they have had to sell because they could no longer afford the taxes.
This has happened all over western Montana.
People's memories are very long.
For about six months in 1997 I held a part time job at AAA Mountainwest in Helena.
When new residents that were members would come in for city and county information we gave them a very nice and bulky packet of information welcoming them to the area.
If they had moved from California we would also give them a bright orange sheet of paper with information concerning changing their license plates on their vehicles as soon as possible to avoid vandalism and possible road rage directed at them from residents that perceived them as outsiders and a threat to the areas housing prices and culture.
The look of horror on some of their faces was intense once we explained that this was no joke.
Incidents of of slashed tires and broken car windows on California plated vehicles were quite common in the mid to latter nineties.
With the passage of time much of this has calmed but hasn't disappeared all together has I receive information from many friends throughout the area to keep up on the city that I love.
- Don't talk badly about someone to someone else because they're probably related. Unless you WANT the person to hear about your comments - some of the ladies enjoy stirring up drama.
- Don't do anything to your house that is very different than your neighbors' houses without expecting to hear about it from everyone in town! (Everyone except the 2 neighbors I invited to help me choose hates the color I painted my house, and believe me, they talk about it among themselves and I hear about it!)
- Don't "show off". But they'll be so proud of you if you do anything cool and everyone will show up at your house with a newspaper clipping if you or a child get your names in the regional paper for some reason!
- Do show up for and help out with community events. If you don't show up at the annual craft sale people will come over to find out if you're ok.
- Do help your neighbors. That could be anything from plowing their driveway to taking over magazines you're finished with to sharing plant cuttings to helping to fix plumbing.
- Do patronize the local stores. They need all the business and money anyone can bring them.
You never really "break up" with someone in a small town. Impossible! Because you usually work together, or go to the VFW on Friday nights, or see them in church. You have an amicable parting..
You know you live in a small town and go to the gun show, and see your ex husband, and two of your last lovers all looking at guns together. And they are all related. Cousins, or married to a cousin...
When i took my girlfriend and baby to my little home town in Southern Utah and her beening from NYC it was funny that morning at the local cafe where we went to eat breakfast at she was inviented to a local woman baby shower where she met two of my former highschool sweethearts .
She got a asked a few question about the lifestyle we where living up there in NYC .She did laugh at a few question later on about her life with me and what did for a living and did it bother her with the lifestyle
You know you live in a small town; When you know all the girls in it. To the point of were when you date one, then the relationship ends. Everyone of those girls in the town know allll about you.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Why move to a small town?
btw, all your negatives are positives in my book, definitely reassuring me that i am making the right choice.
