small town folk unite!

[Tenshi no Ai]

(Gr have to re typ this all over again because my new net provider likes to give me errors...) *cough* But anyhow^^

So just yesterday I got from a pretty big city where I was visiting family, a place I'm never really used to. I just couldn't imagine being stuck in traffic with the stress of making it to work on time and all that :/ For me, I'm from a pretty small town of just under 24,000 people (including the stretch of farmlands and lake properties which make it seem like a bigger place).

I think it's so neat sometimes to go to a place where you actually see civilization^^ I mean here, yeah there's a few people, but sometimes you forget that there's 6 billion of us walking around this planet, when being used to such a small town, and yet to really explore around the confined little area that I've actually travelled to (which really isn't far^^) Big cities can be awsome for teh shopping! I mean, just in this trip I've found so much rare stuff I've been looking for, for a while, at such awsome prices too! And then there's here, a small place with a mall with a whole 2 stores and a restaraunt in it (I kid you not, but it IS being remodled into a strip mall, just like everywhere else) :/ Heh I also heard from someone that our front page headline was somethign about how someone got stung by a bee! How's THAT for a town where not too much happens? It usually is about like minor things like "spring is here!" "it snowed!" "the high school is performing THIS musical!" and so forth^^ And it's interesting, yet almost sad where everyone in town either knows each other, or is connected by the friend of a cousin who knew the person and so forth.

So, how about the CAAs? Any small town people who can relate some? I'm assuming since the majority of people on here are from the America:land of many big cities, that most are from the big cities and not so much small ones. Could be wrong, but just a guess^^

[soul alive]

My hometown is 3065 people. We had to count the honor-farm to go up in population from the previous census of 3003... We have 1 traffic light.
I graduated with a class of 53 people, though we were one of the smaller classes to come through in a while.

The town I go to college in is about 30,000 regular residents, not including college students. And it's a comparitively large town for me. ^^

My hometown is an information sharing machine. If anything happens to anyone within the afternoon half the town knows, and the other half gets informed by the next day. Our newspaper averages 10 pages and comes out once a week, and is more often than not less well written than my college paper.

[Radical Dreamer]

And then there's here, a small place with a mall with a whole 2 stores and a restaraunt in it (I kid you not, but it IS being remodled into a strip mall, just like everywhere else) :/ Heh I also heard from someone that our front page headline was somethign about how someone got stung by a bee! How's THAT for a town where not too much happens? It usually is about like minor things like "spring is here!" "it snowed!" "the high school is performing THIS musical!" and so forth^^

XD I'm so there. The mall in my town is one story, but we have a brand new food court. My town isn't totally rural, but it IS really small sometimes. It's growing, though. About 5(+) years ago, we got a Target (all we had before that was Wal-Mart and K-Mart), so that was massive improvement #1. We're getting lots of other stuff these days too, like our first Starbucks, a Kohl's, a Home Depot, an Olive Garden, and a load of other good stuff. We're growing, but we're still reaaally small, overall. XD

[Tenshi no Ai]

Yeah I'd say that's pretty small^^ We've got TONS of very small tons scattered across the province, most being native resident which quite literally ARE villages. Couldn't imagine living in an even SMALLER area than I am now... I think the population isn't too bad with where it's at now. That is, till I move out and go... well, not exactly sure yet^^ Hopefully nowhere TOO too big though! Traffic, oy :/

[Lady Macbeth]

Just looked up the 2000 census data for my hometown, since I couldn't remember. Their population at the time (which hasn't changed much) was 353.

My graduating class was 19, including me. Five of us were valedictorian and three of us flunked.

That's the kind of town I'm used to, so even my current town (Superior, WI, pop. 27,368) seems huge in comparison. Don't even get me started on cities bigger than Superior.

[Puguni]

I have about 17 thousand people in my area, but I'm near an urban city, so we're growing pretty fast.

[uc pseudonym]

I came from a fairly small town and now I'm in one even smaller (it exists pretty much because of the college). However, I didn't have quite the same experience as many of you. We had plenty of streetlights, a fair amount of business, and no news reports of bees. The local paper in my current location, though, seems about like that (I ignore it).

However, I've never been uncomfortable in cities. I'm not sure where I want to live, actually. Both have advantages, but I'm leaning toward a smaller town with a decent variety. Chances are it would have everything I need but wouldn't have bad traffic or smog problems.

[Warrior4Christ]

For me, I'm from a pretty small town of just under 24,000 people (including the stretch of farmlands and lake properties which make it seem like a bigger place).

I wouldn't call that a pretty small town at all. By that classification, my state would only have one city that is larger than being a "pretty small town": Adelaide. (I'd probably say around 2,000 people is a "town", 500 people is a "small town". And a "city" is over 10,000.)

Our newspaper averages 10 pages and comes out once a week, and is more often than not less well written than my college paper.

If it's anything like my student paper... I pity you.

And it's interesting, yet almost sad where everyone in town either knows each other, or is connected by the friend of a cousin who knew the person and so forth.

Adelaide, at 1.1 million people, is sometimes referred to as a big country town because there's about 2 degrees of separation, and everyone knows nearly everyone...

[ChristianKitsune]

My hometown is 3065 people. We had to count the honor-farm to go up in population from the previous census of 3003... We have 1 traffic light.
I graduated with a class of 53 people, though we were one of the smaller classes to come through in a while.

The town I go to college in is about 30,000 regular residents, not including college students. And it's a comparitively large town for me. ^^

My hometown is an information sharing machine. If anything happens to anyone within the afternoon half the town knows, and the other half gets informed by the next day. Our newspaper averages 10 pages and comes out once a week, and is more often than not less well written than my college paper.

DOOODE!! are you SURE you aren't from MY town?!!! That sounds exactly like mine XDD

actually we have like 2500 but still lol

[soul alive]

XD Our school paper is quite bad, W4C. Must be a prerequisite of school papers... ^^

I think the entire population of the state I grew up, Wyoming, in is smaller than some cities. Heck, Rhode Island has a larger population despite being smaller than the county I'm from... XD

A lot of small town politics/set-ups are pretty universal, especially out in rural Wyoming and Montana...

[Syreth]

I live in a "metropolitan area" that actually just earned the title. I don't really lean in either direction. Actually, home for me is defined more by the people I know and love than what the community has to offer in terms of shopping or other recreational activities. When it comes down to it, I'll probably move wherever the work is, providing I can find a safe neighborhood to settle down in.

[Tenshi no Ai]

XD I'm so there. The mall in my town is one story, but we have a brand new food court. My town isn't totally rural, but it IS really small sometimes. It's growing, though. About 5(+) years ago, we got a Target (all we had before that was Wal-Mart and K-Mart), so that was massive improvement #1. We're getting lots of other stuff these days too, like our first Starbucks, a Kohl's, a Home Depot, an Olive Garden, and a load of other good stuff. We're growing, but we're still reaaally small, overall. XD

But yeah it's sort of like how my town is slowly growing, store-wise. We got a Walmart just a couple years ago (since we only had a Zellers, Target equivilent, before that and everyone went out of town on an hour drive to go to the city and a Walmart). We also got Starbucks, just at the beginning of fall and we got our A&W back a couple months ago (it previously closed and had to make room in a parking lot of a different strip mall). Where both the Starbucks and A&W are, is a development of like a few different strip malls, so hopefully there will be some interesting stuff coming in soon^^

My hopes is still with an actual theatre, and not just our giant single-movie one :/ Oy :/

[uc pseudonym]

I wouldn't call that a pretty small town at all. By that classification, my state would only have one city that is larger than being a "pretty small town": Adelaide. (I'd probably say around 2,000 people is a "town", 500 people is a "small town". And a "city" is over 10,000.)

It depends immensely on where you live. Even here in the Midwest of the US (not a high-concentrated zone) towns over 20,000 are very common and not considered much of anything. We all have a tendency to generalize our own experiences, unfortunately. There are those on the opposite end who think any place with less than 100,000 must be half corn fields and still using outhouses.

[Jingo Jaden]

My area is more like a village than a town, though I live fairly close to the captial of Norway, I basicly get to experiense both a village enviroment and a city one. If I want to go to the capital, then I am about 60 minutes with buss and boat away from it. Its quite a nice experiense to be able to do that

[ashfire]

Even thou I live in the Washington D C area I still feel I am a small town person because I moved from a small town to here.
I was born at Fort Bragg Army Hospital when my parents lived in Sanford N C
and later moved to the town of Southern Pines N C. My parents, my brother and I lived there for eight years until my father was transfered to the Wash D C area.
The town of Southern Pines today still has a lot of structures I can remember when I was a kid last time I was there three years ago.
The town today is 16.241 square miles and a population of 11,500 but I can guess it was less some forty years ago.
Now my father is from Durham N C and I would think it was smaller back when he was a kid compared to today.
My mother is a small town and farm country girl from Ohio.
Now my brother moved from here after getting married to a small town in Virginia and has lived in three different towns in the same county.

[Warrior4Christ]

It depends immensely on where you live. Even here in the Midwest of the US (not a high-concentrated zone) towns over 20,000 are very common and not considered much of anything. We all have a tendency to generalize our own experiences, unfortunately. There are those on the opposite end who think any place with less than 100,000 must be half corn fields and still using outhouses.

Yeah, that's true. Although I'm probably unusual with my view in that I've always lived in a city of 1 million. It's just that I've also travelled around the state and seen there's not much else.
I guess it's the expectation too. I expect the capital cities to be large, and don't expect the smaller towns to be any larger than they are. Uhh.. that made more sense in my head before I said it...

[uc pseudonym]

Actually, it made sense (at least to me). I got the idea that you expect population density to be primarily concentrated in the capital and for outlying communities to be smaller. That seems reasonable to me, though it isn't terribly standard for developed countries.

[bakura_fan]

when I was 12 my family moved from Los Angeles, CA to Anacortes, WA. (it's pretty small. . .but not that small) anyway..almost anywhere compared to LA is small for me. so yeah, culture shock. >_> then when I went to visit my hubby before we got married...he lived in an even smaller one! >_< nothing against small towns. they're nice, just I guess I'm a city gal at heart. lol.

[carneman]

i live in what used to be a small town, but we're growing rapidly... a little too rapidly for me. now there's a whole bunch of traffic on the main road that runs straight through town. and its gonna get worse soon, there's a car show coming and appox. 65,000 people will be coming, thats about 3 times our population. its gonna be crazy.

[Danyasaur]

*reads thread title and runs in* LONG LIVE SMALL TOWNS! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! . . . . . we're actualy the big town around here. . . because we have the Wallmart.