Small town living, big city living, and anything in between...?

[Kayelle]

- Driving up here! The roads are narrow, winding, and unmarked. The drivers are all in a hurry and will stop at nothing to be first in line. One of these day's I'm afraid I'll get shot, though. When I pull up to a red light and the car on my left is the one who went through all sorts of antics to get ahead of me, I just glance their way and smile. Got a lot further, eh buddy?

That really makes my day too!!

SC was used to big city life before we were married. I warned him that using your horn was a no-no up here, along with any bad manners while driving! He's adjusted well. It's a whole world away from Los Angeles county for sure.

 

[blissful]

We live 1 mile from a tiny town with a gas station.
About an hour from big city shopping.
15 minutes from small city shopping.
On large lots near farmland and not far from many lakes and many county parks.

Close enough to the cities to get Amazon Prime one-day shipping. (I couldn't believe it.) Far enough to have good traveling roads, peaceful scenery, no city lights, quiet neighborhoods. 5 gardens for food, fruit trees, sandhill cranes, rabbits, deer, skunks, chipmunks, squirrels, and birds of every kind.

I don't care for the traffic near the big cities, I go there once a year if necessary. I love the weather, snow, rain, sunny, cloudy, and the skies at night.

 

[Cheryl J]

Thanks for sharing, everyone! I'm really enjoying reading these, and hearing about what you like and don't care for in your neck of the woods.

RF, I was born in L.A. and we moved to Corona in Riverside County when I was a toddler. My brother and I spent many summers at my grandmother's tiny little home by the ocean for many years after we moved away. L.A. sure was a different place back then. Echo Park is a nice area, though. I don't remember why I went there, but I remember taking my girls to the park there with the big lake to feed the ducks.

creative....when I think of the English countryside, my mind takes me to beautiful stone cottages with lots of roses, and small country roads. Have you ever seen the movie "The Holiday" with Kate Winslet? I fell in love with Rosehill Cottage and was disappointed to find out nothing about it was real.
Kate Winslet's English Cottage in "The Holiday"

What I love about living here in the desert far outweighs what I don't love. I can see the Sierra Nevadas from my front yard - used to be able to see them better until the houses were built across the street. My neighbors are awesome, and we all look out for each other. Many of them I've known for 20 years. I love exploring the desert and collecting rocks, but have to watch out for rattlesnakes - definitely don't like them!

We moved here in 1968, when I was 13. So I guess I could call it home. LOL.

It is SOOO quiet here and there are no city lights to interfere with the clear starry nights. Sunsets are amazing.

Duststorms can be bad here. A price to pay for having so much desert around.

CG, ugh....don't like the always-in-a-hurry crazy drivers, either! People here are pretty laid back, fortunately, but occasionally there's some nut who either isn't paying attention or has to arrive somewhere 3 seconds earlier. sheesh....

Kay...beautiful porch, it looks so inviting.

Here's my little backyard haven:

 

[GotGarlic]

We live in a small city that's part of a region of about 1.6 million people. Small-town life with big-city amenities

What I like:
- Our neighborhood is a historic district, so people are required to maintain their houses in the Victorian style when they were built.
- The neighborhood civic league is very active in sponsoring social activities and providing information about local happenings. Neighbors are friendly, for the most part.
- There's a lot of history here - my city was founded in 1752 and of course, Virginia and North Carolina are stuffed to the gills with historic sites. The primary river here is half a block away, we're close to the ocean and lots of parks, and it's a few hours' drive to the Blue Ridge mountains in western Virginia.
- We have both big grocery stores and small artisan and specialty shops nearby.
- Lots of opportunities for entertainment - local and national theater, opera, ballet, symphony, art, history and science museums, cool local movie house, etc.
- We also have a major medical center, where I used to work, which is important to me since I have numerous chronic health issues.
- DH and have lived in our house since 1992 and it needed a *lot* of work. Now, it's fixed up just the way we like it.

What I don't like:
- Traffic.
- Tunnels everywhere because of all the rivers.
- Hot, humid, buggy summers I'll take your hot, humid Iowa or Mass. summers and raise you 20 degrees!

 

[Andy M.]

I have lived most of my adult life in suburban locations. I guess that's what I like the best.

We are in a townhouse condo complex with Colonial Williamsburg-style townhomes in a nice setting. I appreciate that I have no responsibilities for landscaping/snow removal. SO loves she can have a garden to work in.

We live in a town of almost 34,000 people.

We are close to all kinds of ethnic markets, TJs and Costco in addition to a selection of supermarkets.

Not a lot of traffic to deal with unless we head into Boston. All I have to do is avoid rush hours.

on the other hand...

Sometimes I wish I lived in the city of Boston where there are lots of quality restaurants, ethnic diversity the opportunity to be close by everything.

Other times I wish I had a house on the beach in a remote area where I could just enjoy nature in peace and quiet.

What I really need is some sort of compromise location half way in between. Maybe something in the suburbs. Oh, wait...

 

[Whiskadoodle]

I grew up on a farm in a small community. As a teenager we moved to suburbia. We raised our own family in another suburb. Had to drive everywhere, and nothing was close by. Now, living in the city for 20+ years. I love this part of the city. Quiet, close to 2 lakes, a long meandering creek, lots of wild life and birds. We have one grocery within walking distance and am not far from many others. We still have old fashioned hardware stores where if you ask ?'s, they are helpful when it comes time for repairs and the like for this old house I live in.

I don't drive, haven't in over 25 years. We have good bus service and with the addition of light rail a few years ago, it is easy to get just about anywhere. I prefer trips that only require 2 or fewer transfers, but obviously, if I want to get somewhere, I have to make do and be happy I can make connections.

Like Rock, we can have burn pits. Helps keep the 'skeeters away in the evenings and at dusk. Also it is legal to have chicken coops in the city.
I'll just stick to having 2 cats share our home.


Not sure this is a plus of minus. I live on a long block and after all this time, I only know 3 neighbors plus one across the alley. Nodding "hello's" to several.

What I don't especially like. Winter. Snow and cold. Together. But it only happens once per year. All umpteen months of it. Luckily we have a good library system. But.... I don't need to think about that for all the other umpteen beautiful months right now.

 

[creative]

Cheryl J - no I haven't seen that movie but, rest assured, (although nothing about that cottage may have been real) that such stone cottages are quite common in more rural areas. Alas, I do not live that far into the countryside!

 

[jd_1138]

I live in a small town of 6,000 people. It's great. There's a nice little park that's great for picnics, walking, etc.. And there's a larger town (10,000 people) 5 minutes away, so they have a nice grocery store (not a chain but prices are the same, owned by a nice family), auto parts stores, Burger King for a Whopper fix, other nice businesses.

And then there are 2 medium size cities 10 minutes away (we're in between them), so plenty of job opp's. And there are 2 major cities withing an hour and a half away.

 

[RPCookin]

Well, so far, everyone's idea of a small town is several times the size of our town. Depending on who you ask, there are 350-400 residents, then add nearly that many in the surrounding farms and ranches and we still fall well short of 1000.

We have one restaurant that's only open for lunch and dinner 4 days a week - very good food. They get customers who drive in from Kansas and Nebraska for dinner and it's not uncommon to see 30 or 40 motorcycles lined up at lunchtime on a summer Saturday.

The gas station at the local Co-Op has just 3 spouts, one for mid grade unleaded and 2 for diesel. The school is a single building with grades K-12 (my wife's graduating class of '76 was just 23, including a foreign exchange student), and the school library and community library were combined into one about 30 years ago.

The nearest grocery store is 20 miles away - we have 3 to choose from including Walmart. We shop as much as we can at the other two. Denver is 120 miles away with everything one could ask for, but the internet is closer and gets a lot of traffic. UPS and Fed-Ex trucks are a daily sight. When UPS doesn't find us at home, they leave the packages at the post office and we pick them up there - we don't get home mail delivery because for that you have to live at least 1/2 mile from the post office, and we are less than 4 blocks.

I grew up in a small town just north of St. Paul, MN. but I lived in a mostly suburban environment from 9th grade until 2012 when we moved to the Bahamas. I had to learn to do without a lot of stuff there, so being back here where it's just sometimes inconvenient is no problem. I love the peace and quiet, where the loudest thing around is the couple of times a week that the railroad picks up or drops off a few cars at the Co-Op elevator a couple of blocks from the house. A traffic jam is 4 cars following a tractor.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

Well, so far, everyone's idea of a small town is several times the size of our town. Depending on who you ask, there are 350-400 residents, then add nearly that many in the surrounding farms and ranches and we still fall well short of 1000...

it sounds like you live in a village, RP. Not so bad when you figure it takes a village...

At least you aren't in a hamlet. It was not to be...

***ducks, runs, covers head...***

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_hierarchy

 

[RPCookin]

it sounds like you live in a village, RP. Not so bad when you figure it takes a village...

At least you aren't in a hamlet. It was not to be...

***ducks, runs, covers head...***

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_hierarchy

I picture a village as a quaint little place in Europe with cosy stone houses with thatched roofs. Maybe my impression is a bit too romatic....

Here in the American West, I don't think we have villages, we aren't cool enough for that. I know that there were a couple of "towns" in Montana when I lived there which had a population of 10 or less (Two Dot and Sand Springs). They were not much more than a post office with an attached general store to serve the surrounding ranches.

 

[Kayelle]

Once again, thank you for all these posts. It makes our membership feel so much closer learning how we all live.

 

[Addie]

I picture a village as a quaint little place in Europe with cosy stone houses with thatched roofs. Maybe my impression is a bit too romatic....

Here in the American West, I don't think we have villages, we aren't cool enough for that. I know that there were a couple of "towns" in Montana when I lived there which had a population of 10 or less (Two Dot and Sand Springs). They were not much more than a post office with an attached general store to serve the surrounding ranches.

New England has a couple of those towns. Mostly up in Vt, NH and Maine. On an election day, they open their polls at midnight, everyone votes and then goes home and votes are sent to headquarters. We always get their returns first thing on the morning news.

Living in the city, I find that my scooter is a great conversation starter. As I rush along in good weather, and there are folks sitting out on their front steps, I slow down, give them a big smile and a cheery good morning. I also stop to ask questions if I see someone who is walking a dog. There is no reason to be lonely when living in the city. You just have to be willing to make the first move. I have stopped to talk to the mothers of children who attend the Charter School right around the corner from my building. I have let them know how polite their children are and how much they contribute to the community. I save all those coupons on cereal boxes for school equipment and give them to one of the mothers' at the end of the school year.

I am basically a very shy person. I do not like to ever have the spotlight on myself. But I force myself to reach out. Otherwise I would very easily become that lonely old lady just sitting there in the apartment alone for the rest of my life.

 

[Cheryl J]

Once again, thank you for all these posts. It makes our membership feel so much closer learning how we all live.

Agreed. I've really been enjoying this thread and picturing the many different areas where we hang our hats.