Living in a small town...

[Warped9]

A month ago I moved into a smaller community.

For fifty years I grew up and lived in the Greater Toronto Area, the latter forty in the city of Mississauga (pop: about 500,000) just west of Toronto (Canada). Toronto's population is about two million. I now reside in the city of Brockville, Ontario with a population of about 22-25,000.

It's only been a month, but already I feel some differences. The air and water seems better or perhaps just different. I sleep better overall. I find people in general not as rushed and generally more at ease. Certainly the traffic is much, much lighter.

The town seems to have most everything that the big city had only on a smaller scale, and whatever isn't immediately near I can access online or go to Kingston (3/4 of an hour's drive by highway) or to Ottawa (an hour's drive).

I haven't made any definite new friends here yet or connected with folks with similar interests, but I'm certainly hoping to. Presently I'm not missing much of what I left behind except perhaps my favourite pizzaria and a particular person I liked very much.

Anyone else here live in a small town? Has anyone else made a similar move to a smaller community? Are you glad you did or do you regret it? Has anyone always lived in a small town?

 

[Finn]

I'd wager that the definition of "small town" would vary from person to person. A town of 25,000 is too big to be one of these places where everybody knows everybody like Mayberry.

But the town my parents moved to three years ago is definitely a small town (small enough to have only one school for all of town's kids.

 

[Warped9]

^^ Fair point. It would depend on perspective. In my own defense a community of 25,000 is a lot smaller than one that could include up to four million within the GTA area.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Omaha has about 800,000 in its metropolitan area, but to hear some of the 'coasties' tell it (you know, the type who feels the need to make lameass remarks about how we all supposedly live on a farm), that's a small town.

 

[Marc]

Moved from Adelaide South Australia popluation 1mil to Peterborough Ontario population 75,000 (and incoorporate as a city and ranked the 9th best place in Canada to live).

So not only am I a much smaller city I've had to get used to a completely different country.

The sized of the place doesn't really worry mean (one of the things I liked about Adeladie was it was fairliy small) but it makes find work harder. I've clocked up 19 years in IT (December 5th marks 20 years since I started) so that's my field of expertise but at present there's not much going and there's no-one the city that really needs full time IT staff. The one place I managed to get an interview with basically said I was over qualified for the position.

Apart from the job I like it (though the humidity in summer sux but I never like the hot weather).

 

[MANT!]

I've always preferred small town living..
grew up in a rural area, and the nearest towns had populations of about 6,000 to 8,000..when I was in the UK, I lived in a town of 3000..
Lived in Fort Worth TX. and it was quite a shock..

Best place I ever lived was the smallest, a little town in California of 2,000..
I just don't need the stress I guess..

 

[TorontoTrekker]

It's funny, Chrinfinity keeps trying to convince me to move to Mississauga because I'd be closer to work, and I keep saying, "Why would I want to move to a small town like Mississauga?" (I said the same thing about Aurora when I was working there.)

Seriously, though, I like the fact that I don't have to drive to get around - which is good, because I've never learned how - and that if I wanted to go grocery shopping at 2 in the morning, or I realize at midnight that I've run out of Lactaid and won't be able to eat all day the next day if I don't get some (because there are no drug stores near where I work), I can just go out and take care of that. I like the fact that if I feel like going for a walk late at night, there are other people out and about, and I don't feel like a criminal prowling the streets (as I did sometimes when I was working in Aurora, on nights when I didn't leave the office until 7:30).

I might still end up moving - commuting 90 minutes each way is a huge pain - but it would have to be just the right place, close to grocery shopping and such.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I admit that after all these episodes of Corner Gas that I've seen, I wouldn't mind living in a town like that.

Provided it had a diner with a hot waitress of course.

 

[ITL]

I live in a town with a population of around 6,000 people - but I'm originally from a village with a population of over 13,000....

 

[The Castellan]

Problem with the small town I live in.....NOTHING interesting for anyone under 50 here. There's like 9 churches, 6 gas stations, 6 pizza joints, and 5 drug stores....and that's about as exciting as it gets. Also, 90% of the women are hidious, the 10% that are hot either are taken or don't like men.

 

[Canadave]

I grew up living in Peterborough, Ontario (~75,000 people), which I consider to be a fairly small city, but now I live in Ottawa, which has a metro population of about 1.1 million. For me, personally, I couldn't be happier. I love living in a place where things are happening all the time, and where I don't have to rely on a car to get around. Smaller cities and towns are nice and all, but I much prefer life in the big city.

 

[WillsBabe]

My town has 120,000 souls without its student population. I come from another small town where I grew up, but have lived in big citites too. I find my current town a bit off-putting when I keep seeing the same faces around the place.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

I'm gonna take the other side of the coin here. I live in the Greater LA Area. The city i currently live in has about 110,000 people in it. I've never lived in a "small" town before. Yes, commuting can be a bitch. I work in Mid-Wilshire and it's about 45 minutes to an hour each way sometimes. Having said that, i love my residential neighborhood. I love living in a totally built up place. I know my neighbors; i've been here for 17 years; it's hard not to at least recognize them, but we all keep to ourselves, and i have to say that i really like that.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

In the Chicagoland area, a town might have 5-10K people, but all the cities are border to border with very little empty space anywhere. So there's no "small town" feel until you get a long ways out.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

In the Chicagoland area, a town might have 5-10K people, but all the cities are border to border with very little empty space anywhere. So there's no "small town" feel until you get a long ways out.

That's the same here. Here cities range from 91 (Vernon) to 3.9 million (LA proper), but there are no green belts separating towns from each other so it's just one massive megalopolis of nearly 10 million people.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I live in a city with around 250,000 people, or around 500,000 including the surrounding towns and villages.
I wouldn't particularly like to live anywhere bigger. I wouldn't mind living somewhere smaller, but not too small.

 

[Emher]

I live in a small city of 20 000. Moved here from a town of 5 000, so it's a move up. Has everything you need, even an okay movie theatre. And Stockholm is only 50 minutes away by bus on the highway.

Never have gotten the feeling that this is too small a place really, our county has five times the normal amount of people in the summer due to this being a very popular tourist and vacation part of Sweden.

 

[Miss Chicken]

The sized of the place doesn't really worry mean (one of the things I liked about Adeladie was it was fairliy small) but it makes find work harder.

I find it hard to call Adelaide small seeing its population of one million is twice the population of my entire state.

My sister lives in South Plympton. I am not sure which suburb of Adelaide my nephew lives in but it seemed to me we travelled quite a distance when we visited him.

Hobart has a population of just under 200,000 which is just about the right size for me.

 

[RAMA]

My town has 2,835 people in it.

RAMA

 

[JuanBolio]

The town I grew up in until I was 16 had about 20,000 people living within its limits, but it was smack in the middle of the Metro Detroit area which has several million.

The town I live in now has around 800 people. I must confess I like small town living a lot better - nicer scenery, generally nicer people, no cops, no traffic, you get your privacy... etc. Plus if I ever need anything not offered in my immediate vicinity I can find it within 20 minutes to an hour's drive.