Well, that's been done in my county...
whats your favorite thing about your small town... (and big town if you happen to be here looking at the thread)
One minute walk into the parc, one minute walk to be in full countrysite, no through traffic ...
my favorite... stars at night... cant see them in a big ol city with all its hoopla of lights and smog
Well, there is no victory...either you like the hustle
and bustle of the city or you enjoy the privacy
and space of the country......each to his/her/ own.
I like both of these, small town, and big city. It's true, though, that my liking of a small town is in part because I have access by car, train, plane, or internet to bigger ones and the rest of the world... and access to some of the best forest land in the world; one of our city parks has old growth redwoods, and large old growth groves are not that far away.
I also love the lowlands with the cows dotted about. Picturesque, but I have been relieved to know that my county is one, or maybe the highest, supplier of organic/milk to milk purveyors in the United States. There's a very high quotient of people tuned in to sustainable land use/agriculture here. (I have an a2k thread on that... look up COWS on search. I'll be back later with a link.)
I live and work a few miles from a state university, live in a community that has been cited as best in the US for artists (frankly, to that I say, huh? - but there are a lot of artists here), a community that many who were raised here stay on or come back to, and that many move to once they've visited their children going to the state uni. Still, it is isolated from the suburban counties of the nearest big city by a hundred and fifty miles of forest.
And there is no train from this small city to the great big city, because, mostly, of the terrain. I can drive a few hours east, not a straight shot either, as that road also has many miles of mountain curves, to an Amtrak station. I wouldn't think of doing that in winter, myself. Easier to catch the plane, and not all that much more money.
What's good? I moved here five years ago, and am fairly well associated within the community. The mayor has been to our gallery and my and my business partner's doorsteps; I know my assemblywoman as a friend. I know my state senator. I know most of our councilpeople. I know and like lots of the creative people in many fields. I work two blocks from the beautiful bay and live about a mile from it.
Most stores don't ask for identification.
People talk easily in the grocery line, or at least the ones I stand in at the local Co-op.
I have left my car unlocked several times and nothing bad has happened for my foolishness.
The traffic people and parking problems people complain about here are hilarious to me. Traffic is restful.
Typical situation at a stop sign is the aggravation of everybody waiting for the other person to go. (Let me emphasize how very different it is in Los Angeles.) We have an intersection by work with stop signs only on one axis. People stop, sometimes, where there isn't a stop sign.
On the other hand, there are a lot of one way streets, damned dangerous.
Most negative thing for me is the lack of dimension ethnically, though culture isn't without some dimension here. Still, my niece is black (I am white), and I see her time here visiting me as her chance to be a stranger in a strange land - through her eyes. I watch people watching her.
I have willed her my house, but I think it would be weird - for her - to live in it. So, among the newbies here in town, I would like to see more cultural breadth.
But then I read what I just said and I see myself as an urban snob, in a promulticulture way.
At the same time I say all this, this was all native american territory not all that long ago. Lot of imposing went on, and a massacre on an island in the bay. There is, I say not knowing all the details, what seems to be an energetic working out of things among all of us.
A small town can have a lot of history...
