What does a small rural city in the US look and feel like?
Posted by Grayfield@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 216 comments
Like I'm boggled that a place with around 10000 people plus or so is classified as a city already. I live in the Philippines and some towns with 30000 plus population is classified as a town. Cities here especially in the capital and surrounding provinces are like so densely populated that a small city here is somewhere around 250000 or so. Even with cities or towns outside the capital region, there's still like 150k to 200k people in a small city. I'm curious as to what it looks and feel like.
cdb03b@reddit
There is no such thing as a "rural city" as "rural" and "city" are antithetical to each other.
Interesting_Yak8052@reddit
Our whole county in rural Florida has about 170,000 people. No large cities. Lots of connections between families who have been here for decades. People have mutual friends and acquaintances. Connections are nice but it’s hard to have privacy because gossip is a big hobby. It’s generally a friendly place when you meet people in person but there seems to be a great deal of negativity on social media. About half the population wants growth and change. The other half wants things to stay exactly the same as they remember it when they moved here. I am still good friends with a couple of friends from high school(in the 70’s), but I don’t care for idle conversation so I am pretty selective with my activities now that I am retired. The community is awesome about pulling together for a good cause and tragedy brings out the best part of our community.
mandarinandbasil@reddit
They are SO different (the US is big).
I grew up in an unincorporated town. The post office was where you bought chickens, a teacher rode a pony to school sometimes, and we traded goats and sheep to the guy who pruned our orchard.
Most people don't have that, but seriously... the US has a lot of variety. There is no normal.
Uberchelle@reddit
Oh my gosh! This sounds like a fun place to check out!
As a girl born in San Francisco, I am fascinated with small towns, but would never move to one as I am too scared to be without the type of healthcare I currently have access to.
EclipseoftheHart@reddit
Your concern on healthcare is very valid. I remember when the hospital closed in my hometown of about 550 people and when the local clinic and pharmacy attached to it finally closed too. When I had my first doctors appointment in college they thought I had been raised anti-vaxx, but in reality all of my paper work was… well… paper! It was such a nightmare getting my medical history reestablished as an adult!
I remember that some people with complex medical needs just moved to a new city to get more reliable care. There were many specialties that you had to drive 1.5 to 4 hours to access until fairly recently (combination of telehealth and some slightly better funding for things like cancer treatments and OBGYN care came through), but even then that’s still a 30 mile haul, which is a long distance in emergencies (most EMT/ambulance and fire departments were all volunteer run where I grew up) or if you’re older and can’t drive anymore.
There are things that I do miss from my rural upbringing, but having to wake up at 6am to drive 1.5 hours to go see a doctor certainly isn’t one of them.
EclipseoftheHart@reddit
Despite not having the same upbringing (my town was 550 people and I graduated with 13 people (and two of them were exchange students!! I always felt so bad for them haha)) your experience is a lot more relatable to me than other who grew up in “small towns” of 10k+ people. To me the town with a population of 12k people 30 miles over WAS the “city” to me growing up. I had friends who grew up in towns of less than 100 people or unincorporated communities in addition to the standard farm kids.
If you were ordering a pizza for take out it was coming from the local gas station (and they made great sandwiches too), the only liquor store was municipally and attached to the bar, and the biggest celebration of the year was the softball tournament in the summer (and the country fair, but that was held in a town about 30 miles away). I miss buying a dozen of fresh eggs for 25 cents from a coworker at the gas station or $1 for a dozen ears of corn from a family friend. Plus, if you asked around you could almost always get some venison from someone’s buddy who was more in to hunting for the trophy and meat sticks instead of chops and roasts!
What is considered “small” is so different depending on who you’re talking to and where they grew up!
Upnorth4@reddit
Then you got places like East Los Angeles, which have a population of over 150,000 but it is not an official city.
Upnorth4@reddit
In California there are tons of small towns that are not Republican and large suburbs that are Republican
mandarinandbasil@reddit
Do you... Do you know what unincorporated means? Do you understand what the US having variety means?
Why are you talking about Republican shit??? I never said that, at all.
Civil-Raspberry3759@reddit
Didn't you hear? Republicans are the only people that matter these days. It's the reason that everything is the democrats' fault and also the reason that Trump is our daddy.
Upnorth4@reddit
Someone else did and they deleted their comment lol
orpheus1980@reddit
I spent some time in a rural college town. Once I said to a university colleague that I had never even held a gun, forget firing one, except for bb guns at balloon walls. He said if you like, I'll hook you up with my neighbor. He likes taking newbies shooting, giving a full gun safety lesson. And generally will be open to barter.
I was a broke grad student. I called the guy. He took me & my wife out to a wooded ranch. Really gave us through lessons. Had us shoot a bunch of guns at a bunch of clay pigeons.
In exchange, he asked me to volunteer two weekends at his church's seasonal flea market. I did it. And also got him a couple of boxes of ammo.
Won't happen in NYC lol.
Late-Drink3556@reddit
I grew up in East Texas and there's towns with a population of 500 to 800 people.
It looks like a whole lot of nothing and it feels depressing as fuck.
orpheus1980@reddit
I grew up in South Asia so I know EXACTLY where your question is coming from. I live in NYC now but I have lived in small rural towns, both in South Asia and US.
An American small rural town is VERY different from anything we can imagine. It will typically have a downtown or town center where the original settlement started. Then there will be larger properties spread around as you radiate out. The average land holding size in US is quite large compared to Asia.
American small towns are quite well run and nice for the most part. They have a lot of genuine local level democracy. Lots of local elections and such.
There's a lot of high quality sports facilities in small town America that you typically won't see in South Asia or Philippines. And a free public library, town hall, etc that are easily accessible to people.
Violent crime is typically very low in such places. Cars are essential for life.
It's quite a nice idyllic life if you like it.
Uhhh_what555476384@reddit
"Violent crime is typically very low in such places."
It depends how you count.
Interestingly enough this is actually incorrect. Rural and small town America generally crime rates comparable to the worst of the 1970s and 1980s inner cities.
Urban and suburban areas of the US usually have some of the lowest crime rates (per person instances of crime) comparable to some of the lowest ever recorded in human history.
However, small town America is SO small that there is MUCH less visible criminality.
So depending if you're counting the per person rate or the absolute rate small town and rural America is either completely crime ridden or nearly completely crime free.
Uhhh_what555476384@reddit
It's pretty easy to find cities in the US of 1,500 to 2,000 people.
Between Minneapolis and Seattle, 1,600 miles along the I-90 Freeway, the largest city is Spokane, WA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokane,_Washington
population 230k.
VeronicaMarsupial@reddit
It looks like a town. "City" in the US often just means an incorporated municipality (i.e. has its own municipal government). It doesn't have to be any minimum size. There are places that are officially City of [name of the place] that only have a population of a few hundred people.
Fun_Variation_7077@reddit
Maybe this is regional, but where I'm from all towns are incorporated municipalities. Only townships, which are insanely rare, can be unincorporated with no municipal services.
I now live in PA which has townships. Most of the ones by me are incorporated, and some do have their own municipal services.
Ijustreadalot@reddit
Does the state your from distinguish between towns and cities? If so, what is the difference? Where I'm from, we usually refer to smaller incorporated places as towns but legally they're considered "cities."
Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit
In California "town" does not seem to be any kind of legal category. It's a city (has its own government) or it's an unincorporated community (which doesn't.) Often very small cities will proudly call themselves cities. Amador City, for example. Some unincorporated communities are fair-sized cities but are still under county government.
Ijustreadalot@reddit
Using a boomtown as your example of a small incorporated community calling itself a city doesn't do much for your point though.
Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit
I just used an example that was fairly close to home. Bigger cities generally don't keep "city" as part of their name.
Fun_Variation_7077@reddit
A city has a mayor. A town has no mayor, and people directly vote on everything the town does. A town sill still have their own municipal services or will pool resources towards shared municipal resources.
I went to school in a regional district in New Hampshire. Middle and high school was comprised of four towns. Each town had their own town hall, police and fire departments. We just had a regional middle and high school because it made more sense than each town having their own tiny middle and high school.
Counties really aren't a thing up there. Like yes, they exist, and are relevant for a few legal things like sheriffs and courthouses. But for the most part counties are irrelevant, most everything is municipal.
Ijustreadalot@reddit
Interesting. Thanks.
ForestOranges@reddit
Everywhere in PA and Jersey is incorporated. But you’re right, some townships may not have services like police.
Top_File_8547@reddit
Pennsylvania has one town whose name I forget. Everything other municipality is a third class city except Philadelphia-1st Class and Pittsburgh- 2nd class.
ForestOranges@reddit
A lot of the smaller towns in PA are called boroughs. Suburban and rural areas surrounding a city or borough is called a township. Some boroughs are larger than the cities.
Fun_Variation_7077@reddit
When I first moved to NWPA, I thought the various townships having little to no municipal services was wild. The fact that counties are relevant here was a bit surprising to me as well.
Honest_Road17@reddit
I don't see the difference in distinction. OP didn't say ONLY cities are incorporated municipalities.
SnooChipmunks2079@reddit
In Illinois, townships are just subunits of counties. Aside from the counties that have abolished townships, which I think we have a few, everywhere in A county is in a township.
Then we have villages and cities as the two types of municipalities.
There are a handful of towns, but it hasn’t been possible to incorporate as a town for something like 100 years.
DesperateHotel8532@reddit
The difference between a city and a village in Illinois primarily has to do with the type of government chosen by the residents, if I remember right - which is how Chicago suburbs of 50000 people end up legally classified as “villages.”
SnooChipmunks2079@reddit
Yes, there are differences- I didn’t intend to say they were equivalent, just that they’re the two possibilities.
Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit
There is a city in Georgia with 22 people. It's legally incorporated as a city by the state.
Upnorth4@reddit
In California we have an industrial city with 219 people called Vernon. It's directly south of LA and is packed with factories and warehouses. There's very few trees in the city of Vernon, it's all concrete and metal
Visible-Disaster@reddit
There’s also City of Industry, CA. No clue how many live there, but remember buying a mail-order PC from a place located there back in the 90s.
Upnorth4@reddit
I think industry also has only 200-ish residents
Honest_Road17@reddit
Isn't City of Industry where they invented Google? (population estimated 181)
Sand City, CA, has 320 people and every big box store on the Monterey peninsula.
Zombie_Bait_56@reddit
264 residents, over 3,000 businesses.
No_Butterscotch_5612@reddit
Oregon has the incorporated city of Greenhorn. It has a population of three, as of the 2020 census.
That's actually growth- it had a population of zero in both the 2000 and 2010 censuses.
ahferroin7@reddit
Huh, I had no idea there was a census location in the US with a smaller population than Centralia, PA (which still has a population of 5 people who don’t care enough about the huge fire burning under their feet to move as of the 2020 census).
ABelleWriter@reddit
There are still 5 people in Centralia??? Wtf
nasadowsk@reddit
It's not the only fire going in the area. I think the one at Wilburton Two is still going.
As a friend of mine says, the social cost of cowl mining makes the environmental costs look like nothing.
tmart14@reddit
Pretty sure they can’t leave until they face their inner demons.
Mediocre_Daikon6935@reddit
A massive continuous national disaster is no reason to leave.
Appalachian ain’t sissys. Imagine fleeing every time a big warm rain storm showed up, just because someone gave it a name to sell weather channel ads.
Not_an_okama@reddit
The fact that theres a giant underground fire isnt even directly the issue there, the bigger problem is that its a coal fire which is putting off some extremely toxic and carcinogenic gases like CO and H2S.
Queenv918@reddit
Monowi, Nebraska has a population of 1. I've seen a few articles about the sole resident. The woman is town mayor, librarian, and owns a tavern. People from neighboring towns and tourists visit her tavern, so she isn't completely isolated.
amboomernotkaren@reddit
That’s so funny. I’m going to have to google that now. Oregon is so gorgeous.
Ghost6040@reddit
The Oregonian did a series of articles and accompanying video if the states 5 smallest incorporated cities.. If you click on the town name, it'll take you to an article with a video. I thought Lonerock's video was the best.
StrippinChicken@reddit
That's why in Pennsylvania we classify cities by population size to better differentiate actual urban areas from suburban or rural areas that are called "cities". This can be seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Pennsylvania
I have no idea if other states also classify cities, but I think it's a pretty good way to do it so you can make laws pertaining to class 1 cities vs class 3 cities, etc.
baddspellar@reddit
Each state has its own definitions. In Massachusetts, a city has a mayor (or manager) and a city council. A town has a select board and town meeting. The city of Palmer has 12,000 people, The town of Plymouth has over 60,000
Queenv918@reddit
I grew up in a town in NY that had over 200,000 people. But the town was broken up into several villages and hamlets.
binarycow@reddit
NY has specific definitions tho*
What other places call "town", NY calls a village or a hamlet.
In NY, a "city" is an autonomous incorporated municipality that is confined within one county. And a "town" is "everything that's not a city".
Source
* And for basically every one of those definitions, NYC is an exception.
johnwcowan@reddit
Villages have a legal existence but can overlap with one or more towns (but not cities). Hamlets have no legal existence.
Indian reservations are outside all towns and cities.
Contrarily@reddit
Many states have a minimum population to be a city. Usually around 2000 but there are exceptions.
Ok-Track-4750@reddit
Ohio has the minimum for a city at 5000 anything lower is a village
Saltpork545@reddit
To be clear, I think they're getting the 10k number from census data and this is why the whole '80% of Americans live in cities' is a bad reading of what the Census calls UA's.
The trend is more people living closer to town, not in major urban centers.
crappymedium@reddit
Like most of American English nomenclature it makes no sense..a “city” could be New York, Chicago, or also a number of suburbs outside those places. In this country if u got a mayor you got a city
avfc41@reddit
Even that’s not universal
gard3nwitch@reddit
Yes. I feel like oftentimes, "city" is just the largest municipality in the area. So the biggest town in a rural county might have a few thousand people, a high school, and a grocery store, so it gets called the city.
la-anah@reddit
There is no unincorporated land here in Massachusetts. Cities are different than towns here because city governments have Mayors. It just describes the governments structure, many towns are bigger than some small cities, they just have chosen to keep the town governmet structure.
Fun_Variation_7077@reddit
Towns are also (usually) incorporated municipalities.
Norwester77@reddit
Exactly. City and other local governments are established completely at the discretion of individual states, so terminology varies widely.
Der_Blaue_Engel@reddit
With 10,000 people, you’ve usually got an old town center with 100+ year old store fronts. Many of them are probably vacant. You’ll also have some newer strip malls with small shops, doctors’ offices and other businesses. You’ll have a couple urgent cares in a town that size and maybe a small hospital.
There will be a handful of restaurants, along with a number of fast food places. There will likely be a Walmart and maybe a big box home improvement store.
There will be some small apartment buildings and probably a public housing development or two. Most people will live in single family homes, often in subdivisions outside of town.
glowing-fishSCL@reddit
This kind of shows what I said in my post, because that is very not true of my part of the country.
There will be very few vacant store fronts, or vacant anythings, in a small town in the Pacific or Mountain west.
thenerfviking@reddit
Kinda sounds like you haven’t spent much time in Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington because that description sounds like a LOT of towns out there.
glowing-fishSCL@reddit
I currently live in Eastern Washington. I've also lived in Montana, where house prices have skyrocketted over the past few years.
My impression is that most of the small towns here are still in high demand, but rather than looking at my subjective impressions, I can post some maps:
https://www.axios.com/local/portland/2025/01/08/oregon-population-growth-sherman-crook-deschutes-county
https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2025/01/08/washington-state-population-county-census
There are pockets, like Grant County in Oregon, that are stagnant, but the areas around Bend and Pendleton, for example, are seeing big population growth.
If you want, I can share my YouTube playlist where I visit places in the Spokane area.
thenerfviking@reddit
Bend is not eastern Oregon.
glowing-fishSCL@reddit
Okay. Tell me what towns in Eastern Oregon have empty storefronts.
PDXDeck26@reddit
yeah i was going to say ....
NoHand7911@reddit
It’s true for most of the county. New England has vibrant towns especially if there’s a college.
The west has vibrant towns because there is very little development spread out. The land is public and mountainous.
Altril2010@reddit
This perfectly describes my town. We have 15,000 people. We somehow managed to have a Lowe’s and Home Depot - plus a Costco. Our hospital is considered a critical access hospital because it’s the only one with an ICU within 100 sq miles. Oh, and a birthing center.
Batetrick_Patman@reddit
15k is tiny for a town to have a Costco.
Altril2010@reddit
Our whole county is the size of the state of Connecticut with a population of 40k in total. The next nearest Costco is an hour north, or two hours south. Ours is consistently busy.
tarheel_204@reddit
Don’t forget the one or two strip malls that are borderline abandoned aside from the vape shop and Chinese restaurant
Chombie_Mazing@reddit
Lmfao not the vape shop and Chinese resturant 😭 I didn't realize this was a universal American experience
Batetrick_Patman@reddit
Here in Ohio it's always a sketchy Vape shop that it neighbors with either a "Fish and Chicken" joint or a Sharma joint.
tarheel_204@reddit
We have two such cases in my hometown 😂
One strip mall on the side of the highway houses a row of empty storefronts, a Chinese restaurant, an Italian restaurant (owned and operated by an Egyptian family), a gym, and a vape shop
The one on the other side of the highway also houses a Chinese restaurant, vape shop, and a bail bonds service
Chombie_Mazing@reddit
Ours has the restaurant and the vape shop of course, plus a major grocery chain that just shut down, a pizza place (probably the only buisness there still doing well financially), and a donut shop that I'm almost positive is a front for something because I've never seen anyone step foot in there in the 20ish years I've lived here.
ileentotheleft@reddit
There are plenty of towns on Long Island, for example with over 20,000 people right next to other towns of that size, that's what suburbs are. City just means it's been incorporated, regardless of size.
ExplorerLazy3151@reddit
Feels like boredom. Like a slow dying death. If you are lucky you have good internet service. But in my town if the wind blows, there goes your internet service.
4Q69freak@reddit
In Ilinois, City, Town, and Village refer to the type of government that they have. A City has a mayor and city council, but a city manager takes care of day to day business. A Town is the same as a City but has Home Rule. A Village is usually run by a part time mayor and a village board.
No-Donkey-4117@reddit
I have lived in towns and cities of every size from 500 people to 1 million, including a couple of small cities of around 7,000 people.
They typically have an old downtown area with a courthouse, post office, some specialty stores, and a few bars and restaurants. Housing is mostly one and two story single family homes in a separate residential area, with maybe a few small two or three story apartment buildings. Outside shopping centers and big box stores (like Walmart, Target, Home Depot, etc.) are built around the outside of the town, often near freeway exits.
There is usually one big high school and several smaller elementary schools. Throw in a few churches and small parks and that's a pretty typical small city layout.
MatchAnxious8910@reddit
A town with a Walmart, McDonald's, burger king taco bell or dunkin. Along with several gas stations and banks. Two or three small churches and a police department/village hall combined that looks like a garage. A school district with 3,000 students. Four elementary schools for four towns locally that are also rural. One middle school and one high school. A big lake surrounded by rednecks and country people who like water, outdoors and perfer to ride in pick up trucks. The closest midsized city is 22 minutes away.
The closest suburbs are 10 to 20 minutes away, by car. The town is surrounded by other little towns on a lake that was man made. Everyone knows everyone and your parents probably had the same teachers or principals you did. The cops are quite harsh.
TheBimpo@reddit
Are you familiar with Google Street view? You can literally choose any municipality in the United States and get a full 360° view of the entire community.
Elegant_Bluebird_460@reddit
As others have said here, 'city' is designation for a form of government. A 'town' generally has a select board that hires a town manager to oversee daily operations of the municipality. A city has a mayor that is elected directly by the people and oversees the same operations.
A city usually has a council which serves as a form of legislative body and as a check on the mayor. A town manager reports directly to the board of selectman.
Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit
What state?
I_H8_Celery@reddit
I live in a town of 800. The stars look amazing every night but if you need anything that you can’t get in a basic grocery store or hardware store it’s a 100 mile day of driving to the city.
Dave_A480@reddit
City in the US is a form of local government.
If you have a mayor you're a city....
If you just have a council or board you're a town or village....
There's a place near where I live that has 2 gas stations, am auto repair shop and a dollar store.... They're a 'city'.... But it's not what people think of when the word city is used....
Upnorth4@reddit
It's more complicated than that, in some states like California a city could have just a city council with no mayor, or a strong mayor form of government where the mayor is voted for by the residents, or a weak mayor form of government where the mayor is appointed by the city council.
Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit
Most California cities are "weak mayor." Sacramento is. How the mayor is chosen varies, but they might be elected "at large" where the remainder of the city council is by district.
But all of them are cities, because in California only cities (and counties) have local governments. Unincorporated towns have no government of their own.
effortornot7787@reddit
There are also census designated places (CDP) which are neither officially but are still population centers with a name. Some of them are of decent size as well.
SaoirseMayes@reddit
In America a city is a municipality with it's own government, 150k would still be considered a small city.
Upnorth4@reddit
In California we have unincorporated areas with populations of over 150,000. East Los Angeles is the nation's largest unincorporated area
Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit
Before several areas of the county became cities, Sacramento would have been a competitor for that. City of 450,000, in a county of 1.1 million. We had a wave of incorporations Rancho Cordova (67,000) and Citrus Heights (91,000) became their own cities.
Fun_Variation_7077@reddit
I'd consider 150k to be a medium city. To me, a small city has less than 100k.
shammy_dammy@reddit
I lived for over two decades just outside of a 'city' of 10,000 in rural sw Wisconsin. It has a Walmart. A Culver's . A historic downtown with courthouse. Cheesemaking is one of the major industries. It's small. It's slow.
Onebraintwoheads@reddit
It normally looks like poverty and feels like being surrounded by a fierce sense of local pride in that they are not poor. I don't want to say all small towns are Republican, but I've never been to one that wasn't.
simonesays123@reddit
Small towns tend to vote red, but that doesn't inherently make them repubs
Onebraintwoheads@reddit
That's fair. A lot of folks know they're shafted either way. Still, voting red in a small town always seemed to be done because they believed the propaganda. And I don't really know why. Being from a small town doesn't mean you're dumb; it just means you're from a small town.
Maybe people who've spent time in larger cities know how good life can potentially be?
Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit
Having grown up in a small town (pop 5000) and moved to a city to attend college, I can guess. I learned to listen to people who were not like me and to care about their issues.
Onebraintwoheads@reddit
Empathy is an important but sadly rare skill.
No_Angle875@reddit
Grew up in the country but our town was 1,500 people. Graduating class was 50 people. No stoplights. Couple gas stations. Couple bars. Few stores. No like “corporate/big restaurants” like McDonald’s or something for example. Everyone basically at least knew who most other people were. The “big” weekend trip city we’d go to had 75-80k people and they had bigger stores and things to do. Our town was peaceful. Warm. Welcoming. Nice.
vargemp@reddit
That’s the USA I like and want to travel one day, not NY.
No_Angle875@reddit
Yeah I have zero interest in California or New York. Too many people and expensive
Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit
Most of California is rural. I believe the same is true for NY state.
InternistNotAnIntern@reddit
As an aside, I graduate in class at 50 sounds enormous for a town of 1500 people!
I grew up in the town of 20,000, and I think we graduated 200
airbear13@reddit
They all are until it comes to someone who doesn’t fit in lol
No_Angle875@reddit
Yeah for sure.
tynmi39@reddit
My rural town was similar in size (little bit smaller) but definitely was not warm, welcoming, or nice. None of the other rural towns around me were any of those things either. I generally don't think of rural towns as any of those things
SuperBlargle1@reddit
That’s how the rural area I moved to is like as well- that would be good old Missouri lol. People are either openly hostile or just low-key rude. I travel a lot for work and can confirm this is unique to this area. Moved to the area at 13, am now 38.
No-Type119@reddit
Truth.
II live in rural Michigan, and small communities are less like Mayberry and more like a town in a Steven King novel. ( Never their self- perception though.)
No_Angle875@reddit
Well that’s unfortunate.
Lootlizard@reddit
I had the same setup. graduated highschool with 48 kids and 40 of them started kindergarten with me. My mom was the administrator for the elementary school and my aunt, her sister, was the administrator for the highschool. So for 28 years my mom knew every single kid and there parents that lived in town.
No_Angle875@reddit
That’s pretty cool!
BAMspek@reddit
I live in a place like that now. The whole county has less people than my hometown (which I always considered a “small town” growing up)
Carloverguy20@reddit
A small rural city is usually isolated from things, and has a population under 6000. It usually has 0-2 stoplights, a main street that you see in movies, with mom and pop stores, and a bunch of farms nearby.
Hazel1928@reddit
I think one thing that varies is whether they get tourists. Wellsboro, PA is a small town. They get lots of tourists for the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon and other hiking and outdoors activities. They have a 3 screen movie theater, a historic inn and tavern. They have a Christmas festival each year and lots of people come. Wellsboro is great . . . Think Starr’s Hollow. Wellsboro great.
EmberlynSlade@reddit
It’s a lot of open space. A lot of driving to get ANYWHERE. There might be a small neighborhood but most people in the town will live spread out, not in the neighborhood but in the more rural areas.
airbear13@reddit
I’ve never heard the term “rural city,” it’s not really used a lot here. We have small towns, which can be as many as 10-20k or so. Lots of these small towns will have “city” in the name (in PA we have oil city, Evans city, etc) but nobody thinks of them as that. “Town” is more of an ambiguous term that doesn’t have size connotations in most cases.
A “small city” here would be like Pittsburgh or Cincinnati which are around 300k.
KimBrrr1975@reddit
I'd say it varies by region especially. I live in a town of 3,000 people and grew up in a village of 180. The closest larger town than ours is 7,500 people 50 miles away. 120 miles to the nearest town of 50,000 or more, and 250 miles to the nearest real metro area (Minneapolis).
So for me, anything bigger than our town is basically a city. Specifically if there is far more access to options like restaurants, shopping, events, etc.
Bawstahn123@reddit
I feel like going into how New England settlements work might confuse both the OP and other Americans from different parts of the US.
I forget that other states have unincorporated areas.
HotButteredPoptart@reddit
I live in a town of like 800 people. There's a gas station and a dollar general.
WatchStoredInAss@reddit
It looks like depression.
RebelSoul5@reddit
It’s worth noting that most people in the US use town and city interchangeably. My hometown has city in the name, but I’d probably tell people, “the town I grew up in,” or “the nearest theater was across town”. And rural towns vary from state to state … a rural town in Iowa, for example, might have 500 or so folks, but a rural town around where I live in California will have 10,000 or so people. My city is about 27,000 people and I’d consider that small, but in Oregon, the city where my university was located is about half that size.
dmitristepanov@reddit
In Ohio, a city is an incorporated municipality with more than 5000 people. Less than 5000 is a village. No incorporation and it's neither one from a legal standpoint; it's just part of the township that it's part of. Any city or village can (and does) automatically change to the other classification with a change in population to higher or lower than 5000 at each federal census. My hometown incorporated as a city in 1973 and changed to a village after one census that I remember and after another census went back to being a city.
In Iowa, a city is legally any incorporated place. The state classifies a city with less than 2000 people a "town" with the rest divided into two classes with 15000 the dividing line, but legally all three are "cities."
RedShirtDecoy@reddit
If you want to look at what an American Village looks like check out "New Richmond" or "Bethel" in Ohio.
You can explore them with Google earth/maps and are perfect examples of classic Americana small town life.
allaboutmojitos@reddit
My town has almost 40,000 people. We call it a town, though as others have said, the term city indicates that it’s its own municipality. As for what it looks and feels like, it consists of many sprawling neighborhoods divided by roads of varying sizes. Most homes are two story and have a half acre plot of land, though there are many exceptions to that. We do have a few apartment buildings and condominium complexes, but none higher than four stories. Groups of neighborhoods are combined for schooling. We have 5 grade schools, 2 middle schools, and one high school. They are all controlled by one school system. We dont have a downtown business area, but we do having a shopping corridor along a 4 lane highway that runs through our town. We have 6 grocery stores, a shopping mall, and many small businesses, clinics and restaurants as well. One police department for everyone, one ambulance company, one hospital and four firehouses keep us safe.
HarlequinKOTF@reddit
I live in the second biggest city in my county. Only 16,00 people. It feels a lot like a province town would in the Philippines, like Bambang as opposed to Bayombong as example.
non_clever_username@reddit
It perpetually feels like 20 years ago.
Source: grew up in one and still go back occasionally
Buford12@reddit
In Ohio the definition of a city is any incorporated area with 5,000 people. I think what you don't realize is just the just the deference in population density between our two countries. The Us has 350 million people, the Philippines 112 million. But the Philippines have less land area than Texas and Oklahoma put together. The population of those two states is only 34 million. So to have the same population density every Philippine cities population would have to be reduced by over 2/3rds.
NFLDolphinsGuy@reddit
It really depends. Small but prosperous towns can feel quaint but charming. Some places to try a Google Streetview tour of would be Decorah, Iowa or Galena, Illinois. For a little larger place doing well (or well enough), Oskaloosa, Iowa or Pella, Iowa.
For little Iowan towns, imagine 1-2 story buildings around a courthouse in a town school. There will be people walking around the square, and people are generally familiar with most of the business owners and possibly everyone if the town is small enough.
If the town’s economy is not doing well, the square will feature abandoned, boarded up, collapsed, buildings or empty lots. No one’s around, the aura of the place feels somewhere between depressing and like a neutron bomb went off. Lineville, Iowa or Logan, Iowa would be good examples of struggling small towns. Ottumwa, Iowa of a larger town that’s struggling.
GreenBeanTM@reddit
Watch pretty much any American movie set in a small town, it’s almost a guarantee it’s actually being set/filmed in a small city.
Tip for spotting it: do the characters actually have places they can hang out at after school/the weekends other than someone’s house or a random park/field? Then it’s not a small town.
msabeln@reddit
I live in Missouri, and there are legal villages, and four classes of cities, which are all defined by state statute. There are also subdivisions of counties called townships, which have jurisdictional powers which vary by county.
I grew up in an unincorporated area with about a population of 50,000, but it is well known, as the school district, post office, and fire protection district all have the same name and approximately the same boundaries.
MarionberryPlus8474@reddit
Rural and city are contradictory terms.
Someplace with 10,000 people is a town, whether it calls itself a city or incorporates itself as one or not. No one is calling it a city. It’s a town, and a fairly small one.
WhyDidIClickOnThat@reddit
I live in a city of 10,000 people in the midwest USA. We are 40-50 miles from any other larger city, no interstate, no passenger rail, no public transport other than local taxi. We're the county seat and the biggest city in the county. Surrounded by pretty farmland and woods. We have an older but thriving downtown square, a modern shopping area on the edge of town with a few fast food places, supermarkets and a smallish Walmart. As is typical for our state, lots of small bars/taverns! I can get most everything I need here in town but I like to travel to the bigger cities for shopping variety. Mostly older, middle class homes, probably a slightly older population than most cities. It's quiet and safe but a little stagnant - few new housing developments, businesses that close are usually replaced by something but not a lot of new businesses coming in.
NoMSaboutit@reddit
I think the poster is not really talking about manucipality or incorporated. I wouldn't cal a 10,000 populated town a city. Sometimes it can be called a big town but not a city. So it really varie.
toilet_roll_rebel@reddit
In Kansas, there are no towns. If a place has more than 300 people, it's a city. Weird. My "city" has a population of about 54,000, which is big for Kansas. It seems more like a large town to me.
my-hero-measure-zero@reddit
I've driven through literal one-stoplight towns in Texas. That's like under 150 or so people.
But I also did the drive through the mountains to Baguio and somehow consider psrts of that rural.
HSclassof24_mom@reddit
I live in a “village” of nearly 26,000 people. Nearby is a “city” of 29,000 people. If you drove through them both you’d see a downtown, some apartment buildings, some townhouses, a lot of single family houses (more of those in the village because it has more land area), one public high school, several primary schools, and some municipal buildings. The designation is basically about what form of local government they use.
arcteryx17@reddit
Cities are classified by their governing structure not population total. I grew up in a town that is now 30k plus and still sits as a township. There's positives and negatives to becoming a city or staying a town. Also each state has their criteria to become a city. The local.population or council will have to vote for it.
joepierson123@reddit
I mean are you looking for the legal term Town versus City because there's cities with one person and there's towns with a million
Mediocre_Daikon6935@reddit
Except in Pennsylvania.
We have only one town.
But lots of Boroughs and Cities.
glowing-fishSCL@reddit
The Philippines is a very densely populated country by the standards of the United States. So a lot of what you call "rural" we would think of as suburban.
The Philippines has a population density of 1000 people per square mile. There is one US state with a higher population density than that, New Jersey, at 1200 per square mile.
The state I am in right now, Washington, has a population density of 120 people per square mile. I have lived in Montana, which has a population density of 8 people per square mile.
Most Americans don't know how other people in the US live. If you are from a state like Ohio or Indiana, your definition of a small rural town is going to be a city of 10,000 people surrounded by productive farmland, on a freeway, and 50 miles from a city of a million people.
There are places in Montana and North Dakota where a small rural town is going to be 200 people living 100 miles from a "big city" of 20,000 people.
There are rural areas of some description from the forests of Maine to the deserts of Nevada, and they all have very different lifestyles and economies.
big_sugi@reddit
Population density is the key. The Philippines has 117 million people living in 300k square kilometers. The US has 342 million people living in 9 million square kilometers. That’s a lot more space to spread out.
Mediocre_Daikon6935@reddit
Americans don’t live in Kilometers.
SnowblindAlbino@reddit
10K is big. I've lived in major cities with millions, but hvae spent about 30 years living in towns more like 5,000. It's pretty much ideal to me: not crowded, no traffic, but all the things we'd need on a regular basis. Grocery store, pharmacy, clinic, dentist, coffee shop, a few restaurants, couple of gas stations, hardware store, etc. We don't need to drive to a "city" but maybe once a month...less now since pretty much anything can be purchased online.
I'd call 5-10,000 people a small town personally, but legally (in my state at least) it's incorporation that defines a city, not population. So there are "cities" that are <1,000 people, as long as they have a charter and government.
tbodillia@reddit
The TOWN I live outside of has a population of 1250. The county I live in has a population of 32,730.
The town has 2 restaurants, 3 churches, a gas station, a bar, a liquor store, and several more small businesses. I get outside of town and there is a house about every mile, one house. Cross over into the rich county and there are more houses.
Not_an_okama@reddit
A rural american town in my mind ranges from having maybe just a few buildings at an intersection on the small end to the town from the tv show Gilmore Girls on the larger end.
evil_burrito@reddit
I was in a small town in Oregon recently, population about 150 or so.
I was at the general store (which is like a grocery store and hardware store combined) behind a local resident.
She had her hands full with her shopping and handed the clerk her ATM card to pay. The clerk knew her PIN code.
That's what a small town is like.
Also, meth.
G00dSh0tJans0n@reddit
I grew up in a town of around 300. There was an elementary school, a volunteer fire department, and an all in one gas station and convenience store with a burger place attached.
The convenience store wasn’t just snacks but had most grocery staples, meats, bread, etc. there were 3 churches in town - southern Baptist, Methodist, and the Black Baptist church. Thanksgiving one of the different churches hosted the others so it was always interesting to rotate between the three for some huge community pot luck dinners.
randomnamecausefoo@reddit
Ohio is quite straightforward. An incorporated municipality is a city if the population exceeds 5000, otherwise it’s a village.
QuinceDaPence@reddit
"City" in that context is almost exclusively used to refer only to the governmental entity of the town.
So if I live in a town called Fakeville (Population 2000), and I have an issue with a variance that was granted to my neighbor, I would take that issue up with 'the city'.
And generally people just talking will call such a thing a town but on official documents it will be "City of Fakeville". Also Every state will do it different, some will just use "city" for every municipality, some may use "Village of Fakeville" for things below a certain size or with not enough services to be a "city". Some use "township" for some. It's all over the place.
In Texas, village, town, or city doesn't mean anything and they can call themselves whatever they want. The real designation is "General-Law Municipality" (any under 5k) or "Home-Rule Municipality" (optional over 5k).
Jay__Riemenschneider@reddit
If you watch the movie Into the Furnace but take out all of the crime/action parts.
Civil-Raspberry3759@reddit
Once I drove through Tucker, Arkansas, and the population sign said 93.
Feeling-Lavishness85@reddit
I live in a very small town in CA, population 481. There is a tiny town center which is where most of the population lives. We have 2 markets, one school, a post office, and a library. My property is about 4 miles from the town center, and the only way to get there is a dirt road. The next closest town is about 18 miles away, and that town's population is about 13,000. You have to travel north another 50 miles to get to a decent sized sized (pop 150k).
It's mostly large cattle ranches with rolling grass covered hills--golden in the summer and green in the winter & spring. Lots of oak trees & tons of vineyards. I love it here.
Intelligent-Invite79@reddit
I’ve had family in small towns, and tiny towns. The small towns have the classic main street you see in a lot of movies. Shops on both sides, the post office, the bakery and whatnot. The tiny towns don’t usually have grocery stores, you drive to the small towns for that.
RadioControlled13@reddit
The titles of city/town/village/township vary in meaning by state. In most states it is the type of government that you have.
In Illinois, a city has a mayor and city council of elected alderman each representing a geographic part of the city. A village elects six trustees who represent the entire city, rather than a geographic area, the trustees then elect a board president from amongst themselves.
aliendepict@reddit
I think defining a city is the first step. We use a different approach to defining city as its just an incorporated municipality. Which means it has a government and can charge a tax. There are places with 5000 people that arent cities and places with 200 that are. Its more about representation.
In the US depending on sate you have different definitions around what the local population considers an city as well. Im in a rural’ish state and i would say the smallest place i consider a town is around 15,000 people. They have a downtown with some shops and food. We really only have two cities in my state they have a bunch of suburbs inside of them but thats the capital and then the next largest town both have a population over 1 million.
No_Sea7681@reddit
No jobs, no women, never any apartment vacancies, high population of elderly and drug addiction, everything closed by 8pm. Truly a terrible place to live if you're under 50.
Mercuryshottoo@reddit
You just live in a tiny, very densely populated place. If you had any room left to spread out, you probably would, too.
ButterflyShort@reddit
Okay. I live just outside of a town with a population of 4000 people. We are referred to as a "food desert." If you want a large grocery store, you need to drive at least 25 miles to the nearest one. The same works if you want any restaurant that isn't Mexican or McDonald's. You see the same people at gas stations or restaurants or car repair places. There are two schools, one private and one public, and it's one of those places where everyone knows everyone else by name.
TrueStoriesIpromise@reddit
Texas and many newer states (west of the Mississippi) don’t have town/village/hamlet classifications; state, county, and city are the three forms of government.
I live in a city of 20-30 thousand, that’s growing rapidly. It doubled in size in the past 10 years, and doubled from the 10 years before that.
We have two fire departments now with full time firefighters, and our own ambulance.
We have a Walmart, auto parts store, grocery store, home improvement store, doctors and dentists, and about 20 restaurants. We lack most types of entertainment venues; no movie theater, no bowling alley.
=== Back when I first moved here in 2006, almost none of that was here. The lone fire department was volunteer. No grocery store, no Walmart. Only about 5 restaurants. But we are a 10 minute drive from a large city of over 200,000 and they have everything.
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Minute-Of-Angle@reddit
This is completely a definitional thing, and definitions vary by state. In Ohio you legally have villages and cities. The vast majority of cities are better defined as “small towns.”
In plain English, most people would refer to collections of people and buildings as:
Villages < Towns < Cities
With some sort of division based upon population, maybe less than a thousand people being a village, more than a thousand but less that 50,000 being a town and more than 50,000 being a city. These numbers are completely arbitrary and will vary by person.
dan_blather@reddit
For an prosperous "small rural city", check out Ithaca, New York with Google Streetview. Other places to look at:
Brattleboro, Vermont (like Ithaca, another somewhat isolated "hippie town")
Traverse City, Michigan
Fredericksburg, Texas
Columbiana, Ohio
Bend, Oregon
Decorah, Iowa
Places that are more rustic:
Silver City, New Mexico
Taos, New Mexico
Marfa, Texas
Cheyenne, Wyoming
REALLY isolated:
Marquette, Michigan
Roswell, New Mexico
Liberal, Kansas
Havre, Montana
avfc41@reddit
Growing up in a county seat in a rural area with just a couple thousand people, calling any of these “small rural cities” is very funny
triskay86@reddit
My small rural hometown in southern Virginia (USA) has a population of 250. There’s a gas station, post office, and bank. People have a variety of jobs, with some commuting over an hour away each day for work. Many people own large properties of land (usually farm-use) that have been in the family for generations.
Vachic09@reddit
My state has towns with less than 500 people in it. 10,000 is a small city or suburb. It's all about what you are used to. My hometown had a population of about 2,500 when I left and that's not far from the very largest that I would consider a small town. I would consider around 200,000 to be a medium size city.
Another thing to keep in mind is that individual states have different legal definitions of what a city, town, etc. is.
hornedcorner@reddit
Born and raised in the panhandle of Oklahoma. 1800ish people and a graduating class of 34. The closest city was Amarillo Texas and was a 3 1/2 hour drive.
RancidOoze@reddit
There was a town near a mine in Oregon with a population of about 50 people, they had one general store about the size of a large gas station and a scrapyard and that was the extent of the non residential buildings
No-Conversation1940@reddit
My hometown in southern Missouri, < 500 people:
Main Street runs north to south, the school building and post office are on Main Street. There's one building for all grades K-12 and the post office is open from 8:15 am to 10 am on Saturdays. The Methodist Church and county library branch used to be there but they closed. The church building is still there but the library trailer was towed away. There also used to be a diner on Main Street but it closed as well.
On the eastern edge of town is a Dollar General and a Sinclair gas station. The Dollar General saves time for people who would have to drive to to the other side of the county to get to a grocery store.
Opportunity_Massive@reddit
There are about 24,000 people in the largest city near where I live (I live in a much smaller place). The city is very compacted, so you don’t get that urban sprawl here. It has narrowish streets with lots of traffic lights, and even has several high rises (I hesitate to use the word skyscraper, I’m not sure how many stories the tallest buildings have). It has its own downtown area that stays busy with lots of traffic. Lots of people are always walking around downtown, there are several shops and restaurants. People live in the surrounding neighborhoods, on streets that are lined with primarily single-family homes that are on small lots. The city is literally like a very small version of a large city.
MortimerDongle@reddit
In my experience, people generally wouldn't call a municipality of 10,000 a city, even if it officially is one. That naming often refers to the system of government if it means anything.
capsrock02@reddit
Well if it’s a city, then it’s not rural.
Effective-One6527@reddit
No, city is a legal classification. I grew up in a city surrounded by working farms, has a population of sub 1500, and got a grocery store when I was 11. It is the 5th most populated city in the county. The least populated city in the county has 41 people.
You can’t say either of these places aren’t rural but legally they are cities.
Fun_Variation_7077@reddit
I think it still counts if it's a small city of something like 30k in the middle of absolute nowhere.
dan_blather@reddit
Tell that to Garden City, Kansas, and Silver City, New Mexico.
ZaphodG@reddit
In Massachusetts, city vs town is a form of government rather than related to population density. A city has a mayor and an elected city council. A town has a board of selectmen and a town meeting. Where I live, it used to be that everyone registered to vote could vote at town meeting. It changed to voting for town meeting members to represent you at town meeting. My town pragmatically sets the number of town meeting members based on the seating capacity of the high school auditorium.
That doesn’t answer your question.
Vermont is very rural. Rutland City is population 15,000. It is surrounded by politically separate Rutland Town with population 4,000. Rutland is a county seat and has an established downtown business district of stone and brick buildings that are mostly more than 100 years old. Much of the housing is factory worker housing. Wood frame. 3 levels. Apartments. When the country deindustralized, that housing became very run down. It now has a significant drug addiction problem.
12B88M@reddit
In the US, "towns" are defined differently based on location. In my state a town is under 10,000 people and cities are anything above that. In other states towns are anything under 30,000.
Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit
In my state we have a city with 22 people. Basically, legally speaking, you are a city or you're not. That's the only division. Do you have a charter from the state to be a city? If you're not, you're unincorporated and you belong to the county.
ForestOranges@reddit
Being from the Northeast it’s not like this because we don’t have unincorporated areas. Places incorporate as cities, towns/boroughs, townships, etc. We definitely have towns/boroughs that are more populated than cities though.
stillpacing@reddit
You can't go anywhere without running into someone you know or who knows you.
There are small time parades down Main Street for every holiday.
Hardly anyone locks their doors at night.
The county fair is the biggest event of the summer.
The high school homecoming game is the biggest event in the fall..
From June to October, you can go out to the farms and pick your own fruit.. Farmer's markets are every Saturday.
It's definitely smalltime, but it's not the worst way to live.
Rockfell3351@reddit
I grew up rural, outside the boundaries of the closest town, which only had 200 people. Even if you didn't know a particular person, you knew their family name; almost all roads were named after families you knew. We traveled at least a half hour away for work/school. Cows & pigs were my favorite neighbors.
river-running@reddit
In my state, Virginia, we have the unique independent city concept. Here "city" is a legal definition and means that the community is run separately from the larger county that it exists in. Separate government, taxes, police, schools, etc. The largest independent city is Virginia Beach, with over 450,000 residents, and the smallest is Norton, with just under 3,500.
I live in a city with about 23,000 residents. We are in a rural mountain valley surrounded by mountains to the east and west and farmland in between. We're also right next to a national park. The area started being settled by Europeans in the 18th century and the city was officially established in 1801. Native Americans, of course, were here long before that.
We have all the basics that you would need. Walmart and Target, multiple grocery stores, chain and independent restaurants, a lot of small businesses, one movie theater, medical services, etc. We don't have a hospital here but there are three within a 30 minute drive.
Because of the size and the surrounding rural area, a lot of things feel very rural here. A lot of folks in pick up trucks and camo who work blue collar jobs, a tendency towards political conservatism, lower average incomes and housing prices, etc. It definitely doesn't feel isolated or backward. I live a perfectly normal life here and if there are things that I can't find here, there are multiple larger cities within a 30 to 40 minute drive where I can go to get anything else that I need. For example this weekend I have to go to the larger city slightly north of here because they have a Best Buy and Costco.
I enjoy living here. It feels quieter and more relaxing than bigger places I've lived, but at the same time I don't feel like I'm deprived of anything. I love being so close to nature and the national park.
provinground@reddit
Sooo many different answers here.
A small town in say Oklahoma where I’m from … farms probably. Everyone knows everyone. Usually a big church / Christian culture… maybe more conservative… have family that live in a small towns in OK and they love it. It’s simple and lots of feeling of community.. but you’re probably missing out on diversity and have less access to the real world in a way…marry your highschool sweetheart. Have babies young. Leas educated. Wholesome lifestyle.
I currently live in a tiny town in Colorado there’s 1200 people and no stop lights. Way smaller than how grew up. It’s a tourist town though which ads a lot of nuances. Seasonal work. Multiple jobs. Lots of drinking and drug use. Everyone knows everyone. Centered around migraine sports. Very liberal. Very beautiful. Lots of mental health issues and high suicide rate. Wait longer to have babies or get married it seems. Lots of guys in the “Peter pan” phase.
That’s my experiences
1PumpkinKiing@reddit
Just so you know, the US is waaaay bigger than the Philippines. My state alone is almost 15,000 square kilometers (1.5 million hectares) bigger than all the islands in the Philippines combined, and my state definitely isn't the biggest. So we have muuuch more space to spread out over. The US has more than 30 times the amount of land that the Philippines has.
You can think of each state almost like it's own country. Different laws, different leaders, some things are the same, but at the same time nothing is really the same.
Also, the 2nd largest city in my state has maybe 120k people. There are a bunch of little towns and villages throughout the state, and some smaller cities.
The best way I could think to explain things is like most cities on the east and west coast, or near other large bodies of water are more like the big cities in the Philippines. But most of the areas in the middle of the country are more like being out in the provinces of the Philippines, with smaller cities, and some being pretty big, but never as big as somewhere like NYC or Manila
PsychologicalBat1425@reddit
My parents are from the same small city. They moved out of state to a large city where they bought a house in the suburbs and raised a family. I grew up spending several weeks each summer with grandparents. It was fun when I was a kid, lots of wide open spaces, farm animals, and I played with my cousins or neighborhood kids. The big treat was making the walk to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream. As a teen I found it to be boring. By then Walmart had established a store a closed out all the family owned stores. There was nothing to do. I just hung around with my grandparents. Some days I was so bored I would just wonder around Walmart for an hour.
Seattleman1955@reddit
I don't know that you can be both "rural" and a "city" but it's mainly a small town with a lot of farmland around it, generally speaking.
I would, personally, call 10,000 people a town but I grew up in what I would consider a small city of 30,000.
It also depends on what is around you. If you have a city of 30,000 and it's bigger than most of the surrounding areas then it seems like a "city" because it draws more business in.
JPflyer6@reddit
I'm American but live half the year in Angeles and it seems to me that what you all call a village vs a town vs a city is really a difference of meaning when compared to the USA
. In the USA it is based on size and incorporation (and individual States legislate the criteria) whereas here in the Philippines I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, it is based more on the economic engine of the population.
la-anah@reddit
Here in Massachusetts city vs town describes the type of government, not the size. Cities have Mayors and city councils. Towns have Boards of Selectmen.
My hometown is a town with a population of about 35k. It is a suburb of a medium a sized city of about 100k. I currently live in a small city (only about 3miles by 5miles, so physically small) with a population of about 45k. Although it is a city in its own right, it is only about 20 miles from the capital city, Boston-population 650k, so it is also functionality a suburb.
Massachusetts is pretty densely settled, so 10k would be considered a fairly small town.
reflectorvest@reddit
I am from a town that has a population around 10,000 people. There isn’t a huge difference in what we classify things as here, but in general cities tend to be larger and towns/villages/etc. are smaller (my hometown is technically a borough). It affects local government organization but not much else. These places tend to be more rural than urban/suburban, and there would normally be a fairly strong town identity, especially if it’s old and located on the east coast. Usually there’s some sort of Main Street with a square or major intersection, shops and restaurants that are dense in the downtown area and are replaced with residential homes as you move away from the center. At that population size you can expect at least a traffic light or two along the main road.
Fwiw, 10k is the upper end of what an American would likely consider to be a small town. We have many locales that have a much smaller population, but they would probably not be called a city.
Any-Investment5692@reddit
It all depends. towns and villages can be as small as a single person. Their are many towns with less than 50 people. In the western states. the cities and towns are very small. I was on a road trip. I seen Rapid City South Dakota on the map. It was prominent on the map and in my mind i assumed it had at least 1million people. When i arrived i laughed at how small it was. By my standards it was tiny yet it was prominent on the map on equal terms of my home city of Cleveland Ohio. Things in the western states just operate differently. Some towns only have a single stop light. As far as it feels. Again it depends. Some towns feel welcoming. Others feel like they don't want you around. America is huge and you will experience ever single experience one can think of due to so many towns and villages. Even cities two or three hours apart can look and feel different in the same state.
GotchUrarse@reddit
I was raised in rural Michigan. Bought my first house is a small town (technically a village). The entire thing was 4 by 6 blocks. The local bar bar was 'Conny's'. It was named after the owner. One day I was in there and this tiny woman got hammered, got up on the bar and started kicking drinks off it. It was Conny, the owner.
chocoholic24@reddit
I grew up in a town of 300 people. It was safe and the air was clean and smelled like pine trees. I wish I could go back and live there now
Upnorth4@reddit
This city near where I live was only 112 people but it is completely industrial, it has no trees, lots of pollution, and filled with concrete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_California
babutterfly@reddit
Depends on what you mean by small rural city. My mom's city has 700 people in it and it basically looks like a cross road. That's where the gas station is (that also has the pizza place, a local market and resale place, a tiny apartment "complex" with about 8 apartments, and the library and feed store are a little ways down the road. From my mom's front "yard" on her property you can't see her nearest neighbor. You have to trek through the woods for several hundred feet until you do. She's 20 miles from "town" as they call it where you'd find any chain store. Within the past ten years, though (I can't remember exactly when), her city got a little clinic, so that's good. They don't have to go 20 miles anymore for basic medical care.
cyvaquero@reddit
In my home state of PA there are only a handful cities as most everything else are boroughs (and one town).
Here in Texas most places incorporate as cities, the smallest being Los Ybanez, pop. 28.
eldritch-charms@reddit
I grew up in a village in a town. Everyone called my village "town" because it was the village with the highest population. The town had 5k-ish when I lived there which included all ten villages proper. My village had one stoplight, four gas stations, a movie theater, a coffee place (Dunkies), two seedy motels, two trailer parks, two rival Greek pizza places, a butcher shop and a drugstore.
The "city" was 20 min away and had 10k people. It is now extremely run down but when I lived there it had a vibrant art scene, was near three colleges, and had lots of cute shops.
I currently live in a city of 30k (not including the university or military bases) and yes I consider it a city. What's so great about this tiny city? Vibrant art scene, the whole place doesn't shut down at 7pm, and the street lamps work.
knight1096@reddit
I grew up in a village! My great grandparents moved here right before WWII so I am a 4th generation graduate of my local high school. My parents currently both live within 4 blocks of their childhood homes. My graduating class was 90 people and we all basically knew each other since kindergarten. The outskirts of town were all working farms (My first boyfriend’s family raised alpacas!) and then slowly the farms became generic suburb chain restaurants, Walmart, Costco, etc and the suburban subdivisions started creeping up as doctors and lawyers moved out here. There was a real divide of poverty as locals who lived here and raised families were integrated with shocking amounts of upper middle class wealth and my family was suddenly “poor white trash.” Homes have been unaffordable here for middle class folks since 2006. I got the fuck out of there the second I could and moved to the city. Too much ingrained racism, homophobia and general ignorance for my free spirit.
Upnorth4@reddit
It depends. In California any area can be classified as a city if the residents vote to become incorporated. There's a factory/industrial city just south of Los Angeles that only has 219 people. It's called Vernon. It looks really urban, packed with factories and warehouses.
Jass0602@reddit
I grew up in a small town in rural Florida about an hour out of a metro area. 3000 people. One red light. One grocery store. One high school. Very quiet and lots of trees. Lots of space and you feel more connected to nature. But sometimes it’s so slow. Especially now after living in a metro of 1 mil, going to NYC, Atlanta.
Smooth-Science4983@reddit
My mom is from a small rural town of only 400. Definitely not a city, it’s a town. People own lots of land in comparison to the city but also less access to services like doctors offices, vets, grocery stores etc.
ghjm@reddit
In North Carolina there is no legal distinction between a city, town or village. There are some small municipalities with a "city" name, like Bryson City, population 1500. These names might have made more sense in the 19th or early 20th century. If you're on horseback traveling through miles and miles of minimally populated mountain or swamp land, and you come across a settlement with a bank and a post office and a couple dozen buildings, you might well call it a city.
This is a state level matter, so other states have different rules about municipal naming. Some have population thresholds; others have names that reflect differences in governance. Sometimes the term "city" means the municipality was created by an act of the legislature but towns and villages can be created administratively. New York divides itself into administrative regions that are called cities if the whole region is a single municipality, or townships if they contain multiple separate villages. There are 50 different systems (56 if you count DC and the territories), each with their own history and traditions.
georgeamberson1963@reddit
Oy pare kumusta
Grayfield@reddit (OP)
Pst!
Uy Pilipins!
cHaNgEuSeRnAmE102@reddit
Ya ever watch the tv show weeds? In the theme song “little boxes on the hill side, little boxes made of ticky tacky” blah blah blah explains perfectly what the average American upper middle class neighborhood is like. They’re all the same.
No-Willingness-170@reddit
Hell, just like in every other country.
Pleasant_Studio9690@reddit
It looks and feels quaint. My town had 2,800 people within its official borders. The county (a sub-region of a state) it was located in had 28,000 people. And it only had that many because there's a very large factory in it. Our library was tiny. The new one is still very small. It's all on one level because they can't afford to have enough librarians to cover another floor. When I was a kid we had one traffic light, one movie theater, 3 banks, no mcdonald's, no other chain restaurants, two grocery stores, 1 bakery. Everyone knew everyone. There was zero nightlife. Downtown was empty after 7 or 8.
Due_Bite9935@reddit
This. The City I live in now has approximately 5,000. Quaint.
dildozer10@reddit
I grew up outside of a town of 500-600 people and I absolutely loved it, I always had a feeling that I was free, and the air always felt fresh. We had two neighbors within yelling distance, and were on the edge of the power grid, if the power went out during storms, we were the last to get it turned back on. I enjoyed it, my cousin and our friends would walk in the woods, go fishing, ride bikes all day, and then play video games at night. When we got older we would have massive bonfires in the middle of fields, and just party. People were friendly and most of the town knew everyone, life felt free. I live in a suburb in a town of 30,000 now, and my wife and I hate it, we feel claustrophobic and trapped. She had a similar upbringing as me, but in a different town. We’re currently working to get some land in a rural area and get back to our roots.
ophaus@reddit
Every state incorporates their populations differently. In once place, it could be called a village, in others a town, township, burrough, city. There's no real unified labelling across the entire country. Geographers have their own labels when making maps, of course, but that doesn't have much effect on the street level nomenclature.
WooliesWhiteLeg@reddit
You know you can visit a with like two hundred residents without leaving the Philippines if you really wanted an answer to this question.
katrinakt8@reddit
I grew up in a town of around 40,000 people. We didn’t refer to it as a city. Even the larger metro (89,000 population) area around 60 miles away we referred to as a town. Over 100,000 would generally be referred to as a city.
A rural small town of around 10,000 people would have basics like a post office, small grocery/general stores, their own city government and buildings, often lot of farmland, parks, small schools, potentially combined all grades in 1 school. Any substantial shopping or entertainment would require traveling to the next largest town/city. Everyone knows each other and often pitch in to help each other with house projects.
kmoonster@reddit
In the US, at least, "city" and "town" are not consistently defined. Some states base it on population, others use the terms to define the type of government, and there are probably a couple other ways the words are used in a political sense.
Conversationally, the distinctions are even worse, let's not get started on that one.
- Does the settlement have a central administrative government? Or only a citizen committee?
- Does the settlement have a roads or infrastructure department, or are these contracted or delegated via the county (or the state)? What about emergency response, parks, electricity, snow removal?
- Is there an incorporation document? Are major decisions handled by a council and/or mayor?
- Does the settlement maintain judges and a jail, or are these services via county or state services?
There are a few other questions as well, but you get the idea. These sorts of considerations are what go into defining a village, hamlet, town, city. A county is a sub-section of a state and usually has some limited duties that relate to state-level government.
airynothing1@reddit
There’s not really a formal distinction between “cities” and “towns” in the U.S., so while you’ll definitely see a municipality of 10,000 or so referred to as a city in certain contexts, very few people will think of it as more than a large-ish town unless they come from somewhere even smaller or more rural.