Moving from a big city to a small town.

Anyone here have experience with this? How have you dealt with having less culture/entertainment, less access to various things and the different attitudes of the people?

Small towns are nice. People leave you alone, everyone is nice, there is actual quiet at times. If you live close to a city, like 45 mins to an hour away, it's really the best of both worlds. Go live it up in the city for fun and then go relax in your country house.

I have generally found the attitudes of the people to be more pleasant in small towns.

Just like big cities, small towns vary widely. Some are shitholes, some are pretty damn cool.

You can buy anything you need or desire from the Internet. Read more. Spend less money. Look for inroads to your new community in the form of civic groups, farmers markets, and community rec centers. Remember: you are no longer another nameless face. Being in a town of 10,000 or even double that means people are going to know who you are. That means no more highway rest stop fellatio on other dudes.

I moved from Tampa Bay, FL to Athens, GA, so I have some experience with something like this. Though I don't know if Athens would qualify as a small town by your standards, and it's a bit different from other small cities because it's a college town.

Personally, I love it, but it does help that I'm only 1-1.5 hours from Atlanta. Like Kwilk said, it's just more laid back, and people are generally friendlier. Athens is just big enough that we have most of the important amenities, but we don't get all the problems with a bigger city.

The biggest adjustment has been things like shopping. We have a mall, but it's terrible. If I need clothes I almost always have to order them online or drive to Atlanta. There are also fewer options for everything else - we have one Target in town, and the only places that are open 24 hours are Wal-Mart and Kroger. I can't even think of a 24 hour gas station, though there may be one.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to live someplace bigger, but for the most part I don't really miss much from living in a more built-up area. In fact, I really wanted to stay when I finished grad school, and it was incredibly fortunate that I was able to find a good job in town.

The one thing that may be an issue for you that isn't for me is social stuff. I'm 30 and married, so I don't care that much about meeting people. IIRC, however, you're pretty young, so you may miss that. It's less of an issue in a place like Athens, where there's a college, but I could see it being an issue in a smaller town without a draw for younger people.

Originally Posted by TGPlastic

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...no more highway rest stop fellatio on other dudes.

I think my home town chamber of commerce used this slogan.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Small towns are nice. People leave you alone, everyone is nice, there is actual quiet at times. If you live close to a city, like 45 mins to an hour away, it's really the best of both worlds. Go live it up in the city for fun and then go relax in your country house.

That's definitely not true.

Also, people in general do leave you alone, but neighbors can be very nosy and gossipy. This is going to depend on how close you live to them (i.e. if you have acres of land between you and them, then it's not going to be a big deal). My neighbors in a small town were much more nosy then any of the ones I've had living in apartments in a big city.

Originally Posted by Dakota rube

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I think my home town chamber of commerce used this slogan.

There go your tourism dollars.

I moved from a big city to what I consider a small town (about 30K, so maybe not what others think of as small, but there is basically nothing else for 60+ miles around, so it's isolated). If you're married or know anyone else in the town already this makes a big difference. I was never into nightlife, so I don't miss that (although there are bars), but I do miss decent restaurants, especially ethnic restaurants.

I got a lot more into being outdoors and seeing nature and stuff since moving here, since that's one of the major recreational activities. Of course, without internet shopping and monthly trips to the city for Trader Joe's/Costco/Target/whatever, it would be less pleasant.

i moved to a which had a population of about 6000. It was about 300mi from the next inhabitated area (a town of about 4000) and 1500mi to the nearest capital city (with only about 4 towns between it and the capital). it really was in the middle of nowhere.

video downloads replaced the cinema, internet shopping replaced the the shops etc.

the people who enjoy it the most adapt to the life style. get into camping, hiking, boating (in this case it was by the sea) etc.

and when we did make trips to the city ($500 return ticket by plane) we made the most of the time we had.

Originally Posted by Mr Herbert

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video downloads replaced the cinema, internet shopping replaced the the shops etc.

Damn, really roughed it eh?

I spent about a year in a small town, building a bed and breakfast on a river. 3k people, an hour from the nearest (crappy) movie theater (and only Wal-Mart) 90+ minutes to the edge of Austin, the only bar only served beer, lunch options were pretty much Subway or Dairy Queen. I got kind of stir crazy, and if it had been a permanent thing where I had to try and find people to spend time with/date down there, I would have been miserable.

I passed my time reading, watching TV on DVD on my laptop (at least the hotel had wi-fi), or sucking it up and driving to the movie theater.

Best part was being able to drive out to the site (10 miles west of what passed for the town itself) at night with a boombox and blast music in the empty space.

That was pretty deep into the small and isolated realm, though.

Originally Posted by MrG

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I moved from Tampa Bay, FL to Athens, GA, so I have some experience with something like this.

Yeah, no.

Originally Posted by yerfdog

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I moved from a big city to what I consider a small town (about 30K, so maybe not what others think of as small, but there is basically nothing else for 60+ miles around, so it's isolated). If you're married or know anyone else in the town already this makes a big difference. I was never into nightlife, so I don't miss that (although there are bars), but I do miss decent restaurants, especially ethnic restaurants.

+1

The town I moved to only had 2 bars. 1 bar was the local college bar which I was to old for and the other was a country bar and I really don't like country music so I found my self traveling the 40 miles to the bigger town. I finally just moved to the bigger town and commuted to work.

Now that I'm married I could live in that smaller town pretty easy. As a single guy trying to make the change from big city to small town it killed me.