“Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world”
Journey, Don’t Stop Believing
Journey makes living in a small town seem like a bad thing. Everyone dreams of escaping their provincial life and embarking on an adventure in the big city. No one tells you everyone has these dreams—suburbanites, city dwellers, and small-town folk all dream of escaping their lots and doing something different.
Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, I always thought of escaping and pursuing adventure elsewhere. I believe this is a common dream for everyone. It’s not about escaping the small town; it’s about leaving the nest and setting out on your own.
No one ever talks about how refreshing it can be to live in a small town. I’m a city girl. As I said, I grew up in Chicago’s suburbs and then lived in Los Angeles for the first ten years of my adult life. Next, I moved to the small city of Savannah, and from there, I moved to a tiny little town in rural (ish) Pennsylvania. Although it’s not perfect, there are many benefits to living in a small town.
The Benefits of Living in a Small Town
Affordability
The sole reason I moved here is to save money. I wanted to find a place to live with a low cost of living to help me achieve my FIRE goals. When a great job opportunity opened up in rural Pennsylvania, I jumped on it.
Home prices in my area average $100k. I was able to buy a fixer-upper for half of that. I purchased the home with cash and eliminated most people’s number one cost. Of course, most people can’t afford to drop 50K on a home, but a 100K mortgage is more manageable than a mortgage or even rent in larger cities.
Walkable
Something I didn’t consider about moving to a small town is how walkable it is. Outside of going to work (a few miles away from the community I decided to settle in – in another small town), I don’t need a car. There’s a small grocery store a few blocks from my home where I can get all my weekly groceries. The post office is down the street. There are also three small bars, a convenience store, a pizza place, a Chinese take-out place, and a sit-down restaurant, all within walking distance.
The resources nearby will vary based on which small town you choose to settle in. I regret not finding a small town with a coffee shop, for example. However, most will have at least a few places nearby where you can get your basic needs met.
Supporting Local
And the great thing about these nearby places is that most are locally owned! The pizza shop across the street isn’t a Dominos or a Pizza Hut. It’s a small business owned by a member of the community. The restaurant isn’t Applebee’s or Olive Garden; it’s also a local small business. Even the grocery store is a Pennsylvania company rather than a national company. Knowing I’m putting money directly into the local economy every time I go to one of these places is excellent.
Low Crime
Another bonus about living in a small town is that smaller towns’ crime rate tends to be lower than that of large cities. People can feel safe walking down the streets at night (though I never recommend leaving the doors unlocked, no matter how secure you feel!).
However, you should know that this isn’t always the case. Some small towns near me have been hit hard by the opioid epidemic. Homes are falling apart, and crime is rampant. If you are considering moving to a small town to escape the crime of the big city, do your homework. Make sure the town you move to has a thriving main street and isn’t falling apart.
Friendly Neighbors
One thing I noticed immediately about living in a small town is how friendly the locals can be. I’ve lived in a lot of places and moved around a lot. Moving to this small town was the first time I’ve ever received a neighborly welcome. During my first week here, my neighbors stopped by to welcome me to the neighborhood with fresh baked goods – a “welcome to the neighborhood” basket that I thought was a myth.
However, it is also true that the locals are cautious of visitors and newcomers. It took a while for the customer service workers at the local restaurants and stores to warm up to us. But now that we’ve been here for a while and have established that we’re regulars, they are much more comfortable with us.
That being said, it’s not perfect. Although most folks are outwardly friendly, there’s still a sense of not fully belonging. More on that when we talk about the disadvantages of small-town life!
Close to Nature
Another great thing about living in a small town is that you are close to nature. I live about a twenty-minute drive from portions of the famed Appalachian Trail, and one day I will be able to hike more than a quarter-mile of it without literally dying. There are also many rivers and lakes for kayaking, mountain hiking trails for biking, and all the outdoor activities you could want, all within easy day trip driving distance.
However, not all small towns are close to the same type of nature. Small towns in the Midwest are probably closer to cornfields, and in the southwest, they are perhaps in deserts. My family lived in a small town in central Illinois for the longest time. Although there were cornfields as far as the eye could see, there were still many options for outdoor activities within driving distance (Illini State Park was pretty close, as was the Kankakee river).
Other Considerations of Small Town Life
Although these six things make living in a small town worthwhile, they aren’t the only things to consider when deciding where you want to live. You need to consider other things before moving to a small town, such as how people survive and make money.
How Do People Survive in a Small Town?
And this was the first question I asked myself before moving. As a city girl, I couldn’t imagine surviving in a town just a few blocks long. I can walk from one side of the village to the other on Main Street!
How will I enjoy all the things I’ve come to rely on living in big cities? The food at all hours, the nightlife, the ability to do whatever I want whenever I want?
I soon realized, however, that I never actually cared about those things. Sure, it can be convenient, but it really isn’t the end of the world. Your needs can be taken care of in a small town just as easily as in a big city.
How Do People Make Money Living in a Small Town?
The biggest hurdle to moving to a small town is the jobs. Big cities are where the best jobs are. Although you can find work in small towns, it is generally limited to low-paying service positions or manufacturing work (which is slowly being replaced by automation anyway). However, a few sectors generally have jobs available in or near any small town – healthcare, education, and sales, to name a few.
Additionally, some folks choose to live in small towns that are within commuting distance to larger cities. I live near Harrisburg and Reading, both cities with far more industries than my small town. Both are about a 45-minute commute.
With the shift to more remote working opportunities, the idea that jobs are only available in cities might be changing.
If you are interested in moving to a small town to save money, you should try to find a good job working remotely. Various industries are shifting to online work, like information technology, graphic design, project management, and even teaching.
What is the Best Small Town to Live in?
You will find thousands of articles trying to sell you on what small towns are the best places to live. But the thing is, the answer will be different for everyone. And those reporters definitely did not visit every small town in the country to come up with their list.
To determine the best small town for you, you need to assess your motivations for moving to a small town and your needs. Are you looking to save money? Then maybe your most significant consideration should be median home values. Do you need to be near enough a large city to commute there for work? Then you probably don’t want to move to a very rural small town.
Many small towns aren’t even that cheap. Jim Thorpe, Pa, for instance, is a small town near where I live. Nestled in the Poconos mountains, it’s a gorgeous little hamlet full of small-town charm. However, it’s a tourist town and relatively expensive compared to many of the surrounding areas. But if you’re planning to move to a small town to be close to nature, have a bit of bustle, and don’t care about cost, a place like this might be ideal for you.
Disadvantages of Small Town Living
Living in a small town isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. There are plenty of disadvantages, and before deciding to move, you should weigh both sides.
Food
As a foodie, it hurts that I can’t get any food I want. I was spoiled living in LA. All types of good food were just a short drive away! Now, if I wish to eat Indian or Vietnamese food, I must drive to Harrisburg or Philadelphia. The food scene here is severely lacking.
Thankfully, my small town has a Japanese restaurant, so I can at least get Hibachi and sushi. But besides that and the Chinese place, there aren’t any ethnic restaurants nearby. If you’re a foodie who loves to eat around the world, it’s something to consider.
Culture
The culture and values of people who live in small towns tend to be different than what you will encounter in a city. As a person who lived in cities my whole life, this was quite a shock. Most people are friendly and neighborly, but I still often feel like an outsider even after living here for a few years.
The town I moved to is very religious, and as a non-theist, I didn’t join any local churches. Unfortunately, this is where most people congregate and make friends. People notice when you don’t join the church group and either try to convert you or become distrustful of you. Thankfully, most people have been outwardly kind. But I feel a sense of community in the town, which I am mostly excluded from as an outsider.
I can only speak to my experiences as a white person. Although I can’t know for sure, I feel that if I were a person of color, my experiences here might be vastly different. No one has said or done anything racist, but they haven’t had the opportunity. And I’ve seen enough flags on enough houses to deeply question how some of my neighbors would behave if I were a person of color. I didn’t realize this when I moved here, which is the number one reason why I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to live in a long-term place where I can’t trust most of my neighbors to treat every human with dignity.
On the plus side, there is an Indivisible Chapter working in my county, giving me hope. Some people here want things to change and are working hard to progress things here in this county.
Opportunities
We talked above about finding work in a small town. Although some industries always have openings regardless of where you work, they are limited. If you cannot find remote work, your job opportunities will be sparse.
Retirees looking to downsize to a cheaper cost-of-living area won’t have to worry about this. Neither will folks who are in high-demand industries or who can work remotely. However, not everyone has these options. Some are in industries that demand in-person work, and if your industry is not available in a small town, you might be out of luck.
Schools
Another negative about living in a small town is that the public schools aren’t always as well funded as in big cities. This means you will have to be very careful about which small town you decide to relocate to if you have children. That’s not to say that all small towns have terrible schools. Some have much better schools than you will find in certain suburbs. When my cousins moved to Central Illinois, they had a much better schooling experience than in Chicago. There’s a small town near me with one of the top-rated school districts in the state! It’s no coincidence that it’s also the most expensive small town in the county.
However, not all small towns are created equal. If you have children that will go to public school, do your research on the school districts before committing to any particular town.
Enjoying my Small Town Time
I’ve lived in many places. Although I won’t say that the small town I live in now is the best place to live, it has its advantages. I’m glad I moved here, despite some of my issues with it. I’m saving a ton of money, getting fresh air when I walk to the store, and enjoying a lot of nature I didn’t get when I lived in California (though I miss living on the coast!).
Small town life has its charms. It’s also not all that different from city life if you think about it. As John Mellencamp (who, by the way, also sings the hit song “Small Town”) says:
“Well then, there, Diane, we ought to run off to the city,” Diane says “Baby, you ain’t missing nothing”
If you aren’t a nightlife person and aren’t in a career only available in big cities, you won’t miss much by living in a small town. And because you can save so much money, it’s worth considering.
She lost me when she expressed fear that the people in a small town with American flags might be racist all because they had US flags. Being afraid someone is racist simply for flying a US flag is in itself racist. The author is a real racist pretending she is not. Try not assuming people are racist because that is wrong.
Interesting comment. I actually didn’t say “American flags”. I said “flags”. There are plenty of flags with racist undertones, and although I didn’t specify all the different types of flags I see in my neighborhood, I can assure you that I wasn’t talking about the traditional American flag.
I think your take is very regional, which of course aligns with your experience. In the South many small towns are not walkable, they cover much larger areas because the population density is so much lower. Also much of the population around small southern towns lives outside the city limits. They also are not bicycle friendly as a general rule. But on the other hand many of them have high paying jobs, I made up to mid six figure wages in my small town career as an engineer and as you said, housing costs were so low as to be insignificant. Nice to see someone pointing out the good parts of small town life! As far as racism, I think you may be correct. Small town people have less experience with varied cultures, that often leads to fear of other cultures which leads to prejudice. I see racial signaling by the Confederate flags flying here. But it’s a very small minority of the population.