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Could You Move to a Small Town


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13 hours ago, SimonBolivar said:

Anyone want to move really out there? My brother lives two hours north of Amarillo and I don't know why anyone would want to live there unless the money was right.

My wife's grandmother and aunt live in Hartley, so this hits close to home. No way could I live anyplace that small. For fun they drive to Dalhart and spend an hour wandering the grocery store.

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I could, but it would probably have to be:

1.  Some small resort town that's insanely expensive, or

2.  A small college town.  If you weren't a fan of said college - and you probably wouldn't be - you'd just have to learn to live with it.  And you wouldn't want to live next door to a group of college kids.  But a university being in town means the town will never go to shit.  There will always be money there.  There will always be educated people there.  It will always feel alive.  Outside of college kids partying, there won't be the drug and meth issues mentioned above.

Take a place like Oxford, MS.  I'm not an Ole Miss fan and it would be annoying having everything revolve around their program, but its a great, nice, small town with plenty of things to do.  Population of only 18,000.  Very nice "downtown" square with decent shopping and a great selection of restaurants and bars.   Festivals and a pretty good music scene.  Highly rated public school in MS (oxymoron).

I'd probably even buy season tickets to football, basketball and baseball just to see some quality teams play and for social reasons.

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1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

One more thing.  If you have adult children, they'll never come to see you because you live out in butt fuck nowhere.  (This might be a plus, though.)  

We have in-laws who are in a small town that's way out of the way, and it's a chore visiting them.

For me,  there has to be a distinction made between small towns and remote towns.  I've lived in a lot of remote and/or small towns as a kid (thanks to parents working in O&G) from North Dakota to Texas to Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, and points in-between.  We still visit the Alpine/Marfa area a couple of times a year, and some small towns in Oklahoma and Arkansas, to visit relatives.  Remote towns suck because there was nothing to do at times, medical coverage, especially with little kids, can be iffy, and because the cost of living can be a lot more.  You also have to check the expiration dates when you buy stuff at the grocery store.   I wish I was joking on this last part.  Small towns, if they have a decent-sized city within an hour, can be okay.

If you have decent internet service and Amazon/shipping coverage, that can go a long way towards making up some of the issues people have with these places.

I'm rambling, but here in Texas, it feels like small towns near the bigger cities are hell-bent on becoming generic suburbs of those cities, so those are automatically out - might as well live in the bigger city, even if you have to live in a smaller house or apartment/condo, and get the benefits.  If you go too far out to get away from that, it gets into the issues with remote towns.

 

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1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

While you're romanticizing small towns, there's one thing you're forgetting.  They're filled with dipshits and meth heads/pill poppers.  It's mostly the stupid and/or lazy that stayed there and never left.  So, there's your new social circle.  Enjoy.

Here in Texas, and I'd say Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and some of the other states not too far off, I'd agree with this to an extent - there are plenty who remain behind because that's all they have.  But plenty go off and then come back, because it has what they want.  Still, you do get that, especially in the South and West.

But when we visit relatives in New York, we try to spend a little time in Vermont and New Hampshire, and you go through some of these small towns, and if we were to move to a small town, it would have to be in a place like that.  They are close to a lot of major metro areas, they usually have decent options for getting around within the region (decent roads, rail, etc.), and a lot of them are full of people who actually enjoy where they live.  They also have four seasons, and the decent snow/mountains adds a lot to the winter activities.  Oh, and their houses don't look like 15-day wonders and there's a lot of variety.

They don't feel quite as small, because usually they have a lot to do within a very short distance and the layout and architecture of small towns there differ from small towns here, because those small towns were laid out centuries ago.

You go through small towns in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc., and it's easy to recognize the different from say New England - our small towns are usually built around a railroad depot (or former depot), and they easily run together - towns built around the railroads were built by the same people - speculators, or people who were moving along with the RR to build the next town.  House designs were 15-30 day wonders (if that) meant to house people temporarily, and then they just kind of stuck around, and began to resemble what you think is taught at the Aggy School of Architecture.

Many small towns in New England just have a much different feel, particularly those built in the 1700s.

And many had a European influence.  You go to small towns in Western Europe, and many of them are just beautiful and well-designed.

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I would add that a lot of our small towns out west that were built around railroad depots in the 1800s - well, guess what else was built around the railroads - quite a few highways, and so you saw those small towns that were built around railroad depots later build themselves up around highway access, and the layout and composition reflects it.  If the railroad or highway stops being as important, those towns quickly suffer.

It's quite different from small towns in New England that were built long before railroads/highways.

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2 minutes ago, Kringelbert Fishtybuns said:

I can get it if you are retiring or you will never have kids. I can't imagine raising children in such a limited environment.

Yeah this is the deal.  I'd have no issue living in some tiny town as long as I was a reasonable drive to a major city (1 to 1.5 hours), but I'd never do that to my kids.  My in-laws live in Graham, TX, moved their when my wife went to college, and I can't imagine raising kids there.

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Lot’s of places in New York that I could see myself retiring to. Cooperstown is an awesome small town, Ithaca is the ideal college town on a beautiful lake, Saratoga Springs is gorgeous. I’d have to live somewhere else during the winter and taxes are a bitch but those towns would be a great place to spend retirement. 

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1 minute ago, Firemans4Horn said:

Lot’s of places in New York that I could see myself retiring to. Cooperstown is an awesome small town, Ithaca is the ideal college town on a beautiful lake, Saratoga Springs is gorgeous. I’d have to live somewhere else during the winter and taxes are a bitch but those towns would be a great place to spend retirement. 

Lived in Saratoga Springs for several years. It’s a really nice place. It sucks in some ways in the dead of winter. You only get about 8 hours of daylight at the solstice and it generally just stays cold. Lots of ticks and Lyme disease though.

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1 minute ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Lived in Saratoga Springs for several years. It’s a really nice place. It sucks in some ways in the dead of winter. You only get about 8 hours of daylight at the solstice and it generally just stays cold. Lots of ticks and Lyme disease though.

This sounds like a hellscape to me.

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3 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

Is the future of Sul Ross State stable? I've heard talk of them dropping all sports (who cares), but is the school itself in a good position?

I have been threatening my family that I'm going to get a job at Sul Ross for 15+ years.  (But it would have to be a dean job, and I don't want to be a dean, so it's not a real threat.)

But I have been hearing these rumors for 10+ years. 

1.  It would be incredibly difficult to shut down a college in this (relatively extremely prosperous) state.  It's not going to happen.

2.  Their presidents have been asleep at the wheel.  Sul Ross is exactly the type of school that can clean up on distance learning, and they have REALLY lagged on that. 

 

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7 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

It’s great in the summer. Decent fishing, kayaking, boating, etc all around.

Yeah, the Summer sounds good. I just don't deal with Winter very well. Shit, even the Texas winters get to me. I can't imagine only having 8 hours of daylight. I once spent two weeks in Omaha, Nebraska for work in February and I was going stir crazy. LOL I was just thinking I can usually handle a 5 day ski trip at the max but that's usually accompanied with copious amounts of alcohol. I think living up north would drive me to drinking.

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5 minutes ago, F250 said:

Yeah, the Summer sounds good. I just don't deal with Winter very well. Shit, even the Texas winters get to me. I can't imagine only having 8 hours of daylight. I once spent two weeks in Omaha, Nebraska for work in February and I was going stir crazy. LOL I was just thinking I can usually handle a 5 day ski trip at the max but that's usually accompanied with copious amounts of alcohol. I think living up north would drive me to drinking.

I got used to the cold after about 1 winter up there since the temperature doesn’t fluctuate a lot. Enjoyed chopping firewood and running a wood stove. 

I liked Saratoga Springs because it was about 30k people and generally had no traffic (except on big horse racing days in the summer). There were a lot of outdoors stuff to do year round. Albany was about 45-60 minutes away if you wanted to go to a big city.

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It is easier to move from a small town to a city than it is to move from the city to a small town.  

I grew up in a small town 3k+ people and spent my adult life in Houston and the metroplex.

Now live in the sticks,  10 miles from the closest town and it has 1200 people.  I love it,  but I believe most people that have lived their life in a city would have a very hard time adjusting.

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57 minutes ago, Kringelbert Fishtybuns said:

I meant small towns in general over simply Alpine.  That being said a quick review of the Alpine demographics should prove sufficient.

I think there's a lot of "limiting" factors about living in a big place and going to a huge high school.  Your kid's opportunities for participating in extracurriculars are extremely limited.  Your kids won't know most of the kids they went to school with.  Your kids won't develop a sense of community.

I said upthread that my daughter actually thanked me for choosing to live in Wimberley instead of San Marcos or south Austin or New Braunfels like everyone else I work with does. 

She got raised by not just my wife and I, but by wonderful people in the community who took an interest in helping out kids.  People who said, hey the school music program is kind of subpar, so we're going to offer to teach kids how to play the guitar after school.  For free.  Hey, the art program is weak, so we're going to run an after-school art program.  For free.  Mike McNeal, who decided that he wanted kids to get more interested in science, so he created an event where kids could show up and do science experiments.  For free.

Meanwhile, at school my daughter was taught by some of the greatest people I've ever met.  I already mentioned that we had an absurdly high rate of 5's on a couple of AP tests.  One of her best friends went to Harvard.  One went to Stanford.

She also got to participate in varsity athletics starting in her freshman year.  She literally knew everyone in her graduating class.  She learned to love (or at least accept and support) all of these people, no matter how different, because they were part of her town.

But more than anything, she learned about being a part of the community and the power of having a sense of community.  And I would put that WAAAAAAAAAAAAY up near the top of things that anyone should learn. 

And you don't learn that in a big school in a big city. And I think the absence of that is a big part of this country's problems.

So don't tell me that small towns "limit" their kids.

Edited by Beau Vine
Damn, I went soapbox, didn't I? Sorry.
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38 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

Is the future of Sul Ross State stable? I've heard talk of them dropping all sports (who cares), but is the school itself in a good position?

BTW, their sports are D-3 -- no scholarships. 

So dropping sports would mean fewer kids paying tuition to come there.

No way they drop sports.

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3 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

I got used to the cold after about 1 winter up there since the temperature doesn’t fluctuate a lot. Enjoyed chopping firewood and running a wood stove. 

I liked Saratoga Springs because it was about 30k people and generally had no traffic (except on big horse racing days in the summer). There were a lot of outdoors stuff to do year round. Albany was about 45-60 minutes away if you wanted to go to a big city.

I have a friend in Seneca Falls. I visited once after traveling to Syracuse for work but that was in June. We used to fish a lot together here before he moved to NY. He said I should come back for ice fishing. I said this place is nice but I'm not coming up here in the winter.I  assume Saratoga Springs is similar to Seneca Falls.

Something most people don't realize is there are legitimate red necks in NY.

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Some small towns are very nice and have some scratch.  Some are complete shitholes filled with losers (see basically all of East Texas and the Golden Triangle).  I love the Hill Country and plan on buying land within easy driving distance of a town like Fredericksburg, Wimberley, Bandera, New Braunfels, Junction, Marble Falls, Boerne, Ingram, Mason, Leakey, Taylor, Sabinal, Utopia, etc.  That lifestyle has a lot to offer, IMO. 

And what would I do after 3 months?

Hunt game and birds, fish on a river or stock pond, do a little legal work out of a small office near the courthouse, hike, drink, go watch some small town high school sports, float the river, play golf, BBQ, ride around the ranch, mess with the cattle, work on feeders/pens/blinds/food plots/pivots, other ranch work, sit by the fire, shoot targets, shoot skeet, etc.

My wife is from a small town and wants to move someday soon.

It costs money to live the way I want to live in a small town as buying acreage is expense.  But probably less than it costs for the way I would live in Houston.  And more enjoyable.

Fredericksburg is my main target.  Good restaurants.  Biergartens.  Bars.  Wineries (some pretty decent).  Enchanted Rock.  Pacific War museum.  Pedernales.  Luckenbach.   A lot to do.  65 miles from San Antonio's airport.  80 miles from Austin. Better weather than Houston.

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The fact that Waco and Laredo and Garland have been mentioned means there is a really warped idea of what qualifies as a small town.

The "single high school" rule is a good one, but also it can't be part of a greater metro area.  30 minute minimum drive to any place with a population higher than, say, 250k.

 

 

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2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Here in Texas, and I'd say Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and some of the other states not too far off, I'd agree with this to an extent - there are plenty who remain behind because that's all they have.  But plenty go off and then come back, because it has what they want.  Still, you do get that, especially in the South and West.

But when we visit relatives in New York, we try to spend a little time in Vermont and New Hampshire, and you go through some of these small towns, and if we were to move to a small town, it would have to be in a place like that.  They are close to a lot of major metro areas, they usually have decent options for getting around within the region (decent roads, rail, etc.), and a lot of them are full of people who actually enjoy where they live.  They also have four seasons, and the decent snow/mountains adds a lot to the winter activities.  Oh, and their houses don't look like 15-day wonders and there's a lot of variety.

They don't feel quite as small, because usually they have a lot to do within a very short distance and the layout and architecture of small towns there differ from small towns here, because those small towns were laid out centuries ago.

You go through small towns in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc., and it's easy to recognize the different from say New England - our small towns are usually built around a railroad depot (or former depot), and they easily run together - towns built around the railroads were built by the same people - speculators, or people who were moving along with the RR to build the next town.  House designs were 15-30 day wonders (if that) meant to house people temporarily, and then they just kind of stuck around, and began to resemble what you think is taught at the Aggy School of Architecture.

Many small towns in New England just have a much different feel, particularly those built in the 1700s.

And many had a European influence.  You go to small towns in Western Europe, and many of them are just beautiful and well-designed.

Never thought about the historical differences in how the towns were laid out.  Makes sense, though.

I think what we're all trying to say on this thread is that we'd live in small towns if they're high end.  (Fredericksburg, Napa/Sonoma, certain NE towns, college towns, etc.)  However, those towns are the exception to the rule when it comes to small towns.

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38 minutes ago, F250 said:

I have a friend in Seneca Falls. I visited once after traveling to Syracuse for work but that was in June. We used to fish a lot together here before he moved to NY. He said I should come back for ice fishing. I said this place is nice but I'm not coming up here in the winter.I  assume Saratoga Springs is similar to Seneca Falls.

Something most people don't realize is there are legitimate red necks in NY.

Most of NY outside of NYC is rural. There’s plenty of rednecks up there. A lot of the guys I knew up there hunted and fished.

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9 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I think there's a lot of "limiting" factors about living in a big place and going to a huge high school.  Your kid's opportunities for participating in extracurriculars are extremely limited.  Your kids won't know most of the kids they went to school with.  Your kids won't develop a sense of community.

I said upthread that my daughter actually thanked me for choosing to live in Wimberley instead of San Marcos or south Austin or New Braunfels like everyone else I work with does. 

She got raised by not just my wife and I, but by wonderful people in the community who took an interest in helping out kids.  People who said, hey the school music program is kind of subpar, so we're going to offer to teach kids how to play the guitar after school.  For free.  Hey, the art program is weak, so we're going to run an after-school art program.  For free.  Mike McNeal, who decided that he wanted kids to get more interested in science, so he created an event where kids could show up and do science experiments.  For free.

Meanwhile, at school my daughter was taught by some of the greatest people I've ever met.  I already mentioned that we had an absurdly high rate of 5's on a couple of AP tests.  One of her best friends went to Harvard.  One went to Stanford.

She also got to participate in varsity athletics starting in her freshman year.  She literally knew everyone in her graduating class.  She learned to love (or at least accept and support) all of these people, no matter how different, because they were part of her town.

But more than anything, she learned about being a part of the community and the power of having a sense of community.  And I would put that WAAAAAAAAAAAAY up near the top of things that anyone should learn.  And I think the absence of that is a big part of this country's problems.

And you don't learn that in a big school in a big city. 

So don't tell me that small towns "limit" their kids.

I am happy this worked out for you and the intention was not to attack someone else's parental decisions - although I could have worded my response better.  I like Wemberley and have spent plenty of time there as my parents live nearby.  Surely you can see the difference between Wemberley - a 1 hour drive from the #7 and #11 most populous cities in the US and the generic small town close to nothing.

As far a any sense of community, I think you make your own community.  Much like UT was large at first.  Once you started getting into smaller and more focused classes, everything starts to shrink.  By the time you are at the end, you have been studying with the same people in the same study room/computer lab for two years and everybody is helping everybody.  The same goes for a larger city.  The nice thing about a bigger city is the fact that if you are a little different or into different things, the odds of you finding someone else that is into the same things is much higher. 

My high school graduating class had +1000 people.  My community was probably 30 kids from different backgrounds.  Our parents all knew each other and were actively involved in helping out/supplemental parenting.  Everybody thinks larger cities are impersonal until something big happens.  Just look at the neighborhoods in Houston during Harvey.  If that wasn't communities showing unity, then I don't know what was?  

I think the lack of sense of community many feel really stems more from a general lack of empathy.  But that is for a different discussion.

 

 

 

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36 minutes ago, Kringelbert Fishtybuns said:

I am happy this worked out for you and the intention was not to attack someone else's parental decisions - although I could have worded my response better.  I like Wemberley and have spent plenty of time there as my parents live nearby.  Surely you can see the difference between Wemberley - a 1 hour drive from the #7 and #11 most populous cities in the US and the generic small town close to nothing.

As far a any sense of community, I think you make your own community.  Much like UT was large at first.  Once you started getting into smaller and more focused classes, everything starts to shrink.  By the time you are at the end, you have been studying with the same people in the same study room/computer lab for two years and everybody is helping everybody.  The same goes for a larger city.  The nice thing about a bigger city is the fact that if you are a little different or into different things, the odds of you finding someone else that is into the same things is much higher. 

My high school graduating class had +1000 people.  My community was probably 30 kids from different backgrounds.  Our parents all knew each other and were actively involved in helping out/supplemental parenting.  Everybody thinks larger cities are impersonal until something big happens.  Just look at the neighborhoods in Houston during Harvey.  If that wasn't communities showing unity, then I don't know what was?  

I think the lack of sense of community many feel really stems more from a general lack of empathy.  But that is for a different discussion.

 

 

 

A HS graduating class of 1000 sounds fucking terrible.

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2 hours ago, Zepol87 said:

Is Asheville a small town? I could do that in a heartbeat

 

43 minutes ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

Almost half a million in the metro area.

Yep, and bumps up against the Greenville, SC metro, so add another million+ people.  Greenville & Asheville share a tv market, which is bigger than Austin's.

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23 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

New Jersey is full of quaint villages that give you the New England visuals minus the New England mark-up, and probably a month less of winter. Whenever you feel like it, drive to the nearest train station and be in downtown Philly, or Manhattan, in an hour.

My Step-Dad's brother and his wife live in Edison NJ. Cool little town, and less than an hr to NYC or Philly.

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1 hour ago, Beau Vine said:

BTW, their sports are D-3 -- no scholarships. 

So dropping sports would mean fewer kids paying tuition to come there.

No way they drop sports.

My sister plays basketball (no pics) in the ASC and that was the rumor that was going around. It could have been that they were leaving the ASC or something similar and she misheard.

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1 hour ago, Beau Vine said:

I think there's a lot of "limiting" factors about living in a big place and going to a huge high school.  Your kid's opportunities for participating in extracurriculars are extremely limited.  Your kids won't know most of the kids they went to school with.  Your kids won't develop a sense of community.

I said upthread that my daughter actually thanked me for choosing to live in Wimberley instead of San Marcos or south Austin or New Braunfels like everyone else I work with does. 

She got raised by not just my wife and I, but by wonderful people in the community who took an interest in helping out kids.  People who said, hey the school music program is kind of subpar, so we're going to offer to teach kids how to play the guitar after school.  For free.  Hey, the art program is weak, so we're going to run an after-school art program.  For free.  Mike McNeal, who decided that he wanted kids to get more interested in science, so he created an event where kids could show up and do science experiments.  For free.

Meanwhile, at school my daughter was taught by some of the greatest people I've ever met.  I already mentioned that we had an absurdly high rate of 5's on a couple of AP tests.  One of her best friends went to Harvard.  One went to Stanford.

She also got to participate in varsity athletics starting in her freshman year.  She literally knew everyone in her graduating class.  She learned to love (or at least accept and support) all of these people, no matter how different, because they were part of her town.

But more than anything, she learned about being a part of the community and the power of having a sense of community.  And I would put that WAAAAAAAAAAAAY up near the top of things that anyone should learn. 

And you don't learn that in a big school in a big city. And I think the absence of that is a big part of this country's problems.

So don't tell me that small towns "limit" their kids.

2

There's definitely something to be said about going to a modestly sized high school for providing opportunities in leadership, athletics, academics, and good ol' community building. I really don't know where I read it, but I don't think I'm making up the following: According to some research study, they found that the optimal size for a four-year public high school was about 1,500 students since it would provide those bolded benefits above but also be of sufficient size to provide all the various subject offerings needed for a well-rounded and academically challenging education. Given that along with Dripping Springs' relative prosperity and proximity to Austin, it's no wonder that the town is blowing up.

Off to the next one high school exurb within a decent distance of a booming tech hub!

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Town of 9,000. 90 minutes south of Billings. Town has an airport serviced by United to Denver and delta to slc, because of Yellowstone, and good medical services because of lots of retirees. 

Biggest issue by far is the only schools available are public and religious private. Would like a secular private option. 

Second biggest issue is there’s only one employer for me. If my job goes away for any reason, we will have to move unless I want to try to sell cars or something. 

I buy my meats from a ranch up the road, and I buy produce from a farm by the river, when I can. 

Fishing, hiking, hunting, skiing all over. 

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I decided to look up a list of the micropolitan statistical areas of Texas. There are 43 of them. The requirements for qualification is to 1) form an urban cluster of at least 10,000 and 2) NOT be a suburb of a major city as measured by commuting patterns (this is a legit Census Bureau designation).

KsthdpPm_t.jpg

I hope this image isn't too small. I'm still trying to figure out the imgbox thing.

Edit: There are several from this list I've never been to. Sell us on your top five. 

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1 minute ago, bolverk said:

I decided to look up a list of the micropolitan statistical areas of Texas. There are 43 of them. The requirements for qualification is to 1) form an urban cluster of at least 10,000 and 2) NOT be a suburb of a major city as measured by commuting patterns (this is a legit Census Bureau designation).

KsthdpPm_t.jpg

I hope this image isn't too small. I'm still trying to figure out the imgbox thing.

Given my same pay (or more) as now I’ll take Brownwood, El Campo, F’burg, Stephenville or Uvalde. 

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