Submitted 2 days ago by Worx@lemmynsfw.com to [deleted]
As a non-American, I’m very confused by this. If it’s a town, it’s not rural by definition. Because, you-know, it’s urban.
Also, could we get a definition of town vs small town. Do you not have the concept of a village? (Village in the UK would be a settlement with a population of a couple of thousand, with usually a pub, local shop, maybe a post office and primary school if you’re lucky).
I grew up in a village in Ohio, population around 350, which was pushing the numbers honestly. Around 1000 is a town I think.
A nearby “city” is constantly in and out of city status. They always try to bump the numbers because city status means more funding. They are around 25000 pop.
You’re familiar with market towns in the UK? A bit like one of those but with hours and hours of agricultural land all around it. A solitary high street in the middle of nowhere.
N.B. I’m not USian so don’t know what I’m on about…
This guy has a YouTube channel of him just driving around small towns in the rural Midwest USA. youtube.com/@joeandnicsroadtrip
There are towns that are entirely just housing developments with no stores, no services, and no schools for miles. We are extremely spread out and even a town of a couple thousand people can have nothing nearby. These are what I’ve always known as “rural” towns. Farming communities and suburbs entirely cut off from the bigger cities by miles of just empty fields and farm land, in addition to places like up around Mariposa with populations of sub 100 people, cut off more by the mountainous terrain than because of how the infrastructure was built up.
A suburb would literally be suburban, not rural.
Is it really a suburb if it’s 30-50 miles away from the nearest city or amenities and not just in the surrounding area on its outskirts? Cuz many of the towns considered suburbs are that distance or more from the city they are supposedly suburbs of.
I think of a rural town to be an area big enough to have a name but too small to have its own police department (so all law enforcement is done by a sheriff’s office and/or state police).
Respectfully, there is absolutely nothing ***typical ***about New York City. There isn’t a single other city in the entire country that even begins to compare to NYC’s size and scale, and complexity.
A “typical” American city would be White Plains, NY, or Richmond, VA.
The first picture isn’t very typical of rural towns either.
Rural usually means Hillbillies.
Colloquially, it just means a small municipality. A “rural town” is a small municipality that is not near a larger metro area.
Town has a specific meaning in some states. I’m from Ohio. There is no such legal meaning here. Any municipality over 5k residents is a city. Anything other than that is a village. I am from a city with a population of about 6k. Outside of the city limits is farmland. I would say I’m from a small town/rural area.
Caveat: none of these are formal definitions. This is what I am thinking of when using or hearing these terms.
I wouldn’t call it an “urban” area unless I can see a privately-owned 4+ story building with an elevator. Government buildings don’t count: they might be the sole example of a 4+ story building within 50 miles. Partial elevator access (intended for handicap compliance to the lower floors) doesn’t count.
“Suburban” extends from the limits of the urban area, out to where the farms or forests are larger than 100 acres. Suburban areas are primarily comprised of single family homes, but you may also find 1-3 floor apartment complexes.
“Rural” is anywhere outside of both urban and suburban areas.
A commercial or mixed commercial/residential area - that isn’t large or congested enough to be considered an “urban” area on its own - would be a “town”. A “rural town” would be a town not connected to a suburban or urban area: you can’t get to a city without passing large farms or forests.
A town won’t have its own police force. They will rely on the county sheriff’s department for law enforcement activity. Once it is large enough to have its own police, it becomes a “city”.
In my area, a “village” is a town populated exclusively by people with twice the median income.
Very detailed, thanks :)
Low population, low density, lots of farm land, can count the number of houses in a mile stretch of road on your fingers. May have one small commercial area within 15 miles with a dollar general, a gas station and, if you’re lucky, a grocery store. Not nearly enough businesses nearby to employ people even the measly number of people there that isn’t a farmer, so they commute to neighboring towns or counties to find work in factories, possibly dozens of miles away. I basically just described where my sister lives in Tennessee.
A small town would be a village in the UK. But because we’re big tough MURICAN people we can’t just call it that cuz who knows? Like you said, it would be a few thousand people living a slightly inconvenient distance from a larger urban area.
I used to live in the state of Georgia. In South Georgia there were 2 big towns. I’d go so far as to call them decently sized Cities. Albany and Valdosta. And scattered all over the place are smaller towns like Baconton for instance. Baconton would barely qualify as a small town. The biggest attraction was a small grocery store on the side of I-75.
I’d call Albany and Valdosta cities. Baconton? Never heard of it. Small town in my book.
EDIT: Just looked. Hell, you got a Dollar General and a school? Small city. :)
The dollar general is new. Wasn’t there when I left.
“urban” means city, not town
How many dollar stores are required for it to be classified as a town?
One Dollar General. If you have a Family Dollar as well you are in the big city.
If you have a Dollar Tree also, you may in fact be in the 'hood.
Lol. Last Christmas my wife saw a ad for something dollar tree had on sale, the irony in That comment, like super cheat wrapping paper. I forget
I’ve never stepped foot in one. I went in with her, browsed it’s 4 aisles and it’s super discounted barely would pass for dog food freezer aisle. And said we are going and never bring me to one of these stores again
I pay village taxes and town & county taxes. 😟
I’ve lived in 20 different cities/towns/villages across five States, and I can tell you that no one really knows how to define these things accurately, at least in common parlance.
Tappahannock VA is absolutely what I’d consider to be a rural town, but when compared to a place like Waterboro ME, it feels positively metropolitan.
I think, in general, a “rural town” is usually understood to be a relatively small, centralized area of mixed-use zoning in typically agricultural regions; a population under 10,000 with a few main streets with things like general stores, a few diners or restaurants, a grocery market, and single-family homes. These places almost always grow around farmland.
A “village” might be something more along the lines of Pleasantville NY or Cornish ME. They don’t rely on agriculture and have centralized social dynamics.
There’s also, wildly, a difference between “rural towns” and “small towns.” Golden CO is not a rural town, even though it shares many of the characteristics of one. It’s a “small town.”
That being said, people from New York City will often refer to Boston as a “town” so I guess a lot of this is relative.
Lived in Sidney, NE when I was super young. Population 6,000 and ain’t shirt around it but corn, missile silos, I-80, and the occasional train derailment.
On paper sure they are villages, but I think a US village and one from elsewhere would likely feel drastically different. Lacking actual community (see Bowling Alone), or just look at the decay of it: all of the things that the village lost (shops, train station, industry etc) and what it still has(franchise dollar store, gas station etc).
It could just be coincidence, though “retirement village” is a term (also ecovillages) so maybe not. Aside from decay, I’d imagine the common perspective of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it (unless you stop for gas/maybe breakfast) probably doesn’t help with image either.
See “nuance: lack of”
A village would be an “unincorporated town” in the US, administered under the county. There are a few actual incorporated villages, but they are small towns that just chose to call themselves that.
The main difference is that an incorporated city/town/etc has its own municiple government … a “village” would still be run by the county.
Holliday, mo. when I lived there the population was 300. but I only ever saw ten people. I commuted to work in Columbia.
I recently passed through Maple Creek, CA. It’s a rural “town” that as far as I could tell a schoolhouse and a firehouse.
maps.app.goo.gl/Rb5Tqt6Y75GHTkFJ9?g_st=com.google…
The closest city is 30mins away and even that only has a population of 1000.
Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Yeah, we don’t really use village in the US. A town is anything with a population smaller than about 10,000ish but the exact number will vary with the density and vibe. If you can’t drive across the entire population center (where it’s roughly broken into blocks) within the span of Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd (Single version not Album Version) then it’s two big to be a town.