I was going to post this in the movies part of the forum because that's most of what I am going to be talking about in the opening post, but it really has to do with people's perceptions of small towns, and that has to do with their own experiences and perspectives. But I thought I'd leave the thread open to discussions of small towns in general. Nevertheless, it annoys me when I hear, read, or see... A national news show referring to Portland, Maine as a "sleepy, Maine hamlet." With a population of nearly 70,000, Portland is by far our largest city, as the next largest city has half that many people. As compared to London or New York City, Portland is not large, to be sure, but it's not a sleepy hamlet. Television shows that are described as being set in a small town being filmed in a city with high-rises and large shopping areas, as I have lived in small towns that don't even have traffic lights, and some that didn't even have one store. Television shows and movies rarely show anyone with a brain in small towns. Everyone there is a hick who is fortunate to have completed third grade. Someone from the city always has to show them how to save their town, their ranch, or whatever, because they're too stupid to think of it on their own. The theme of so many movies is that anyone who has remained in the small town that they grew up is a failure because they never made it to the big city. Small towns are frequently portrayed as being corrupt. In reality, the majority of them are probably less corrupt but corruption is more noticeable in a small town than in a large city - that, and the fact that people have a better chance of doing something about it in a small town. I also find it humorous when a movie is supposedly showing someone stranded on a deserted road, miles away from anywhere, but there are street lights.
There's been a growing trend over here of people leaving smaller towns and moving to larger cities (preferably 500,000 and above or to whatever is closest to the place the want to leave.) It's a kind of downward spiral. Young people want to party, they miss entertainment, other young people and what they call "action" in smaller towns. So, as soon as they can, they will leave the house of their parents. The biggest problem in rural areas and smaller towns is health care. After having graduated those young folks don't want to start a doctor's office in these regions which makes also middle-aged people leave thus making the problem worse. The internet connection is very often not up to standard putting young people as well as companies and start-ups off. There are not enough jobs and solvent consumers. In the end you get smaller towns with only elderly people and a very poor infrastructure. So far no one seems to have a master plan how this situation could be improved.
That's because, despite occasional rhetoric to the contrary, the plan (UN Agenda 21) is for people to move from the rural areas into cities, and from single-family homes to multi-family homes.
Unfortunately our Government is doing everything it can so that it can own as much land as it can too...which is still part of an Agenda.
@Ken Anderson " I also find it humorous when a movie is supposedly showing someone stranded on a deserted road, miles away from anywhere, but there are street lights." And, no matter how isolated or desolate, the cells work......invariably. Frank
I grew up in a small town, and I feel very fortunate to have done so. It was very self-sufficient and was a great place to grow up. All that has changed, however, and the place is not the same. I don't think I would like to live there now, as redevelopment has destroyed many of the old places I remember fondly, and although it is only a small one, Wal-Mart has put most of the local small businesses out of business. My brother still lives there, and that is the only reason I ever go back. True to the movies, most of the people I graduated from High School with who still live there are the failures of the class, at least the guys.
@Don Alaska Understood. However, at least they did graduate. Not to imply then that wanderlust leads to success, does it? For example, I left the Chicago area at 30, having been born and brought up in a relatively small town, though it was a suburb of the big city, primarily because of the persistent graft and corruption of the big city, secondarily due to having finally ventured westward on a honeymoon trip at age 23, and witnessed with my own eyes, the grandeur of the West and Southwest. I did not leave in haste, but planned it carefully, taking over a service station (6 months before the Arab Oil Embargo!). Did I do this with faulty intent? Did not expect to get rich (and wound up, in retrospect, completely dependent on S/S). Returned to my hometown only a few times over the years, to attend funerals, and was indeed dismayed, as you were, to find the changes in my hometown to be far from beneficial. A good place to grow up after WW-II, but today gang activity, grafitti, and illegally occupied homes of several families each are rife. In comparison, my high school buddy, Charlie, who doggedly pursued a Masters in Metallurgical Engineering while I fiddled with my cars, remained in Chicago all these years. Others I knew as a student I know nothing about. Frank
I grew up in a small city which grew as I did to eventually have a population of one hundred plus. In the 1980s i took a job with a mobile home manufactering company in a small town. I found the people clannish, distant, difficult to get acquainted with, and when you did they were friendly but never close. If you lived in this small town twenty years you could never be one of them. That's my impression of small towns, more or less.
@Bill Boggs Exactly what we encountered when we moved to the Missouri Ozarks "Bible-belt" from Phoenix. Very clannish, virtually all residents devout Baptist, friendly and helpful enough, but distant, always asking over again, why don't I come to their church. A neighbor down the road, Bob, told me early-on he had lived there 30 years, and was still an "outsider", because his wife was Catholic, and he Agnostic. Nonetheless we stayed 13 years, until the yen to keep stoking two wood-burning stoves to keep warm, as well as the lure of the West where we spent 20 years previously, drew us back to the Desert. Frank
I looked at the major tenets of Agenda 21 but didn't find anything that would supported this. Yet I admit that I haven't read 340 pages of the original document yet. Could you provide evidence where you found that? What I understood was that the Agenda 21 is about reaching a more sustainable development in terms of consumption patterns, promoting health, population, and decision making at local level which then seems to be the opposite to promoting cluster formation in big cities.
As it is being implemented here, it is encouraging small communities within the bounds of cities. In other words, reduce automobile traffic and have densely populated areas where everything needed is within walking distance. It is what Americans think Europe is like on a local level. Here it includes a lot of bike trails and obstructions on highways. I don't know if that is what is intended, but that is how the people here interpret it. I don't think the actual decisions are made at the local level, though. I think it is imposed on the locals by others above.
Thanks, that's interesting in three aspects. I was struck by the difference in interpreting and implementing Agenda 21. Now I've found the original document. (http://www.un-documents.net/a21-05.htm) According to that it becomes clear that Agenda 21 is not a one-size-fits-all master plan for all countries but it recommends formulating integrated national (.) policies for environment and development. So it's no surprise then that the design and implementation will be different in each country and region based on national and local conditions. That's basically all I wanted to be sure about. What is also interesting is that certain demographic trends are not encouraged but that their existence has to be acknowledged while policies should be designed to react to them. So far they have not come up with any sustainable policies to curb those demographic trends, e.g. the migration to larger cities. Maybe they have in the US. The development of small communities within the bounds of cities might be such a national policy that you are observing. And you are right: such an encouragement within large cities is not new over here but has been going on for a long time. The federal structure facilitates decision-making at community level and also at regional level anyway. But that is no panacea and can also become counter-productive when local decisions in fact intensify demographic trends away from smaller communities. It all depends.
Small towns are nice to live in, IF a person/persons "fit in". Small towns have lifestyles that locals don't want to have outsiders changing. Years ago, I'd go to Norco, California to a Sunday Jackpot Team Roping (don't know what that is, do a "search" online). Norco was definitely described as a "horse town" and each summer had a very nice paying rodeo that drew in lots of rodeo fans. Due to the cost of most things in Orange and Los Angeles Counties, a rather large number of folks were moving to Norco. Many had tats and piercings, which sure didn't "fit in" with the locals. These outsiders wanted to turn Norco into a small "big city" and the "fight" with the locals started. These outsiders didn't like the smell of horses or any other kind of livestock that was there, sidewalks that were dirt, not cement and a few other things that made Norco a great place to live to those that had been there for years. When I took my wife there for breakfast, we both had the Norco "look" of Wrangler jeans, boots and hats. We "fit in" and was never stared at by locals. but, after speaking to a few locals, we understood the problems they were having with the new outsiders. Many don't like small towns saying "everyone knows your business". Wife and I don't care about that, because we are friendly.
It wasn't much different if your religion was the same as theirs and you attended the same Baptist church. You were sitll an outsider and they had many ways of reaminding you.
I found in my travels that the small towns in the North were more accepting that the ones in the South. Small towns in the Midwest were suspicious of you if you were a stranger, but generally accepting once you lived there. In the South, however, I had a friend who married a local girl after WWII, and wasn't accepted as part of the community after 50 years in residence. I have heard reports from people who lived in Utah small towns that religion was the determining factor also. In the North, I found that being a contributing member of the community (having a job or means of support) was all that was required to be accepted.