12 Reasons to Live in a Small Town

Living in small towns has special challenges and delights. When I say ‘small’ I mean ‘small’. The town I live near has approximately 250 people. The county seat has 3600 and the county has about 16,000. So this is rural America. You might think this county was in the western states where the population is lower and space is not a problem.

No, I live in Illinois. The other Illinois, as I call it. That which is not Chicago. When you say you’re from Illinois everyone thinks Chicago. There’s a whole lot of the rest of the state that’s not close to the Windy City or its suburbs. There are a number of highly populated areas downstate. Springfield, Peoria, the Quad Cities, East St. Louis, Carbondale, etc. Then there’s the farm land counties. I live in one of those.

So here’s my list of reasons to love living in a small town:

1. Listening to the car radio and smiling as the announcer tells of the traffic backups in the city. You and only one other car are on the road and its coming toward you. You wave as you pass even though you might not know the driver
2. You know all the teachers at your child’s school and you chat at the grocery store with your child standing nervously beside you.
3. The police also know your kids and the kids know this when they get their driver’s license.
4. Even the police don’t care if you do a swoop. It’s a U turn to pull into angle parking on the other side of the street. They prefer you use your turn signal.
5. Walmart isn’t so huge that you need one of the wheelchair carts to get from one end to the other.
6. Everyone at McDonalds, as well as other restaurants and stores knows you and remembers what you typically order. They ask about you if you’ve not come in for a while so you tell them if you know you will be gone on a certain day so they don’t worry.
7. Four cars at a four way stop is a lot of traffic.
8. You can run into the store, bank, etc. leaving your car running because it’s cold and no one will steal it.
9. You can let your kids play outside while you stay indoors.
10. If you’re in an electric wheelchair you can ride it around town and drivers will watch out for you.
11.  People will go out of their way to help. We have a woman with dementia in my aqua exercise class at the Y. One of the employees goes and picks her up since she no longer drives. One of the ladies in the class takes her home. Unless we did this for her she would not be able to attend.
12.  There is normally a place in the parking lot of Walmart and the grocery store close to the entrance. This is especially important on rainy, icy or melting snow days.

I’m sure there are more. If you live in a small town and can think of more leave one in a comment and I’ll send you a free story.

---