How big was the town you grew up in?

[Ink]

I grew up in a town of about 12000 people.

 

[Jennywocky]

The actual place where I lived? It was literally a crossroads in the middle of nowwhere, so about 100-150 people max maybe in that immediate area (possibly less... maybe only 75?).

Where I went to high school, about 8 miles away, the wikipage says it only had about 1600 people in the town itself in the mid-80's.

 

[Brontosaurie]

i think 60.000 but it's a distant slightly posh suburb so not very dense.

 

[Ink]

Pros/cons of small/large towns? I am probably moving to a city that's over ten times the size in a few months and can't help but feel it will improve my life tremendously. It's hard to get inside of the community again after a social fuck up in small towns, and even if you do manage it after much work stuff you did in your past will always be like it happened yesterday. Ideal city size?

 

[redbaron]

Growing up I lived in both inner city and compete isolation. I answered on the top end of the poll, since I live in an inner suburb now and I guess I'm still, 'growing up'. I've lived in various small towns of less than 5,000 people, and also lived in a place where the nearest house was 15km away.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

I grew up in a 'town' of.... 70?

 

[Brontosaurie]

Growing up I lived in both inner city and compete isolation. I answered on the top end of the poll, since I live in an inner suburb now and I guess I'm still, 'growing up'. I've lived in various small towns of less than 5,000 people, and also lived in a place where the nearest house was 15km away.

how old are you perchance??

 

[redbaron]

22.

 

[kaelum]

Growing up I lived in both inner city and compete isolation. I answered on the top end of the poll, since I live in an inner suburb now and I guess I'm still, 'growing up'. I've lived in various small towns of less than 5,000 people, and also lived in a place where the nearest house was 15km away.

Since you've lived in both, which one do you prefer? (I've only lived in the same city, so I'm genuinely curious)

 

[Puffy]

I'd say about 200,000. It was/is a really middle of the roads place to be honest. Largely white UK town, industry focused with very little cultural vibrancy. The one store I ever found that catered to independent music and books liquidated within a month I'll remember the few conversations I had in there forever though.

If this is a question of where I'd prefer to be. Definitely somewhere with access to an area of greater population density. It just means more people doing stuff, more interesting things you can potentially join in, more spaces to roam and explore. The town I'm in is just stagnant -- not even enough population to cater for an independent cinema -- being here really gets me down. :/

 

[Hadoblado]

A town of about 300-400 people. It's interesting, we seem to be vastly over-represented.

 

[redbaron]

Since you've lived in both, which one do you prefer? (I've only lived in the same city, so I'm genuinely curious)

I love having access to nature in isolated areas. It's great to have easy access hundreds of hiking/walking trails and be surrounded by numerous national parks. Downside is that rural areas generally breed pack mentality and repression - Puffy's post about sums it up, although it does depend what town you live in, in my experience they are quite culturally dead with the exception of tourist towns.

City is the opposite. A park just isn't the same as an isolated hiking trail. There's less wildlife to observe and enjoy. That said people in cities have less of the hive mind mentality generally, there's more places to see and access to a lot more culture.

Suburbs are hit and miss I find. A bad suburb is really awful. A good suburb is great.

 

[Words]

I grew up in many towns, cities, villages. What do you mean grew up? Does that include 1 years of stay? 2-years? 5 years? 10?

 

[Puffy]

I love having access to nature in isolated areas. It's great to have easy access hundreds of hiking/walking trails and be surrounded by numerous national parks. Downside is that rural areas generally breed pack mentality and repression - Puffy's post about sums it up, although it does depend what town you live in, in my experience they are quite culturally dead with the exception of tourist towns.

City is the opposite. A park just isn't the same as an isolated hiking trail. There's less wildlife to observe and enjoy. That said people in cities have less of the hive mind mentality generally, there's more places to see and access to a lot more culture.

Suburbs are hit and miss I find. A bad suburb is really awful. A good suburb is great.

Whenever I've lived in cities I'd often travel out to the countryside at weekends to get more of what you're describing here in complement to it, as I like hiking. Cities represent their own ecologies though, incredibly multi-layered and complex both in a sensory and structural sense. It's a very different kind of exploration, but rewarding in its own way.

Personally I just find small towns to be a limbo like no-mans land. Not quite a city to get the benefits of ^ or the variety of population density and not quite rural enough to get the benefits of privacy, closeness to nature, etc.

 

[redbaron]

Whenever I've lived in cities I'd often travel out to the countryside at weekends to get more of what you're describing here in complement to it, as I like hiking. Cities represent their own ecologies though, incredibly multi-layered and complex both in a sensory and structural sense. It's a very different kind of exploration, but rewarding in its own way.

Personally I just find small towns to be a limbo like no-mans land. Not quite a city to get the benefits of ^ or the variety of population density and not quite rural enough to get the benefits of privacy, closeness to nature, etc.

Yeah I was going to say that about rural cities/small towns. They can be really awful. Limbo is a good description. It's like all of the bad with none of the good

This is basically what I've decided is best overall as well. To live in an outer city/inner suburb area. I have access to the city in a short train ride, and am close enough to have the density of different cultures and types of people - but it's also easy to pack up and drive out to an isolated countryside in under an hour.

 

[alysa]

I grew up and graduated from high school in a small town just north of the downtown area. The population is currently over 16000. I'm living in a bigger city now with a population of 129000 people.

I would think, Words, that the question would concern the city you stayed in the longest. It would have had the most impact on your development and growth in theory.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

It's interesting, we seem to be vastly over-represented.

So far the scaled results factoring in expected population frequency are:

5k--------2800
15k-------466.67
30k-------116.67
100k-----35
500k-----28
1.5m-----11.67
3.5m-----2

J-curve

 

[Words]

I would think, Words, that the question would concern the city you stayed in the longest. It would have had the most impact on your development and growth in theory.

What if every location(say 10) was close to equal staying period but then every location have varying sizes of population? Do you look for a median size?

 

[Kuu]

I added a poll option for cities larger than 3.5m ... I live in one that's slightly over 4m now. It could be a great place, but it isn't (a source of much frustration). The small minded, xenophobic, money-chasing lack of vision ingrained in its population makes it feel more like an oversized suburb, in the worst connotations of the word.

I'd question the generalization of towns vs cities that is happening here. A large city can have a lot of well-maintained and protected nature and a small town could be in the middle of a wasteland, etc. A huge industrial city could easily be a cultural hell-hole, and a town 1/10 the size might be a cultural paradise. Far too many specific factors are being ignored. Cities are far too complex.

A very common aspect of larger cities is that prices for most things tend to be higher, though wages tend to be higher too...

 

[Lot]

I grew up in Phoenix, currently 6th largest city in the US. It wasn't the biggest when I was growing up, but it was still pretty populated, and has been growing my whole life. I may have done just fine in a smaller town, but I didn't have a terrible life in the big city. May have been my sheltered childhood.

 

[Jennywocky]

I should also say that I've slowly moved to bigger and bigger towns.

1600 -> 10,000 -> 49,000 -> 43,500 -> 2,690,000

I'm laughing at that last number. raised in a town of 75, now I live in a city of 2.7 million.

And I gotta tell you, while I like to live on the outskirts of the metro area (so i can get to countryside and forests pretty quickly), I love the metro area far more. Much more diversity, more things to experience, more access to things I might want. I felt very stifled in Small Town USA.

 

[TimeAsylums]

And I gotta tell you, while I like to live on the outskirts of the metro area (so i can get to countryside and forests pretty quickly), I love the metro area far more. Much more diversity, more things to experience, more access to things I might want. I felt very stifled in Small Town USA.

<3 I've lived in many different places/been raised in different sizes, but I put my main one up there. I'm all about them new experiences + diversity...and more people leads to that

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

So what accounts for the curve?

Introvert bias (underestimating the number of people due to lack of interaction and/or longing to live in sparsely populated regions)?

Is this forum used by those with fewer options for socialization/entertainment, assuming urban areas provide more of these?

Are y/our parents biased towards sparsely populated regions? Socioeconomic factors at play?

 

[Jennywocky]

<3 I've lived in many different places/been raised in different sizes, but I put my main one up there. I'm all about them new experiences + diversity...and more people leads to that

I think for a long time people freaked me out. I'm still kind of solitary but as i got older, I liked the experiences and potential for contact more... plus those areas were very conservative and stifling for me. I never really fit in. It was rather like the realization I had one day that I wasn't an evangelical... lol. (No wonder orthodoxy didn't sit well with me.)

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

About 20 000.
We lived on the edge of town though.

 

[Sim]

I grew up in a town of around 26,000, though I now currently live in a town of about 60,000. I'd really love to live in a huge city such as Chicago or New York when I'm finished with schooling. INTP's have more to analyze and contemplate in bigger cities.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

I probably cannot suffer to live in a city where the driving distance to a sizeable forest is longer than 30 minutes.
I come from a city of 140k-160k, quite peaceful, surrounded by forests and close to mountains.

 

[Redfire]

I grew up and still live in Buenos Aires. If you include the suburbs, we have more than 15 million people here. 3 million in the city itself, where I actually live. 12 million in the suburbs.

I always used to say I'd like to live in a smaller place, but when I do, I get frustrated at the lack of some things. Like supermarkets that don't ever deliver to your home? That sucks. I guess it's hard to get by in small cities if you don't drive. Also, I like to have at least some stores who open all night, in case I need something that late.