Small Town Living
My wife and I found that we like small town living for some
of the same reasons we like living in a large city. In Tucson,
where we live now, we can walk to the store or hop a bus to anywhere
at the corner. This is great for my wife, who doesn't drive,
and for both of us, because we like to walk. We love it here.
When we lived in Anaconda Montana (population less than 10,000),
we could walk any where we wanted to go. We loved small town
living too. We didn't enjoy it when we lived in a town that was
too big to walk around, but too small to have public transportation.
Though we enjoy both small town living and big city life,
there are clear differences. One is only better than the other
on an individual basis, according to what you value most. We
are still undecided as to which we prefer. Since many of the
best home buys are in small towns, and finding a cheap house
is the focus of this site, I have reprinted the article below
on adjusting to life in a smaller community.
Adjusting to Small Town Living
By Dan Ross
Sometimes your chosen career path can take you away from the
bright lights of the big city to the quiet, slow pace of a rural
community.
If you want to be a ski instructor, for example, you will
more likely settle in one of the small Rocky Mountain towns of
Steamboat Springs, Durango or Beaver Creek than in the big city
of Denver. You may be in the motion picture/television business
where a job awaits you not in Hollywood, but in the burgeoning
film capitols along the Carolina coasts in Wilmington, North
Carolina (Dawson's Creek) or Beaufort, South Carolina (The Big
Chill, Forest Gump, The Great Santini, Prince of Tides.) Perhaps
you've taken a job in food technology for a prominent manufacturer,
but you won't be living in Grand Rapids or Battle Creek - chances
are you'll bed down in Hastings, Michigan.
What kind of housing will you find when you arrive? What will
the lifestyle be like? And will you be able to adjust from the
pace of the big city to the more relaxed, neighborly lifestyle
of small town living?
As a renter, you will more likely find yourself living in
a small apartment unit or a house than in a large apartment complex.
Since apartments are created to meet the demands of a transient
population, with turnover expected every six months to a year,
a large apartment building would have to generate enough rentals
to cover seasonal periods of low rentals, plus attract new renters
on a revolving basis. A small town is not likely to have a large
enough employer base to attract that number of renters, unless
it is a military base or a tourist or coastal town. Instead you
will more likely find house rentals, which can be found through
local REALTORS®, or large homes which have been subdivided
into duplexes, triplexes and quadriplexes. Bed and breakfast
inns or boardinghouses will be more common for temporary living
arrangements. Gone will be the anonymity of big city apartment
life.
Norman Crampton, author of The 100 Best Small Towns in America,
Macmillan, and a veteran of the city-to-town downscale move,
has some insights into some adjustments you will want to consider
before making the move from a large city to a small town, the
first of which is housing. In small towns, people are much more
likely to own their own homes or to own rental properties, but
the norm is likely to be single-family detached dwellings. While
some small towns will mirror state averages in owner-occupied
housing, some areas can be significantly higher. For example,
in Monroe, Wisconsin 69.3% of homes are owner-occupied, while
the state average is $66.7%, but in Mount Pleasant, Texas, owner-occupied
housing is 72.3% while state home ownership is 60.9%. Plymouth,
New Hampshire, with a large off-campus student population (Plymouth
State College,) boasts approximately 45% multifamily housing.
So what is a small town, according to Crampton? A small town
is between 5,000 and 15,000 people, with independent social and
economic bases and stand-alone economies. For the criteria that
he used to select the best towns for living, Crampton included
the proportion of residents in the 25-34 age group, people he
calls the "young volunteers" and "the new recruits
for local leadership." Also included in his criteria are
annual growth rate; per capita income; per capita bank deposits;
crime rate; available physicians; public school expenditures
per pupil; and percentage of population with a bachelor's degree
or higher ( an indicator of possible employment opportunities.)
Small town living is not just in the logistics, it is also
a mind set. Living in a small community knits people together,
explaining why some behaviors may come unraveled in a more crowded,
faceless environment. Take crime, for example. Everyone knows
each other in a small town, so random violence by strangers is
relatively rare. Some feel so safe and comfortable that they
never lock their doors. Community involvement is another benefit,
with volunteerism highly encouraged. Explains Crampton, "Small
towns nurture the essential first part of civilization - civility...people
don't honk their horns very much in small towns."
Will you be able to adjust to less noise, pollution, traffic,
crime, loneliness and pressure? Surprisingly, Crampton notes
that small town life is not for everyone. It is the small town's
simplicity that may make the difference. Making friends takes
time. Along with less noise and hub bub is less excitement, but
if you want to concentrate on family values, enjoy the sense
of community, enjoy a higher standard of living in terms of affordable
housing and services, and slow down the pace of your life, you
are a good candidate for small town living.
Since 1989 Dan the roommate man has helped 1000's of people
find roommates. Need help? Contact him at 800-487-8050 or http://www.roommateexpress.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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