Submitted 2 months ago by Worx@lemmynsfw.com to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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).
Americans tend to describe locations more by density and arrangement rather than population. Kinda similar to how we refer to distances in time rather than distance. In a city you have a LOT within 5 minutes of you at any time. Within a rural town you have… maybe 5 neighbors within that same span of time walking.
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.
I live in ely nv it is the most remote area in the lower 48 states. It is 4 hours from Las Vegas, 5 hours from Salt Lake City, 5.5 hours from Reno, and 4.5 hours from Boise. There are some other towns along the way to each city be ely is basically in the middle of nowhere.
This sounds great to me. What do you do for work? I’m assuming it’s mostly desert down there so not farming.
I work in the mining industry I’ve been doing it for 20 years now it pays good and I live in north eastern Nevada and it’s not really desert it’s kinda mountainous with flat valleys. The towns population is about 4k I was born and raised here. The only really bad thing which I consider big is the deep conservative mindset of pretty much 95% of everyone here.
How do you have internet?
I have Hughesnet it’s not the best to have but the only option is this and Starlink and I’m not giving my money to musk. Supposedly google fiber will be here in a year or so but I’ve been hearing about that since 2020.
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.
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 :)
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.
Anything with less than 50k is rural
Nobody that actually lives rural would agree with this. 50k is a big town.
As someone from rural Wisconsin, I’d say anything under 5k personally
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).
“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’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.
Wow, apparently words can change meaning across cultures. Who would have figured this was possible? American’s rarely use the word “village” - a “town” can be anything from a few thousand people down to I don’t know, maybe like five. And the word is very subjective - some places that make a proud point of calling themselves “the city of …” are IMO small towns at best. Rural means an surrounded by a fair amount of countryside, be it farmland or nature. I think most Americans loosely associate “urban” with closely packed “big” buildings - maybe 5-7 stories or more, and mostly wouldn’t agree with you that a “town” is urban by definition.
The numbers are pretty funky depending on who you ask. City nerd on YouTube has a nice video on it how people view themselves as rural/urban and what city planners think of it.
You have a lot of people that identify as rural even though they live in exurbs (town adjacent to city) and a lot of people that live in remote areas identify as urban people.
I’d personally say that people that live in a urban/metro area are not rural. People who live on a farm 50km from the next population center of 1000 people is definitely rural. Everything between depends on a lot of factors like how big is the village, what is the village close to etc.
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.
I pay village taxes and town & county taxes. 😟
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.
Contemporarium@lemm.ee 2 months ago
There’s villages, towns and cities.
Cities can have unlimited traffic lights, towns are limited, and villages can have one.
I moved from Orange County CA to the rust belt and there are a lot of former thriving towns around the main city I live in that have since turned to villages. It’s wild because you’ll see intersections that obviously used to have lights that now have stop signs or just nothing
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’ve never once heard an American use the term “village” to describe a municipality, even ironically.
tmyakal@lemm.ee 2 months ago
It’s dependent on a given state’s terminology. New York, for example, has villages. They’re municipalities that fall within towns, but collectively offer additional services that the town does not. So I could live in the village of Pomona, in the town of Haverstraw, and I’d need to pay taxes to the village and the town separately.
Contemporarium@lemm.ee 2 months ago
It’s not rly a term that’s used but it’s the correct term as well as what it says on welcome signs. Like “welcome to the village of [name]”. Most people just use the term town/small town. I was just explaining the true difference between the three for OPs question