I was born and raised in the Bronx of NYC, but never liked city living. You see, I loved horses ever since I can remember and you can't have a horse living in the city. At least not in an affordable sense or your backyard. Once I was old enough to be on my own, I moved out to the Nazareth area in PA, which at the time was a nice, small friendly town. People living here knew most everyone and it was a safe area to raise children. Your children's teachers knew the children and their parents in the school personally. It was a rural, agricultural area, low taxes, and I could keep a horse or two. Lots of open space around. That sounded great.
As the years went by, more and more people were moving into the area from NY and NJ. More and more of the open land was disappearing and more and more homes were being built. The local schools were getting crowded to the point where more schools needed to be built. You would walk into the little shops in town and people were no longer giving you personal service because they were just there to make money. You did not even recognize your neighbors anymore. These "foreigners" claimed to be living out in the country, but, how can it be country when there is no open space? These people even complained about the animals and their smell. Now, let me ask you this. If I can't keep my horses in the country, where am I to keep them??? The animals were there before the development began.
As more homes were built, more stores and malls followed, along with more traffic, more stop lights, congestion, etc. The roads are being widened to accomodate the traffic. Even local zoning seems to be more accomodating to the development than the agricultural. (They just look at the money generated from the taxes.) The building just doesn't seem to stop.
Where are the small towns headed to? Does this mean that eventually we will no longer have the small towns with the small town feel? Everywhere you go, will there be shopping malls around the corner and developments everywhere you look instead of fields, trees and wildlife? If people want to live in the city, they should just stay in the city instead of converting the small towns into cities and chasing away the locals.
Really rural small towns will stay small towns.
There are tons of small towns in Pennsylvania that are starved for growth.
Proximity to a desirable urban setting puts small towns at risk.
You know that the small town is gone when you keep hearing police cars with their sirens rushing down the street. Plus, the neighbor's car has been broken into and the local bank has been robbed. It never used to be like that in this small town.
I live and work in Norco, California also known as "Horsetown USA" and the town is growing to be a city surrounded by other cities, but Norco keeps in't rural charm. Minimum city lot size is half acre, We don't have sidewalk, there's a network of trails truout hte whole town. hitching post are mandatory on businesses.
Take a look at the number of horses http://www.norcolife.com/feed/
Take a look at the front of my office. http://www.norcolife.com/RE/Default.htm
Take a look at the slide show here. http://www.norcolife.com/links/default-3.htm
Cowboy. THIS COWBOY RIDES THE EXTRA MILE.
There's a place called POZO in the central coast California. try www.pozosaloon.com Pozo is a small town population 40. there's a Saloon from the 1800's and they have concerts every so often with bands like "Big and Rich", "Willie Nelson" etc.
That's a real small town.
Cowboy.
SAVE A HORSE RIDE A COWBOY.
Amen, Brigita! If folks like city living, they should stay there; if they want to live in the country, they should help keep it rural!
Hosie:
When I go down to GA, I'll have to check out Willacoochee. I'll make sure my eyes are open when I do. Don't want to miss it.
Vinnie:
It's unfortunate that small towns are slowly dying. They have charm and friendly town folk.
Kathy:
It would be nice if there was some way we could preserve the small towns. Maybe we can put them on the extinction list. You think that might help?
Hi, Laura!
Thanks for the input. My point for this post was to show that the small towns are no longer what they used to be. They are growing and losing that small town feel. Nazareth, for example, is not like it was 30 years ago. Many locals are moving out of the area and the city people are moving in and changing the small towns. The small shops are going out of business because of the chains and 24 hour places. Just 6 months ago, our neighborhood pharmacy, which was a family owned business, was forced to close its doors. We knew the employees and owner and had a friendly atmosphere. It just wasn't able to keep up with the chains. These are the things that are being lost in the small towns.