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).
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Here are some descriptions and photos of what most small towns look like: https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/trip-ideas/washington/slow-paced-towns-in-wa
A really small town is like what you’re calling a village. I think most people outside the US think that rural is closer to urban areas than it usually is. It typically starts a half hour outside a major city and then can be 7-10 hours to the next major city depending on what state you’re in. The upper east coast is probably closer to Europe. Rural encompasses a huge swath of the US land, and most are very isolated physically and mentally.
Here is a map showing the population densities: https://irjci.blogspot.com/2020/08/census-bureau-to-end-counting-efforts.html
Rural usually means Hillbillies.
How many dollar stores are required for it to be classified as a town?
They’re still cities, but people tend to start calling them “rural” when you get a certain distance from the big cities and things spread out, often also near farmland and/or nature.
For example, this would be probably count as rural.
That’s different from anything I’ve seen in the UK. Every house seems to be surrounded with lawns and so spread out, and yet you still need whatever that giant building with the green roof and car park is. Presumably a shop? Why’d you need such a big building for so few people? And why are all the houses detached with no terraces? Very strange…
(All of that was rhetorical, I’m sure it makes sense if that’s what you’re used to. And having more room to spread out and less history to deal with)
Hyperindividualism and car culture explains it all. Americans don’t trust each other (especially not their neighbors) and want to put as much distance between themselves as possible. We’re also mostly NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard) and have very strict zoning laws that prevent commercial and residential buildings from coexisting in the same area. This is great for the auto industry because it means you can’t do anything without driving, and they lobby the government to block any attempt to change things.
Our suburbs are liminal spaces that more closely resemble purgatory than actual communities, which is why everyone who grew up in them is at least slightly insane.
The town by my camp is about that size, 900 souls, and that includes a great deal of surrounding area. We have a general store/gas station, restaurant, mechanic, hair place (still open?), Post Office, fire station (unmanned I think?), two churches, halfway house, tiny school of some sort and a Dollar General, two “cities” 20-miles in either direction. Most of those 900 souls are in the surrounding country.
I would think this is OP’s definition of “village”. There are smaller places in between those two cities, but Holt is the “big” one.
OP: We don’t use the term “village” in America. “Small town” can be a confusing term as that may mean what I described, or it might mean 30,000 people in a suburb attached to a larger town. Or, it might mean any amount of people at all. 🤷🏻
My uncle lives up in Omak
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omak,_Washington
This is a small town. We don’t call them villages, we call them towns for some reason.
Technically speaking, Omak is a city actually.
We’re in the Philly burbs and it’s known as a Village.
This is a small town. We don’t call them villages, we call them towns for some reason.
The word village implies community, and we don’t do that kinda thing in the states.
A town in the USA has a population requirement of at least 5,000 people. However that can be spread out over hundreds or even thousands of square miles.
Villages do exist (I live in one) and it is generally defined as a smaller incorporated entity within a town.
So, for instance, I live in the country of the USA, in the state of New York, in the county of Allegany, in the Town of Andover, in the Village of Andover. It’s like nesting dolls of government and taxes.
An American Small Town sounds a lot like your village.
But, we have like 10,000x as much space to spread out in, so we can have these villages every 10 miles or so in every direction. You could easily drive for 24 hours across the country and easily avoid all major cities.
It means the town doesn’t have a Walmart
Damn that’s actually a pretty good definition. Huh
Thanks,
After thinking about it a bit, towns with a large corporate presence, like a major grocery store etc., but no Walmart, would fall somewhere in between rural and urban. Low or no corporate presence is almost always a rural town.
WTF is a lorry? They look a lot like trucks to me.
It’s a truck with the steering wheel on the right and no nose
LMAO I have never completed the story mode of grand theft auto 5. Last night I was doing a mission with Trevor and he says wtf is a lorry. your comment made me chuckle
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.
Lived in Sidney, NE when I was super young. Population 6,000 and ain’t shit around it but corn, missile silos, I-80, and the occasional train derailment.
Holliday, mo. when I lived there the population was 300. but I only ever saw ten people. I commuted to work in Columbia.
Yeah, we don’t really use village in the US. A town is anything with a population smaller than about 10,000ish but the exact number will vary with the density and vibe. If you can’t drive across the entire population center (where it’s roughly broken into blocks) within the span of Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd (Single version not Album Version) then it’s two big to be a town.
“Town” is generally used to mean “something smaller than a city”. I live in a town, and the population is about 30K. It’s technically a township, but people don’t really use that term widely. I know that doesn’t really clear things up, but your real answer is “it’s complicated”.
“Village” isn’t used anywhere in the USA as far as I know. Places with <500 people call themselves a town usually. Where I’m from in NH (close to these towns), residents call themselves townies. “Small” is kinda just used as a grammatical intensifier in all the cases I’ve heard it used. YMMV in the south or Midwest though.
Villages are quite common in the north eastern US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_(United_States)
The term village is used to describe certain categories of populated areas, either colloquially or legally, in 27 states.
Lots of villages in NH, although I don’t think it’s a legal term. For example, Wakefield NH residents seem to refuse to accept that they have a town. They refer to the legal township as “the villages of Wakefield”, and when asked their residency, will say “I live in the village of Union” (or Sanbornville, etc.) also, there is the village of Milton Mills in the town of Milton, and Gonic in Rochester.
