Originally Posted by seamstome
I live in a rural suburb of Chicago. Everyone on this Board probably knows exactly what my town looks like because we were the site for the filming of the movie Ground Hog Day.
Population 25K in a county of 300K. We used to be farming economy, then manufacturing, then construction based and now we are unemployment based economy with a good chunk of the employed people commuting over an hour to work like my hubby. It is like a diamond ring that the setting is cracked and tarnished.
No real anything here but within a 45 minute drive I have everything there is.
Which rural suburb are you from? I grew up in Melrose Park (urban suburb) and now live in Braceville (rural tiny town).
My town is quite small .. less than 1000 (and that includes the farms that have this postal code). We have a Casey's (like a 7-11) and that's the ONLY retail business in town. My husband and I call it the "Civic Center" because if you want to know anything that's going on - just ask one of the girls that work there. One Church (I don't know the deomonination), an excellent volunteer fire/paramedic department, and when the big snow hit last week our streets were plowed by 8:30 and the mail was delivered by 9:30. It's very quiet here, little traffic, no sidewalks, very little crime, mostly good neighbors (except for the bi-polar psychopath that lives next door, introduces himself as "Elvis" and doesn't have a vowel in his last name (guess he never paid Vanna)). It's actually an old coal mining town that was originally owned by Peabody. We have an old cemetary that has stones dating back to early 1800's. Oh ... we're also along Route 66.
One of the things I like is that a good amount of neighbors garden so a lot of us share plants. In fact, because my husband and I have a business in the horticultural industry we are responsible for starting a few neighbors get into gardening.