[rescue] OT: response to "small town"

[velociraptor]

On 10/7/05, Wes Will <wwill at siu.edu> wrote:
> >> Is it the small town that makes the diff?  Something in the air?  I
>
> >Could be- in our small Minnesota town our mailman has biscuits for the
dogs
>
> It is a small-town thing.  Most definitely.  Warmth in wooden form, for
sure.

>From first-hand experience, I'd have to say /some/ small towns.  The
small town that I am from, and also the small town in another country
that my husband is from are both far less inviting.  No one speaks to
me when I am visiting unless one of my sibs or one of my parents
are along (they all still live there).  Can't say that I really mind that
much, though, never cared for the place.

Likewise, I'd have to say that the fearful attitude that you portray for
city-dwellers, while common, is not really necessary.  The only areas
in the US where violent crime has consistently risen in the US are
the rural areas.  Violent crime in cities occurs in very specific areas--
areas that the majority of people never venture into, much less
experience in any real sense.  Peruse the FBI's crime statistics
page--it's all public info.

I live quite close to what some would characterize as the most dis-
graceful capital in the first world due to the crime rates.  I've walked
to and from the transit stations since I got here in the spring of '04--
and remember I'm in IT, so these are not all 8-5 hours--and I've had
no incidents nor seen any, for that matter.

Having said that, I will also state that I don't act like a sheep, and I'd
never consider living over in the little People's Republic of Kali clone
next door, nor in DC.  However, that's got more to do with my personal
position on weapons of self-defense, rather than anything else.

My ideal location would be "out in the country", a few miles outside
a cheerful small-to-medium sized town but within 90mins of a good
sized city so that the cultural aspects were still available.  Well, I'd
really rather be on a quiet island in the South Pacific...

=Nadine=