Are people in small towns part of modern society?
Any time I go to a small town it feels like I’ve gone back in time. How come small towns lack modern conveniences?
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114 Answers
What modern conveniences are small towns lacking?
Uber, parking meters that take credit card, strip clubs, sushi, etc..
They lack “modern conveniences” for the same reason they lack people, jobs, ambitions and relevance. As such, they wind up as enclaves in several categories. The great majority are the decaying remnants of an age when family farms were viable before the rise of corporate mega agribusiness.
I live in a small city that doesn’t have Uber, parking meters that rake credit cards (or, for that matter, parking meters at all) or a strip club. We do have sushi. Your idea of “modern conveniences” is pretty damned bizarre.
This is a silly question.
Are you the user from a while ago that was incensed by dogs and vegan restaurants? You sound very similar.
How’s this? Do you have a Home Depot or Lowe’s? How about Indian food? Can anyone fix a Porsche where you live?
I live in a small town. We do not have a strip club or parking meters. We do have a Lowes, a Home Depot, a Verizon Store, an AT&T store and 2 large grocery stores, and many restaurants, including Indian, Mexican, Italian and a couple of chain restaurants.
We have cable, dish, smart phones, computers. I’m not sure what small town you have been through, but my small town is an integral part of modern society.
I have a lake house that is in the middle of 3 very small Wisconsin towns and all 3 have what I would consider modern conveniences such as city water, sewer service, medical care, cable/wi fi and garbage pick up. (No strip clubs or parking meters) Though the nearest fire department is 15 minutes away, so I know if I have a fire I am pretty much on my own and that I consider a modern inconvenience.
We live in a small town and like the fact we don’t have those things you mentioned.
Seriously? I live in a small town to avoid the traffic that comes with those things. (Not the only reasons.) If I need the things you mentioned, I can drive 10 miles. (Except for the strip club, which is a non-issue.) I have a post office, a choice of three gas stations, three ATMs, a good restaurant, a decent pizza place, a biker bar, a drugstore, a butcher, a liquor store, and a very good school system. We don’t have parking meters because on-street parking is free. With that and the miracle of parking lots, I have lots of places to park my car. My polling place is ¾ of a mile from my house. We have cable and high-speed internet. I’m not sure what you think that small towns are missing.
What do you mean by “part of modern society.”?
We even have a free public indoor swimming pool, two decent sized grocery stores, a train depot, a bus service, a tanning salon, a few hair dressers, a really good pizza place, a really cool old-timey restaurant, http://www.caferampa.no/images/Om_oss.jpg A police station, a daycare, a pretty old church https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i6RaUnl7Tc, a library, a brand new, really awesome civic hall / theatre….
A population of 4643. Technically a village and not a city.
And… um… since when are strip clubs a sign of anything civilised or modern?
I live in a small town not too far from a city. If I want sushi I can drive 20 minutes and go to a restaurant. There are no parking meters anywhere because we don’t need them. The lot in the center of town is free and open but does have a sign stating: “72 Hour Limit.”
There is no strip club and we like it that way. Anyone who want that can drive 30 minutes to find a couple.
We have a post office, 3 hair cutters, 3 pizza places, a liquor store, a grocery store, a bar, a pharmacy, a Chinese restaurant, an Italian restaurant, and a family restaurant, and an ice cream store.
Almost forgot… the auto repair shop and gas station/convenience store
It’s great!
Doesn’t sound like any of you have uber. That’s a spot on example of not being part of modern society.
Why would we need Uber when almost everyone has their own transportation, and parking at our un-metered spots isn’t a problem?
Small town here with Lowe’s, Home Depot, Menard’s, Sam,s club etc, etc.
There’s a porn store, but I bought the dying strip club and turned it into a bustling auction house.
What’s wrong with not being part of modern society? If you want to burn wood in your house and drive an old pickup truck forever you can. I’m just pointing out that people in small towns aren’t part of the same culture as the rest of us.
@Buffaloman and we don’t want to be, and take all the violence and crime that comes with your large modern cities as well, don’t want or need uber here like driving myself when and where I need to.
And what is this culure you speak of, we can do anything you can do, with anything from a ten minute to hour drive, don’t want or need it next door.
Don’t be so quick to dis small town life. There are more than ample reasons to defend small town living in contrast to the ugly aspects of big city existence. Which is exactly why for decades no one in their right mind wanted to rear their children in the metropolis in which they were compelled to work.
I don’t need Uber, I have a 2015 car. What we don’t have here are gang members. I like it just fine thank you.
I rarely do this but….. troll.
He’s not worth our time.
@Buffaloman – as the rest of us? Us? What us? And how is having Uber an example of not being part of society?
PS: The township is 4,600 people.
PPS: I forgot the tanning salon, bookstore, two dentists and one lawyer.
I think of people who welcome change and technology as part of modern society. When I go to small towns I see none of the things that I’m used to seeing, which makes me feel like I’ve gone back in time. Do you see where my ideology comes from?
Back in time where the fat wives and inbred children live? The good old days when old women didn’t do yoga on mats at the gym?
Uber is the poster child for big city sleaze at its finest. It’s a slick operation designed principally to destroy the taxi business through exploiting the people who drive Uber vehicles by capitalizing on the moribund reaction times typical of big city political machinery.
Oh! I remember! Are you Esteban1? He used to ask questions like yours. The tone seems so similar. There was one about disliking vegan restaurants, too, if I remember.
Small towns like Portland Oregon, Las Vegas Nevada, Portland Maine, San Antonia Texas, Tuscaloosa Alabama? Broward County Florida?
None allow Uber.
What change and technology do you expect to be apparent in towns you visit, @Buffaloman?
You’re defining “modern culture” as big city culture. A lot of the ‘modern conveniences’ you list are actually responses to the problems caused by overcrowding. Why would smaller towns correct problems that don’t they don’t have?
I don’t think of Uber as being the standard to which citizens should aspire.
I also don’t think small town life needs to be defended, nor does big city life. To each his own.
As Sean Connery would likely say, “there’s shomething amish about this queshtion”
@ibstubro You consider those small towns? Vegas has over 20 high schools.
No, @dammitjanetfromvegas. Those are towns lacking in modern society and culture because they don’t offer Uber service.
It’s possible that one might even be lacking – GASP – Indian food
But that’s alright…they can visit me here in the rural Midwest. I had delicious Indian buffet this week!
My answer to the question is still NO.
Ah, Gee @Buffaloman if you allready knew the answer , why ask it then?
Oh and keep your moderen culture I will happily stay with mine, big city living isn’t for everyone, especially if you don’t really like people in the first place.
We have high speed internet, natural gas, city water and sewer, and trash pick up,could give a rats ass about uber anything, still can go to a movie, see a play, or any type of resturant we want with just a short drive, so if we are backwoods culture for ya then by all means please leave, and don’t let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out.
Wait…Indian food? I thought sushi was the determinant!
Thank goodness I live in a small town that doesn’t charge me 325.00 a month for a gym membership. Our gyms cost between 10.00 and 40.00 a month and let old ladies on the mats.
What use would Uber be in a small town where you can drive and park anywhere FREE without hindrance? It’s only the horrors of big city living that allow a sleazeball operation like Uber to persist in the first place.
We don’t have Uber,... we don’t need it because we have real, affordable, modern public transport. Uber in America is basically the idea they got from the developing countries pirating taxi services. Far from modern.
@canidmajor: every now and then one comes along like this. The names change, the attitudes are the same. I try to pay them no mind, and like a pesky fly, they will soon disappear.
You must be from a small town, @canidmajor.
Sushi, Home Depot, Indian Food and parking meters define cultured society.
Aldi has frozen sushi if anyone is in a cultural bind.
Ah! Because YOU can’t SEE the modern technology, it’s not there! As for welcoming modern technology, drop by some time and I’ll be happy to show you some tech. Even tech nerds live in small places.
I haven’t poked a troll in a while. It’s mildly amusing.
How many electric vehicle charging stations in your small town?????
None. And…? Electric cars aren’t a practical option for many people. When and if they are, you will see more charging stations in more public places.
You know, @Buffaloman, even in my small city I don’t know how many electric vehicle charging stations there are, as I don’t have an electric vehicle. That kind of a need-to-know thing, wouldn’t you say?
electric vehicle + small town = charge at home
How many gay bars in your small town??????
There are small towns and there are small towns. Let’s talk about places like Sausalito, Palm Springs or the Hamptons.
Sausalito isn’t a small town. They every possible modern convenience.
Of course it’s a small town. It’s a small RICH town. You aren’t talking about size or population, you’re talking about flyover country, and places formerly thriving now relegated to shrinking outposts in economic deserts.
I’m talking about population. Places in the middle of nowhere.
We don’t need electric cars in small towns because we have these.
I live in a fairly large city and I’m pretty sure there are only like five public electric car charging stations, and they’re all at libraries. And, they’re always empty, because the people who can afford electric cars scoff at public libraries. So really, they’re really elaborately wasted parking spaces.
Again, re:gay bars, kinda need-to-know. I also don’t know where the cop bars are. I don’t even know where the dog park is because I don’t use it.
But we have cops, so I’m guessing there’s at least one cop bar, and I know a bunch of gay men here who love to dance, so I’m guessing there’s a (at least one) gay bar.
Not sure about indoor plumbing.
Does Tinder work in your small town??????
@Buffaloman there is a national online ‘meeting-place’ that has been functioning here well before any Tinder app started. Another thing Norway leads the world in, besides most electric cars per capita, is casual sex.
Uber, Tinder… Are you 14? That’s the only reason I can think that these would be your gauge for a functioning community.
Who said anything about a functioning community? Just accept the fact that people in small downs aren’t modernized.
I have high speed internet in my home as do most people. There are free wifi hotspots that cover the town so everyone can use them. How’s that for modern? We have running water, and electricity.
I figure if there was a demand for the businesses you mentioned, they would exist. There are no strip clubs because they would go out of business . There is no need for Uber because we can walk into town or drive our own cars and park for free everywhere. Life is incredibly convenient. The crime rate is virtually zilch. The air is clean. The roads aren’t crowded. We are 30 minutes from a major the airport so we can fly anywhere. Honestly we’re not a bunch of rubes. Are you thinking of Mayberry on the old Andy Griffith show?
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If you’re gauging modern by how many uber cabs there are, or sushi restaurants , or gay bars are in the area, then I guess most of us will not meet your standards.
But then I would have nothing to do with that stuff even if I did live in a big modern city.
Tinder thankfully does not work here.
I imagine, Stu, that if you wanted to meet an attractive person locally, you could, like, go outside.
Because nothing screams modernization like a strip joint. ~
@Buffaloman that’s nonsense. It’s wrong to generalize people in small towns as “not modernized”. The towns you’re talking about have been left behind economically and therefore tend to have concentrations of older residents andd retired people who don’t work. But that is shifting, as the middle class grows increasingly squeezed by the inaffordability of big city life.
Yeah, and in all seriousness, have you experienced the modern convenience of parking meters that take credit cards? Where a single ATM type machine services one side of a city block?
So, you park across the street and a block up from your destination. Instead of dropping a few coins (so 20th century), you walk ½ block away from your destination and feed the machine. Then you walk back to, and past, your vehicle where you cross the street and walk the final ½ block to your destination.
You have now walked an entire city block for the ‘convenience’ of using a card instead of a coin and can now spend 30 seconds dropping off your dry cleaning.
Boy, howdy!
That’s some of that there progress.
I hate paying with a credit card for parking. Hate. It. So hard.
I think I’ve only had to pay for parking once in the past ten years. That’s when we went to the big town of Peoria (100,000) to see Old Crow Medicine Show.
Free parking in small towns is such an inconvenience. ~
Peoria has two titty bars. How modern!
It cost me a quarter to park every time I want to eat at the Indian buffet in Columbia, Mo (also 100,000). I still choose it over eating sushi with free parking. The Muslim restaurant tempts me with free parking, so I usually get take out to bring home. I wasn’t impressed with the Korean Tacos, but it’s worth paying the dime parking to run into the Vietnamese restaurant for some spring rolls!
Columbia has all the modern cultural conveniences that can be labeled under the “Adult” umbrella.
It’s a college town, so they no doubt have Tinder, though I can’t imagine why with all the gorgeous people crowding every sidewalk!
Looks like they have 5 car charging stations, and counting.
What modern conveniences do you think small towns lack?
Small towns have the conveniences plus they have lower crime, lower costs of living (sometimes), cleaner air, more space per person, etc. etc.
Your post sounds like you’ve never been in a small town other than a drive through.
It’s a bad idea disparaging rural America. The fact that corporate farming has destroyed economic viability in the Mayberrys of America is bad news for ALL OF US. You can see the results politically when young people and those of talent are compelled to abandon their birthplaces in order to earn a living. Whenever some bizarre and stupid political anomaly pops up in Kansas it would pay to think about the consequences of concentrating the aged and frustrated in regions of crawling blight.
He wasn’t specifying just rural America. He was saying every small town. I’d like to see him find food if it wasn’t for rural places growing it for his modern convenience at his local Whole Foods.
What it boils down to is that small towns may lack some desirable traits like racial/cultural diversity, shopping options (Whole Foods), and professional live entertainment (concerts, plays), but make up for that with a laid back attitude, access to home produced foodstuffs and local talent/fairs.
I think it’s a lot easier for someone from a small town to navigate successfully in a city than it is for someone from a city to navigate a small town. And that’s the heart of this question. Anything I need from the city, I can retrieve in a day and be back to my low crime, low stress, low cost, small town same day.
I have the internet. I’m well aware of modern society. Heck, some times I even succumb to the lure of the bright lights and big city. I love it! Then I drive home to the view of the (this time of year) corn stubble across the road.
@ibstubro You’re still not part of Modern America. Those of us who can have an uber driver at their house in the next five minutes are living in Modern America. Sorry, that’s just how it goes.
You say, how come small towns lack the modern convenience’s, ask yourself this is it worth putting up a sushi place if no one will go there?
Is it worth putting in a gay bay if there is only a handful of gay people in the whole town?
Is it worth having uber cabs if no one would use them as well?
The same type of thing,ask yourself this would you put a Johndeere dealership in the center of a large major city?
Get the idea now??
Uber isn’t even LEGAL here, so….. No matter how big the city, not going to happen.
You’re still lacking it even if you don’t need it. And by saying you can drive to places that have basic resources proves my point. You’re not part of Modern Society.
But those things you say make you modern wouldn’t make a go of it in a small town they would go out of business as fast as they started.
I’m still confused as to why Uber is so important
Uber is a new platform. Small town doesn’t have platform. Make for small town not be modern.
Lots of shitty new things come out all the time. That doesn’t make them necessary or good.
Face it @seek this person is either 1 a troll, 2a spoiled rich kid. 3 a person that won’t listen.
What good would it do to put in one of these modern things,just to see them go out of business just as fast as they went in?
Why not just admit you aren’t part of modern society and be proud of your backwoods ways?
If not using uber, eating sushi,or going to gay bars makes me backwoods then let me say I am proud to be not part of your modern society.
No. People in small towns live at a much slower pace than the rest of us in “The Big City.” And they like it that way.
Small towns are usually populated by an older set of inhabitants because a lot of the kids move away to the big (college) city after high school graduation, the poor kids who can’t go away to college stay behind and wallow in the old ways. booze and/or general joblessness and poverty.
I remember when I was a kid in the 60’s in eastern Washington state, the girls wore that one particular hairstyle that was popular then. 20 years later the kids there were still wearing that hairstyle.
At another small town I lived in, after Obama became president, some teachers (in the public school) were openly calling him by the “N” word, IN FRONT OF THEIR CLASSES!
And they may have modern things, and the want and need for these things, just not enough of a market to sustain that type business in that small town.
Tractors aren’t sold in big towns (with no surrounding agricultural activities) because there is no market, and there are no tractors sold in small towns (with agricultural activities) because there is not enough of a market. You have to go to a larger town in that area that has a sufficient market from the surrounding areas to sustain that business.
We here in Boise, Idaho, (population 300,000) have places that sell tractors because there is a substantial market for them in this area.
Same with so many other things..
Now all of us did answer your question,that you failed to comprehend ,small towns lack those items because they would not be supported in a small town and would find themselves out of business very quickly.
Now let me ask you this how come you never see farm equipment dealers in the downtown core of large major cities?
Maybe because they wouldn’t be supported?
I love how he throws the term, ‘Modern Society’ around like he thinks he’s a social anthropologist. It is all part and parcel of today’s society because none of us actually live in a different decade. It only appears like that to some because progress and ‘modern conveniences’ are completely relative.
The fixation on uber as the mark of a superior lifestyle is simpleminded as well as DEAD WRONG. Uber is actually a slick scheme footed on the NEGATIVES of big city living. The scam operates by directly exploiting loopholes in city laws. The claim that you’re backwards without uber is equivalent to stating that rural living is primitive because you lack the big city opportunity for contracting legionnaires disease.
Why the hostility toward not being labeled Modern Society?
What a schmuck!
(I hope that label doesn’t cause any hostility.)
Uber has him believing that waiting at his house for 5 minutes in order to have some stranger drive him to his destination defines “modern society”.
How do Uber and credit card parking meters both define modern society?
And why do you need a $350 a month gym membership, all that extra walking you get from the credit parking?
I’m sure you’re just as proficient at chopping wood as I am at facilitating things through an app on my phone. One of us happens to be more modern than the other.
We have a saying about chopping wood here in Norway. It warms you up three times. Once when you cut it, once when you stack it and once when you burn it. I use an app to order my firewood. Irony!!
@kritiper there are no tractors sold in small towns (with agricultural activities) because there is not enough of a market. That’s not quite true. We can buy tractors here where I live. Population 3200. We are very rural. There’s even a smaller town of 900 that has a supplier of combines. Our entire county only has a population of 32,000 and you can find suppliers all over.
@dammitjanetfromvegas Yes, you can find suppliers. But not in a town of 422 people (Midvale, Idaho.) You can find suppliers in Weiser, Idaho, Pop. 5,222.
When I talk about small towns, I’m talking about SMALL towns!
@Buffaloman You’re confusing frustration for hostility. You’re right in questioning any “hostility toward not being labeled Modern Society”. This is crystal clear the moment we consider WHO it is applying the label. Nevertheless, the pigheaded insistence upon uber as THE reliable demarcation between urban modernity and rural backwardness is neither valid nor sensible. I might just as readily claim cities “modern” and therefore superior to their country cousins because crowds of homeless people sleep on the sidewalks.
I’m thinking the OP is out to promote Uber, as he keeps returning to that single thing as the standard for what towns should aspire to have.
Yeah, but it’s a defective argument. Like claiming that organized crime’s influence on city politics is an indication of small town inferiority.
@stanleybmanly: It’s definitely not logical and he’s nasty and very undiplomatic in his approach.
I think you’re right @jca ,and a lot of small towns have no taxies at all seeing you can walk the whole town in under an hour what need would there be for wonderful uber.
And thinking everyone in a small town must burn wood for heat , is about as STUPID as thinking all Canadians must live in igloos and have snow on the ground year round.
Mr @Buffaloman comes across as very right wing close minded conservative as one can possibly get, because small towns don’t have uber, titty bars, and sushi we are all back woods hicks, and no matter how much you scream those businesses wouldn’t be supported in a small town setting seems to make little to no difference to @Buffaloman ,who sees communities without these businesses being outdated and not modern.
I had a theory that the OP is an Uber driver being forced to move to an area in which Uber does not operate, likely because he still lives with his parents.
My brother lived in a small town in the Texas Hill Country that was close to a large metropolitan area. It was nice, quiet, peaceful, small enough that you knew most everyone. It was “discovered” and city folk flocked in wanting, they said, the serenity, the hominess and small town feel of the place.
Yet once they got there and found out that all those city conveniences they had grown to depend on were not available 24/7 they grew discontented and craved what they had once had. So more and more businesses came in to provide for them and made over the once sleepy hamlet; transforming it into what they had run away from and destroying what they thought they craved.
Can anyone in a small town order food from their phone using an app???? That’s a reasonable request to determine your modernization.
No uber is strike 1.
I got a great idea Mr @Buffaloman you stay in your wonderful over populated crime riddled,polluted big modern city , and we will stay in our easy going clean air,low crime not so populated back woods small town OK??
As for ordering with an app, I have seen that done here, but I refuse to get a fucking smart phone, I hate having to own a damn cell in the first place and on my days off I sometimes don’t even turn mine on.
Now , how come with every major city that I have ever visited in the usa I don’t feel safe, I always feel like we could be mugged , robbed , stabbed, just plain murdered,is that a wonderful modern society??
I need my cell for work ,and while I have used it in my off time,but not very often.
As I explained, Uber is illegal in the country I live in. Your logic, strike one.
The troll needs breakfast.
Detroit? Has Uber. The drinking water is poisonous. Nope. Not modern.
Read the question, then try to imagine what is required to avoid being part of modern society. Isolating oneself fom modern society requires a great deal of deliberate effort. I mean there are certain monasteries and I suppose the Amish as well as hermits in caves.
“It’s a small, small world, it’s a small, small world
It’s a small, small world, it’s a small, small world
It’s a small, small, small, small wor…” Arrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!
LOL.
You can order food from Taco Bell with an ap.
Domino’s if you want delivery.
That’s spooky modern, that is.
Answer this question 
