There is a street intersection near my home that was overgrown with vegetation causing poor visibility and also lacked a stop sign for one direction of the cross street. Although lightly traveled, I do use it almost every day and it was a collision waiting to happen. The problem intersection is actually in Carter County, so I called the highway department. A nice lady answered the phone in person on the third ring - without going through any "tree" - and took down my complaint. The next day (today), the vegetation was cleared and the stop sign replaced. I doubt that a "big city" moves that fast.

I basically live in the sticks in a fairly rural area of a fairly rural county. We had a big storm, a very large branch ( the size of a lot of trees) came down and took out my power line and blocked the road.

After the power company made it safe ( couldn't reconnect me because of damage on my side needing an electrician) the county road department came and cut the tree branch up and moved it to the side of the road, this was same day the electric company made it safe, it was a Friday. They were in a F250 and the branch was WAY to big to remove, they told me they would be back Monday or Tuesday to clean up.

Monday I came home to a note o the door that they would be back Tuesday or Wednesday.

Come home Tuesday and all of it was cleaned up. There was some minor damage to my yard and I had a note to contact them about it. It was so minor that I didn't bother.

One of our bus drivers also works for the county road department and I gave him a hard time . But I told him to just tell them it was no big deal and thanks for the fast response.

There are many times that we bus drivers come upon trees and branches down, and usually the road department will have it cleaned up by the next run!

So, yeah sometimes it is a benefit living in a smaller community, then there is the drawbacks, which in my opinion is very small.

ARman

Just don't tell everybody how great it is or some 'developer' will come along and spoil it for you!
I speak from experience as Ocala has become the most 'developed' smallish community in the state. I can't begin to tell you how sweet it used to be.

I live in Clark County, Nevada. A HUGE county by area & typically bureaucratic (blue), as you'd expect. The county has a 'Fixit Clark County' tab on the website.

The streetlight in front of my house went out. I clicked on the tab and reported the issue. I figured it may get fixed 'sometime' The light was fixed within a few days. I was surprised.

Love living in my small town of 5500 people.

I tell folks it's not what we have here, it's what we don't have here that makes it nice.

quote:

Originally posted by vinnybass:
I live in Clark County, Nevada. A HUGE county by area & typically bureaucratic (blue), as you'd expect. The county has a 'Fixit Clark County' tab on the website.

The streetlight in front of my house went out. I clicked on the tab and reported the issue. I figured it may get fixed 'sometime' The light was fixed within a few days. I was surprised.

I live in San Diego County and there is a Fixit San Diego app/option.

Similar results when someone new moved into the residential neighborhood and decided it was an appropriate place to park his flatbed tow truck.

Each time he did this, me and a few other neighbors used the Fixit app to report the heavy duty commercial vehicle being parked in a residential area.

SDPD would respond within a couple hours and ticket the vehicle accordingly. Took a few times before the knucklehead got the hint (even walking throughout the neighborhood and asking each house how he could make it better so the calls and tickets would stop).

Haven't seen the truck parked there since.

My rural upstate NY County only has about 50k residents.
We had some serious flooding back in June of this year, and many roads and bridges were damaged.
6.5" of rain in under 5 hours.
For six weeks or so, it was difficult getting into "town" due to road/bridge closures.

After they got the washed out culvert bridges replaced/repaired, to get into town we used alternate routes/roads.
This one particular road had about two dozen "moon crater" potholes large enough to swallow a wheel of a small auto or motorcycle.
I was out for a joy ride on my sport bike and stopped in at the appropriate Township Highway Department Garage for the particular road location.
The Highway Department Garage was abandoned, no people present. I walked over to the Township Offices and found the local Justice/Judge eating lunch.
She told me to draw a map of the potholes location, and she would see that the Highway Superintendent received it.

This road, in a distance of about one mile, passes through three different Township boundaries, so I figured it would soon turn into the blame game.
Much to my surprise, within three days, all the potholes were repaired.

My little burg of ~500 doesn’t have a red light yet.

We do have a 24hr gas/connivence store…
…but it closes at sundown

quote:

My rural upstate NY County only has about 50k residents.

56K in Carter County.

The county seat and largest city is Elizabethton. If you need help spelling it, just spell Elizabeth and add a ton to her.

quote:

Originally posted by cparktd:

My little burg of ~500 doesn’t have a red light yet.

We do have a 24hr gas/connivence store… but it closes at sundown

I grew up in a small town, right between "Slow Down" and "Litter Barrel." We had two gas stations, but they shared the same pump.

Our small town has a 4 way stop sign in the middle of "down"town at the crossroads. One 2 pump dumpy gas station/C-store but we do have a Dollar store!!

quote:

Originally posted by cparktd:
My little burg of ~500 doesn’t have a red light yet.

We do have a 24hr gas/connivence store…
…but it closes at sundown

The county I grew up in had two flashing caution lights and two stop lights.

Today, they have two caution lights and no stop lights. They decided four way stops would be just fine I suppose.

I have a century oak tree in the front yard, and the city switched to the automated trash can trucks so now I have a century oak tree that has a cutout in the shape of the loader about 6 feet higher than the rest of the tree, with linage on my curb as to where to put the can so the truck could maneuver to the right spot without disturbing the rest of the tree.

That's what I call good service.

quote:

Originally posted by cee_Kamp:
My rural upstate NY County only has about 50k residents.
We had some serious flooding back in June of this year, and many roads and bridges were damaged.
6.5" of rain in under 5 hours.
For six weeks or so, it was difficult getting into "town" due to road/bridge closures.

After they got the washed out culvert bridges replaced/repaired, to get into town we used alternate routes/roads.
This one particular road had about two dozen "moon crater" potholes large enough to swallow a wheel of a small auto or motorcycle.
I was out for a joy ride on my sport bike and stopped in at the appropriate Township Highway Department Garage for the particular road location.
The Highway Department Garage was abandoned, no people present. I walked over to the Township Offices and found the local Justice/Judge eating lunch.
She told me to draw a map of the potholes location, and she would see that the Highway Superintendent received it.

This road, in a distance of about one mile, passes through three different Township boundaries, so I figured it would soon turn into the blame game.
Much to my surprise, within three days, all the potholes were repaired.

I lived in a similar low population density NY county, and they got on things quick as well, and the count and the employees was always a d.eight to deal with. The county had one “ big city” ha ha ( Olean). The two nearest towns to me were Ellicottville and ( next county north ) Springville - both small town charm and hospitality ( though Ellicottville could get a bit much during the ski season with the city dwellers coming down on the weekends)

I now live in a smallish town in a lightly populated county. I went down to renew my license plates, and was told I owed on a third car, which I had given to my daughter in another state. "Sue" at the country clerks office asked us to call her. We did and gave Sue the phone. Sue asked my daughter if the car was registered in her state of residence, then asked my daughter to take a picture of the registration and text it to her. From that, she released the car from our names. I thought that was exemplary service from a county clerk.

Marquette is 21K. Big enough and small enough too.

Johnson City's (pop. ~63K) police dept. and 911 system is apparently not very busy. If you have a non-emergency but still need a police report or investigation, and the police station is closed for the day, you dial 911.

Tiny town has1200 pop.

It's 1/2 bedroom community,
1/4 never been anywhere or done anything.

And 1/4 recent arrivals.

After living in L.A., Denver, Mesa/Phoenix ,
Geography doesn't define people.

Experience,energy and education are the definitive variables.

I've met three really interesting people, three A Holes and a dozen pleasant fellow citizens.

None of which I consider "friends"