Urban, suburban or rural?

[hyphenate]

Where were you raised?  Did it color your view of the world at
large?  Can you milk a cow?  Can you ride a horse?  What
skills do you have for urban or rural survival?

[Radical Activist]

1. small farm town.

Kind of urban, but more rural.

[MADem]

2. All of the above, all over the world

...and I would not change my life experience for anything.

I can pretty much learn anything I don't know. I may not do it like an expert, but close enough for government or survival work.

[Arugula Latte]

3. Raised in suburbs, had a horse as a kid/teen

there were lots of pools and tennis courts about ... affluent area.

Can't milk a cow.

Urban survival: I blend in.

Rural survival: Not many skills. I get cold camping, even in summer.

[usedtobesick]

4. grew up in the city

But was forced to work on my uncles farm for several summers to keep me out o trouble... I spent many years in the Army and can honestly live or survive anywhere today... I live in a small city now and crave time in the mountains where I run to every chance I get, I actually want to move to BFE Montana in the fall to get very away... I can milk a cow or dress one out, I can ride a horse, or live on the streets if I needed to. I just don't want to have to ever. View of the world? I grew up in Philly, everybody is suspect! :freak:

[Bok_Tukalo]

5. Suburban wannabe urban grew up rural

My goal is to move to the city early next year.

[Lannes]

6. NYC and Paris

Mostly NYC

[Bok_Tukalo]

7. NYC. The pinnacle of human civilization.

Just to be there is to mingle in the maelstrom of the greatest Man has to offer.

[gollygee]

8. in a small to medium city

which is not really any of those but kind of a combination. LOL

Whoops. Didn't answer questions.

I can milk a cow. I can't ride a horse.

[kedrys]

9. Raised in a mid-sized city

Moved to ever-larger cities along the way...I'm a stainless steel rat. :) I was 12 before I saw an ear of corn on the stalk instead of on my plate.

[Zuni]

10. My early years in the suburbs, then when I was 15 moved to a city

a smaller sized city, about 40,000 people, but nonetheless the state capital and one of the oldest cities in the US---Annapolis

I have lived in a big city---Baltimore

but my current apartment is back in my town, Annapolis

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. Small town. No horses and such for me, but we did have a veggie garden

[Lauri16]

12. Small town

and I wouldn't have it any other way!

I can ride a horse, I know how to milk a cow, I also know how to cook/bake and think that takeout/delivery is beyond evil - I don't see the point when I can make it myself for a fraction of the price and it tastes much better. I can my own veggies, soup, and fruit. I can grow a garden indoors or out. I can fire a gun and not at another person....gun safety is big around here.

Small towns are the best! :)

[Sandpiper]

13. Raised in small towns

And having seen the small town experience first hand, I have yet to figure out why it's so romanticized.

[Nikia]

18. I was raised in a small town

Some people call it rural. It is much less rural in the town that I live in now though, which is less rural then farmland or small villages surrounded by miles of farmland.
I could romanticize my small towm if I were to write about it that way. People didn't lock their doors. They sat out on their front porches and talked to their neighbors. They participated in community clubs and bowling leagues. They supported the local high school and went to all the football games. Whenever anyone needed help, there were family and friends who willingly rushed to their aid. They weren't idiots. Education was taken very seriously in town. Some went onto college. Others found jobs at the local factories, which had decent jobs. Some of the factories were owned by locals, who although rich attended the same churches and sent their children to the same schools. There were plenty of local businesses for shopping where the owners made a point of getting to know their customers. This was the town where I was born at the end of 1977. It had peaked in population.
My small town, where I grew up, changed though. Throughout the 80's several of the factories closed. As people became less well off, small shops closed. People let their homes run down (although there are several nice homes). The local factory owners sold. New executives built subdivisions instead of living in the neighborhoods with everyone else. For the first time ever, school levies were defeated. Charitable community organizations began facing crisis as the number of donations dropped as the number of people needing help increased. The best and brightest moved away. People became less trusting of their neighbors and community organizations became organizations of retired people. The majority of people went from being solidly middle class to poor.
That's what happened to my small town within my lifetime. I live far away now and continue to mourn for it.

[Lauri16]

20. Sounds like where I grew up & still live

Only we didn't have the factories. Hell, we have a mom & pop grocery store that's been there practically since day one, a bank, a post office, a gas station, a family owned restaurant (been there since the beginning of time...mostly for the coffee crowd in the mornings) & 2 bridges on either end of town. And no traffic lights!! I live in a bedroom community. The people in this town went apeshit when McDonald's wanted to come here. No one wanted it because it would take away from the neighborhood BBQ's on the weekends. I think it's very easy to romanticize about a small town. Especially one that's this small. (Pop. 956) :)

[Nikia]

23. My small town was a lot bigger actually

I have been to such towns though. Most of the other small towns in the county were about that size.

[SarahB]

14. Urban (with a lot of rural thrown in)

I grew up in a very diverse city of about 500,000 (in the city itself), but spent Summers and a lot of weekends on my grandparents farm which was very rural. I've lived in small city/suburbia ever since I moved to Connecticut in my teens. It's not exactly me. I'd ultimately like to live somewhere rural that's within a 1/2 hour or so of a city. Fortunately, that's an option still in Connecticut.

[demnan]

15. Pretty much suburbian for most of my life

but inner suburbian for a few years and outer suburbian now.

[kittynboi]

16. Well...

I lived in a rural town til I was 12, but I hated it, and never made friends, it wasn't on a farm or anything, I've never seen livestock or a farm in person. I stayed inside mostly, reading, drawing, playing video games, and watching TV. I don't think it had much effect on me, since I didn't really do any typically "rural" things.

When I was 12, we moved to a more suburban area, which I liked a bit better.

Now I'm in a city, and will never live in anything smaller again. ^_^

[HawkerHurricane]

17. I grew up in Los Angeles

Where hundreds of suburbs look for a city to be near. I can milk a cow. I can RIDE a horse, but not saddle, or bridle one.

[Dastard Stepchild]

19. I've lived in all three....

I think it has given me some additional insight into life in the United States.

[hyphenate]

21. To answer my own question

Grew up in Jamaica Plain, a district of Boston Proper. Highly urban setting. My mom grew up rural, on a farm in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. From the time I was a baby til I was about 19, spent every summer of my life at my grandfather's farm there. I can milk a cow, can ride a horse a little, but not very well, and am well acquainted with collecting eggs from the hens for breakfast.

I look at myself as more adept at being a city dweller, didn't get my driver's license until I was 27, because living in Boston it's not a necessity. The main thing I learned as a survival skill is to be aware of your surroundings. Once you have that awareness, it's a lot easier to function without too much trouble. Even in NYC, it's a lot easier to survive if you pay attention.

I never really knew much about suburbs growing up--at one point, I thought Quincy, MA could have been considered a suburb and not a city!

[gizmo1979]

22. Born in the city raised in the city

living in a city.Don't get that deliverence vibe in the city.Only thing I know about cows is they're black and white.I need noise gotta have noise.Or it freaks me out.

[fortyfeetunder]

24. Oops

I mistakenly put suburban, but grew up in the middle of an urban area.
What I realized when I got older I didn't like living in a city. I preferred being where there was countryside, animals, etc. I wish I had lived on a farm.

However, no I can't milk a cow, though I did successfully milk a goat. Yes, I go horseback riding anytime I have the opportunity. Urban survival: blend in to avoid being a target.
Rural survival: live off the land.

Both cases: know the predators and know the prey.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

25. population 670 in 150 square miles

[Withywindle]

26. Very rural....

Not even a town, really...it's officially a Census Designated Area, population 260.


No streets with names until the 911 program required all the roads (mostly unpaved) get names in the 90s. I had a 45-minute bus ride to school each way when I was in junior high and high school.

Can I ride a horse? Yes.
Can I milk a cow? Yes.
Can I drive a tractor and a two-horse buggy? Yes.
Can I identify by name almost all the most common types of trees, birds, and wildflowers in the South-Central Appalachians? Yes.
Can I clog? Yes.

Can I ride a bicycle? No, never learned. No reason to out there - not like I ever saw anybody take one on those roads.

It definitely colored my view of the world, because my family was very isolated and I'm an only child. I learned to get absolutely lost in books and observing the natural world. I think it made me pretty mentally self-sufficient; I have a very vivid imagination and I don't need to be entertained all the time, I can entertain myself just fine!

The downside was that it took me a LONG time to develop decent social skills. I also felt really at a disadvantage when i went off to college, and everybody had some kind of family professional connections or social connections to this and that, and I felt like I literally came out of nowhere. (That's a class thing as well as a regional thing too, I guess. We were lower-middle-class.)


I live in the heart of Chicago now. I love to go back and visit the folks back home but I'm very VERY happy with the urban life.