Urban or Rural ( Archived) (11)

Much of our development socially, is a learned behaviour from our immediate environment, especially when we are young.
If you lived in a small town or village you may have more trust in others from the everyone knows everyone syndrome, and a wholesome communal wisdom to draw from.
If you lived in a 30 storey apartment building, you may not have even met many of your neighbours in many cases, but you likely developed a great set of street smarts.
Also if you tended to move a lot this will likely impact who you are today especially if there were great distances involved, like as in an army bray sort of way.

So where did you spend most of your years growing up?
Where are you now in relation to where you started?
Where do you see yourself in the future?

This sort of thing affects us all even if we try to clothe ourselves in the skin of the land we occupy. You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy sorta thing.

Yep its called Socialisation .
I think also you are talking about the "nature , nuture debate"
Interesting

I was born in a major metropolitan area, but raised in a small town in N.J. At 15 went to the "big City. Being in the military, led to to many different living situations. When I moved to St Petersburg, 24 years ago, it was like a large small town. It is now a big city with the colsness of a big city. I miss my small town "feeling" Some of my fonder memories are from when I lived way out in the sticks,near Selma Alabama. five acres on a red clay road. I had a lake and a small bridge over the creek, where I watched beavers build their little structures. But even then, there was a draw back...LOL There was a paper mill about three miles away. If you have ever smelled that stench, you would know how awful it would be when the wind was just right

I grew up in a rural Ivy league college town.

Hence I like the rural life.

But I have to have smart, urbane people around.

It's a contradiction

im a mix of urban and rural. I grew up through the second grade in the 'burbs of chicago and then moved to indiana and lived in cow town for a while. I like the peace of the rural places though. You can never just sit and watch a sunrise in the city.

I grew up in the country, in small towns in NH. The first one that I can remember was a town that was so small that we had a "country store" that sold jeans, boots, hammers, nails, milk, eggs, candy, and had two gas pumps out front. Our school only went to 6th grade, and it was next to the cemetery (no kidding...we used to go over the stone "fence" into it to play hide-and-seek during recess ) We had to go one town over to go to Jr High and High School....or at least, those who grew up there did. We left there for a bit more populated area when I was in 3rd grade. Still, we lived in the more rural part of that, too.

I've been near cities when I was in the Army...Monterey, CA & Tucson, AZ were my favorites, for that more "small town" feeling...and I've lived in Honolulu, HI. That and AZ are two places I would gladly live in again. I now live in the suburbs, in a nice, quiet neighborhood, and I love it here. But I'll always be a country girl at heart.

Cool thread, BP.

I grew up in a small town...where everybody knows everybody and yes I guess I do have that trust factor...I still leave my door unlocked sometimes...and I live in a small city now...so far I have been lucky....The one place you will never see me is in a big city like Toronto...it's too fast paced for me and my trust factor in big cities is almost nil....

Thank you for the responses it does give an inner glimpse into many of the wonderfully intriguing persons on this site. It also allows for some sort of clarity in their words in other threads as it does define who you are to some degree.

I have lived in the same Northern Ontario town all my life. It has a population under 50,000 and is the largest city (by land mass) in Canada. Population desity in this region is sparse and the distance between any sort of settlements of note are considerable. I have traveled a fair bit but my heart is in the natural realms and most of my trips end up being extended fishing trips. I have seen big cities but they hold nothing for me besides a pleasant distraction. The cloistering concrete ramparts destroy the natural beauty of the world I seek and they could never hold me for long.
Currently due to personal reasons I have lost most of my interest in this region and am preparing to dust off my boots and travel to new vistas. I have been avidly searching for a place similar in form and substance, to dull the longng ache in my heart for nature's verdant beauty. I have investigated hundreds of possibilities, and have found the place to where I will move. I have a couple years at best left in this city and even this country. My heart lies elsewhere but where the wind will set me down is as yet unknown. I hope with all hope and faith that my direction is unerring but even if it is is not I am leaving this land of my birth behind to start anew. I suppose the Big Sky Country will just have to make some room for another of nature's children.