Rural or Urban

[cwes99_03]

How many people visiting this site and posting fairly regularly grew up in a rural community?

For definitions sake, let's say that simply growing up in the "country" outside of a large city isn't necessarily rural, but I won't rule it out completely. Use your common sense, you'll know the answer. If you grew up within city limits of any type of a village, town, whatever, make note, but as i lived 2 miles outside of a village of 600 ( I would count most of the kids there as having had some sort of rural experience as they worked on a farm or something for some portion of time.)

 

You may also make note if you grew up on a farm or ranch (thus having raised some crop or livestock, a backyard garden not counting).

 

I'm just interested, as I have begun noticing many of the thread carriers on this site that I respect have made some comment as to their rural upbringing.

[rockytriton]

I was born in a small town (sorry for the plagurism John), in Conway MO, then moved to another small town (small trailer trash town way outside of Albuquerque NM), then moved outside of another small town (Liberal KS), this was all up to about age 9, but at age 9 I moved to the outskirts of Baltimore MD, and that's where I pretty much grew up. It was a major culture shock for me, people in Baltimore were rude and wouldn't look you in the face. I've grown to get used to life in this area, but have generally kept the same attitude towards things that my family out west has.

[GAHD]

First few years of my life was spent a few hours outside of Winnipeg city, from 5ish onwards I've lived inside Winnipeg.

[CraigD]

I grew up in the town of Bluefield, WV, USA, population about 27,000. Although distinctly more rural than my present home in the greater Washington DC metro area, my childhood experiences were in most ways like those of a DC suburbanite. The most significant differences, IMHO, between these 2 similar childhood environs, was the access in a place like Bluefield to fairly extensive wilderness areas. Once consequence of this is that I was given my first firearm at the age of 5, and allowed to hunt at the age of 10, whereas my 21 year old son, who grew up in the DC area, has discharged a gun only a few times, and never hunted.

[rockytriton]

grew up in DC, discharged a gun a few times, never hunted, hmm... I guess he has been in some drive-bys then? :hihi:

[Buffy]

Inner city, urban, suburban, urban, suburban.

 

San Francisco, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Oakland.

 

Been to farms. Spent a lot of vacation time in the mountains shooting guns and hanging out with ultra conservative family members from those no-longer-"farm towns" like Fresno and Modesto.

 

About-as-Californian-as-you-can-be-without-being-Indian-or-Mexican,

Buffy

[rockytriton]

Craig, I hope you didn't take that as an insult, it was really just intended as a joke

[Jay-qu]

I was born in the 'burbs and moved further out towards the country to a smallish town 13 years ago - now this town has grown so much its no longer the country but parts of it (where I live) still has a rural feel about it

[goku]

born in gainesville, ga., before it was over-run by mexicans, at northeast georgia medical center. lived in one house through my entire childhood. i now live across the road from that house. the house my parents still live in.

just about every one around us is kinfolk. you wont find polksville on any map because it's a name the natives use around here. we are almost exactly between gainesville and cleveland, so, it's growin up purty fast. too many rich people moving in.

my grandad started the dairy, the government bought us out in 87 i think. because of the government buy out program we couldn't milk cows for five years, so, my dad bought a doser. done that for a few years then bought a hen farm. gathered eggs for a few years, finally our five years was up and we started back to milking cows. been milking cows for 13 years now i guess.

had lots of fun trompin through creeks, shootin ground hogs, drivin tractors, cuttin silage, crow huntin, killin rats in the chicken house (git ye a stick and some gas, pour the gas in their hole and beat their brains out when they come a runin), ridin 4-wheelers, baling hay, and chasin calves.

[CraigD]

Craig, I hope you didn't take that as an insult, it was really just intended as a joke

No insult taken. Even inside the beltway, we joke a lot about such stuff, though, technically, DC is the crack cocaine capitol of the US – drivebys are more of a LA specialty :confused:

 

My son’s limited gun experience come from a single session had while visiting family in Indianna. He’d expressed curiosity since an early age, so on the occasion of a visit when he was about 14, we let him try one of everything we had – rifles, shotguns and handguns (to his disappointment, no one in that branch of my family has any machine guns) - shooting at paper, cans, and other debris. He came away with a few sore body parts, and a satisfied curiosity.

 

I don’t keep any guns, myself – Those of my childhood guns I didn’t sell (for sentimental reasons - gifts from family and friends), are kept by my stepbrother in Indianna. For the DC suburbanite I’ve become, the downside of gun ownership clearly outweigh the upside – I don’t have time, the social ties, or any remaining interest for hunting, and for personal moral reasons, would never use deadly force on a human being. :naughty:

[rockytriton]

Yea I work in DC myself, well, actually in Alexandria but sometimes I will get a contract inside of DC. Fortunately I live outside of the beltway (Stafford VA) where things tend to be a little safer.

[pgrmdave]

I grew up in New Jersey, in a very urban area, but I now reside in a more rural area (well, rural for northern NJ, at least).

[Biochemist]

Us US west-coasters probably have a different perspective on Urban/Rural. Buffy has been in relatively dense metropolitan areas for the west, but even there, you are not far from "real" space. I grew up in So California, and there are still huge large empty spaces (like the Mojave desert and most of the Sierra Nevada mountain range) in California. But I have been in Portland, Oregon for 25 years. Portland is a credibly-sized metropolis. The metro area is about 2 million inhabitants. But the Portland metro area comprises maybe 1-2% of the state area and has over half of the state population. The remainder of the state (the other 95,000 square miles) is EMPTY.

 

If you go an hour east, you are in wilderness. If you go 2 hours east, and a couple hours south, you are lost. If you go 2 hours west, you are in the Pacific Ocean.

 

I regard myself as a city guy. But any self respecting Oregonian has a lot of camping gear. I must be Rurban.

[cwes99_03]

Well, my view of rural isn't just visiting a place for a short time every once in a while. I mean I visited the city now and then, got to go to the museums every now and then. My grandparents lived in the rural town (pop. 600), which is totally nothing like growing up on a farm where you constantly have things to do and the weather is way more fierce.

I now live in a city of 115,000 in an old house that has been subdivided into apartments. I have to admit the life is totally different, but I'm still a country boy at heart. Put me two hours east and an hour south of portland and I could tell you exactly where I was and find my way back in the dark.

Growing up in a rural area also gave me all kinds of experience in technology, biology, physics, chemistry, math. I also had quite a library, as I loved to take my spare time (what little I had) reading all kinds of mystery, espionage, Tom Clancyish novels.