Living in a small town is different in many ways. And it is not different in ways that people think it should be.

There is just as much good and evil. But in a small community, it is just more personal. More intense.

The neighbors won't help you raise your kids. Somehow people think it is less damaging to neglect their kids in a small town than in a large city. It isn't. Drugs, crime, and uselessness will find them here too. Families still have to be involved.

You cannot find out about the housing market 6 months in advance. You find the house you want to purchase or rent the day you go looking for it. Whatever is available then, is all there is. There may be only a handful of rentals open at any given time, sometimes not that, and whatever is open when you look, is what you take, because there is nothing else. If you buy a house, you may wait for some time before one comes on the market that you really want.

But there are compensations. 

• The quiet, that sometimes drives you nuts, but usually welcomes you and soothes the frenzy.
• The fact that you know the dangers. Kids can learn to work from the neighbors because you know the neighbors. They can work anywhere in town, because the whole town is more of a known quantity.
• The fact that reputations are not transient in smal towns - yours, for good or evil, will follow you even when the population has a high turnover rate.
• The people that help you during the hard times, that come out of the woodwork with caring gestures, then fade back into the fabric of the town when the crisis is over.
• Building a home, or starting a business usually involves less red tape.

You are closer to life here. More removed from distractions. If you crave distractions, small town living just won't do. You need to be a little more independent, a little more at peace with your own company, more able to enjoy your family and close friends.

You keep a little extra food on hand, because there may not be a store close by, or open all hours. You learn to depend on neighbors for little things that no person can be completely self-sufficient in themselves, because you may not be able to just GET what you need, be it two eggs, or a plumber in the middle of the night.

It is a good life though. Which is why small towns attract people to them each year, who come for no other reason than that it IS a small town.

It is different enough, that a large percentage of people who come to a small town do not stay. They either cannot find a job - you cannot be a job hopper, there just aren't enough - or they experience a hurtful experience with a neighbor, or feel too confined and do now wish to adapt.

If you can stick it out for two years though, it changes you. Makes you more thoughtful, weathers your character a bit, helps you be more patient, helps you look to yourself for your esteem. Good changes. After two years, you know whether you can enjoy it for the long haul. Before that, you are just playing at living in a small town - on an extended vacation.

Many people who have been raised in a small town come back to their roots. They may complain of it when they get bored, but they come back for the comfort and cozy familiarity of small town life.

Small has many degrees. A town of 10,000 has a McDonalds, a grocery store, and traffic lights - there may be a taxi, unlikely to be buses. A town of 5000 may or may not have name brand fast food, but they do have a grocery store and perhaps a traffic light or two, and it would be rare if they had even a single taxi service. A town of 2000 will have a grocery store, but generally not have fast food, they may have a single traffic light, and probably has paved streets - get a bike, because if you do not have a car, you'll be walking, biking, or sharing rides. A town of 500 to 1000 may have a small, fairly expensive grocery store (the owners have no choice in their pricing!), no traffic lights, and a combination of paved and gravel streets. A town of less than that simply cannot support a grocery store unless there is a high amount of rural population surrounding it which depends on it also, it will rarely have a traffic light, and will often have mostly gravel streets. 

Look at what the town offers before you make assumptions as to how small small is. Then find the advantages, and set out to enjoy them, while compensating for the inconveniences.