Rural Millennials, did you feel like you missed out when you moved to the city?

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Absolutely felt like I missed out. I grew up in a rural area in a southern state and went to college in an east coast city. I never felt like I fit in where I grew up and didn’t really find “my people” until after I left. The educational opportunities I grew up with also just didn’t compare to those that most of the people I attended undergrad and eventually medical school with had. I was so excited when I moved to cities where I could go to museums, attend musical performances, try new cuisines, meet people of different cultures, etc. A part of me mourns the life I could’ve had if I had had more opportunities in education, musical training, etc when I was young instead of always being the “big fish in a small pond.”

Don’t get me wrong, my life eventually worked out okay, but there’s always that question. I’m about to move back to my favorite big city with an amazing partner and I can’t wait!

Yes, to an extent. We didn't have cable being out in the rural midwest. So I missed out on a lot of pop culture TV references (my husband who grew up with cable still calls me a "pilgrim" when I don't understand his quotes from 90s commercials). On top of the rural life, I also went to a private religious school, so I didn't know any popular music outside of Christian rock until high school lolol

But honestly, I think you can spin this question the other way. When city kids got bored in the 90s, they called their friends to meet up and ride bikes around town. When country kids got bored in the 90s, we walked down to the woods to catch frogs in the creek. I still long for the solitude and beauty of rural living — the sunsets/clouds, the sound of birds and insects, the stars (omg the stars). I had an amazing childhood being surrounded by nature, and part of me is sad that my own kid won't have that upbringing since we live in town.

Yes and I still resent the fact that so many experiences were taken from me by growing up in a small town.

I don’t feel that way. It sounds corny, but I think growing up in a smaller town made me who I am. And I look at my friends, and I think we built character by having to find things to entertain ourselves. It probably also made going to the City for concerts and sports games more special and more of a rite of passage than if it had been right up the road.

Also, honestly kids mostly don’t grasp the things around them fully, so a lot of the cooler things about the City, I probably wouldn’t have appreciated. Plus, maybe, they’d be taken for granted before I realized why these things were special?

College was a huge culture shock for me. Probably the biggest I've ever had, and I've lived in a lot of different places now. I don't feel like I missed out, though. There were definitely cons. But likewise, my urban friends didn't have a lot of the same experiences I did. Some of them are afraid of raccoons (??), they never had field parties, they've never had moonshine, they've never done any of the borderline dangerous but oh-so-thrilling things teenagers can do in the backwoods without supervision. The first time I brought any of them home, I got gas at the local gas station. You couldn't pay at the pump yet. I threw my keys into the front seat of the car (had my window rolled down) and went in to pay. Their jaws were still on the floor when I came back out. Not worrying about safety is a luxury that doesn't really exist in my world anymore, but it did then.

Honestly, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I've had opportunities to do the things that I missed out on, but most of them will never do the things I got to.

I love big cities but grew up in an unfortunate mid-sized town in the Midwest. Almost everyone there works in factories, on farms, coal mines (which are all closing now) or dead end jobs. Everyone is white and Catholic and are related to half the people around them. There are also a few hospitals so healthcare is also an option career-wise. I never understood I was missing out in my teens, but I moved to a big city in my twenties and felt major regrets over not doing it sooner- also over not going to a college in a city or working in one in my very early twenties.

Life is for living. Everyone does it the way they enjoy, I found out I enjoy culture and diversity and opportunities. And air and water not contaminated by power plants and farming chemicals. The cancer rates where I’m from are astronomical. And if you even consider driving an electric car everyone will call you a libtard. It’s just not the way I want my kids to grow up.

We did the opposite. We were city folk and moved to a rural area. I LOVE it. It was an adjustment going from a corporate office to working at the only local supply house in TOWN lol... its like "Cheers" meets Home Depot (except there is no alcohol and we are not a big box store). Its family owned.

We have 2 kids and its nice to see them have an actual yard vs a concrete slab.

Fuck no.

Growing up in the country was an absolute blast.

I miss it every damn day.

Absolutely. I think I'll always be a little bitter about it.

I grew up in a town of 4000 people. Most families had lived there for generations. The people who bullied my dad had children who bullied me.

My mom was an immigrant and that made me a target. I was white, middle class, and Christian like most of my classmates, but since my grandparents didn't speak English, I was called "illegal" until my dad got a job a few towns over and I transferred to another school where no one knew my family. If I had grown up in a more diverse city, maybe I would have felt safe at least once in my childhood.

I was never able to get a job in high school because there weren't many places hiring, which made it harder to find work as an adult since I didn't have any experience.

Mostly I was just bored. Since I wasn't athletic or musical, there wasn't a lot of extracurricular activities I was interested in. I would have loved to take some art classes outside of school.

I didn't have big dreams as a kid. I remember wishing I could live somewhere with a mall and hang out there with my friends, like in the movies. Not having to drive two hours to buy school clothes. Now I live in a city and still feel lucky because there's so much variety here. Not just shopping, but food, cultures, events... Never going back to small town life.

I’m so glad I was exposed to city life early on. It really solidified that cities are nice to visit and a fucking rats nest to live in.

I mean there’s a lot of room between New York City and middle of nowhere Iowa.

Extremes always suck IMO.

Yep, I missed a huge array of experiences, especially as a teenager. 

I still don't live in a city but I've lived in some bigger/actual towns.

Grew up in smaller tow, City grew to consume the town I grew up in. Lived in the city till last year. Moved back to a rural area. I'll never live in a big city again. I don't live super rural, but able to live on acreage I could afford, and not likely to be overtaken by a big city any time soon.

I have kids, they lived in the city and most prefer the more rural life. the one that doesn't has her own struggles (we adopted her as a teenager already), so not sure if they are related or not, but she's been able to find more friends and activities that she enjoys, and is overall happier here, even if she won't admit it. .

No, I didn't feel that way. I didn't like growing up in a rural area in a lot of ways, but in other ways I loved it and was grateful for it. When I moved to bigger cities in my 20s, I found a lot to enjoy and be grateful for in that type of life, too. Now I live in a rural area again.

I think both ways of life have a lot to offer, and I feel I learned a lot from my time in both of those contexts. I often felt that the people I knew who grew up in urban environments had some experiences and knowledge that I'd missed out on or gotten later in life, but also that they were missing or weaker in certain other things.

Interestingly, I'm queer, and I never really felt like cities conferred great advantages in acceptance over the rural area where I grew up. It just looked different. There were more queer people around in the cities, but queerness felt more performative and constructed there, and the acceptance of it similarly so. In the rural area where I grew up, there were fewer queer people, and it wasn't necessarily conceptually embraced, but I found a different and valuable kind of acceptance happened when people really knew you. I know that's not the case everywhere, though.

Grew up poor AF in the mountains.

Lived in 3 different cities after HS (Houston, Indianapolis, Cincinnati). Soon as I went to get married, moved straight back out to the country. Not for me. The smell of piss and trash mixed with traffic every single day... Hard pass.

So now I've got a large house with a big ass yard and I'm putting in a pool.

Yes. I grew up in a very small town of about 500 people. On top of that, I was homeschooled and we didn’t have internet at my house until I was ~16. We also didn’t have TV (but we had a TV) or game consoles (aside from a SEGA Genesis).

Those things can be considered luxuries, but when all of my friends had them and I didn’t, it was very hard for me to be social and be excited for things I knew nothing about. It made me a very socially awkward child, I just didn’t know what to say, I didn’t have the experiences they had.

My friends were those who I met at homeschool events and that was about it. Very limited circle and no one with the same interests, it was a very lonely childhood.

I feel like I missed out on so much. In 2019 I flew to Dallas, TX and visited a friend I met online and it completely changed me as a person. I finally found myself and it felt amazing.

The small town life has some ups, but for me it was mostly downs and I’ll never go back

As a neurodivergent person I actually felt not really accepted in my town.

I grew up 90 minutes outside LA, so it was close enough. Moved there when I was 23. Super happy I didn’t get stuck in a small town

No. When you have fewer people, you constantly see the same people. You see the same faces for your entire pre-college years. While this can be bad if they're a bunch of assholes, you typically find that many are not. With those people you form close bonds, much more so than if you had to say good-bye after 5th grade, 8th grade, etc and placed with new people. You also then, like me, grew up in the 90s. You had to talk to people to learn other opinions. Your friends new all of how you felt about just about everything. They had your back for over a decade since you all pretty much thought very similarly since they were your social opinions as well. The closeness, the bonds, the second-family was real. You were a person and you felt like you were always around your people. I'd never give that upbringing up; trading off amazing relationships for better facilities and more advanced programs

I graduated with 64 other people.

I got the F out of that town and never regretted that backwards podunk thinking

A bit. My kid had the opportunity to learn a string instrument at school that he passed up and part of me wanted to scream at him “WHY? YOU HAVE THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN AN INSTRUMENT WHY WOULD YOU NOT TAKE IT?!” (He is doing band next year, which is his choice, but I’m glad he’s choosing to) I was frustrated from a young age because the things I wanted do never seemed to be available to do. Plus I was socially awkward and I wonder if things would have been better at a larger school, or of I could have done more out of school things with a different group of kids than the ones I already didn’t like at school.

Grew up in the rural South and ultimately ended up in Chicago proper for work, and man I occasionally get in a resentment doom spiral of wondering what my life could have been had I grown up somewhere like this, surrounded by opportunities and things to do. But oh well. Next time.

i guess the grass is always greener bc i grew up in and live in NYC and wish I would have had more exposure to rural life growing up so I can have the best of both worlds. i love nature so much

… I could have written this post. Major culture shock as I also moved from the Deep South to the North Eastern US.

School went from easy “A” to WTF am I stupid?

As a rural kid who moved to a city with about 500k pop, I hate the urban life.

You either love rural or love urban. There is no right or wrong choice. Suburban still feels urban to the rural kid.

For me and my personality, I very much love nature and quieter spaces....so it's obvious why I don't prefer the urban/suburban life.

Life is short. Find a way to get to a place that makes you happy.

We will eventually move more rural again when the housing market decides to stop being weird.

For the most part it narrows your horizons everyone in my area would move away when they could, for the most part it was encouraged by the school's. Its unhealthy living in rural areas especially for social development. Theres no opportunity the prominent families monopolize all government positions for rather banal reasons ( the salary plus whatever business or government jobs). Violent crime ime is high in rural areas and there's some of the most dysfunctional, trifling and petty people (Mark Twain has written about that subject for rural feuding situations and how they have nothing better going on + constant encounters). Not to mention pollution and cancer from farming, meat processing and heavy basic industries that pollute like crazy country air is diesel fumes and factory furnaces along with pesticides.

Grew up in rural alabama, moves to Atlanta for college. Huge culture shock to me too, and I was like wow now I get to do things I've never dreamed of doing!!!

The city sucks. Moved back home, will never live in a city again.

No I want to go back to the country. 

Just the opposite... I feel like I missed out by not going to the city!

Meh, city folk miss out on country things too. Sure I wish we had some of the events activities, but I also like being outside and that’s my relaxing time even if I live in a city now, I would spend a lot of my time outside of the city. 

To contribute an alternate perspective, I was one of the suburban kids. Grew up in a very white, very affluent area and went to high school in a setting that looked like every coming of age movie our generation churned out.

I also felt, once I moved into early adulthood, like I had missed out on a lot. All the kids I ever went to school with were basically exactly like me. It was shocking to enter the real world and see the diverse perspectives and experiences other cultures and races and socioeconomic situations contributed to the world after being sheltered from basically anything but whiteness and privilege my whole life.

I also ended up on a very different path than my peers when I didn’t go to college, suffered a severe trauma and dealt with addiction issues, etc so going from being a part of that privileged upbringing to someone even I would have harshly judged just over a decade ago is its own trip.

I will be giving birth to a mixed race child this fall and my husband and I have already agreed that they will not be raised in the same type of bubble I was.

No, I see it as getting to experience something that only ~20% of Americans experienced.

I don’t think I “missed out” necessarily. I like that I got the opportunity to experience riding bikes with my friends, Friday night football games, and all the other cliché suburban things. I think they were good experiences to have while growing up and made sense at that time in my life. I did move to the city afterwards, and I’m glad for that too. It expanded my world view, and I got to experience new foods, cultures, etc. at a time in my life when I was mature enough to really appreciate it.

Oh hell yes. Grew up in a small town as a goth, a bisexual, and a buddhist. I was not making life easy for myself, I admit, and had to keep all that stuff inside much of the time. Self expression was for the sports types. And beyond my own stuff, I didn't really know how the world worked. How people found a way into The System to make it work for them.

Due to timing, the big reveal happened a couple years before I moved to The Big City. Late 90s - the internet became available. Slow as hell over voice phone lines, but a portal to a bigger world. I followed the path and I was absolutely ready to get out there.

There are some good things about growing up in a small place, I just can't think of them right now.

(edited to remove the "P" word)

Absolutely.  I hated the fact that we didn’t have an art house theater because none of the films I wanted to see came to town.

I grew up rurally and hated it. Never anything to do, felt so cut off from everything, so many opportunities I didn't have, so much youth culture I wasn't a part of.

Plus my parents were very old-fashioned and we e.g. had just one tv until the late 90s, and only got a computer (no internet) in the late 90s as well. Which was when I moved out.

Yes, I missed out on a lot, and I knew it. My experience growing up was more Gen X than Mill, even though I am one. And even back then it felt odd.

I knew that I wanted to live in a city, and apart from a few years of studying in a medium sized town, I have so ever since. I am never going back to rural areas.

Grew up in a small town. Freshman year in Chicago, hated it. Looking back on it, glad I went and I do feel like I missed out in the city. Trying to give my family the best of both worlds.

I grew up in a very small rural community in Florida and I always felt like I was trapped there. I never felt like I belonged and l felt oppressed the “values” of th area. When I moved to Miami at 19 it was a huge cultural shock in the best way. I found myself because I had so much freedom in no one knowing me. I was finally exposed to all the things I was missing living in the sticks. I ended up living almost as far away as possible in the contiguous US.

Actually the opposite. I'm now urban and resent the fact that I'll probably never get back to rural due to work opportunities. I also wish my future kids could experience small town life.

I lived in a more rural suburb across the street from a farm to an urban suburb of Pittsburgh to now a more rural suburb again. They have pros and cons, but I prefer not living in a city and owning my own piece of land. If I want to visit the city I just have to take a 30 minute drive to get to downtown, but I don't have to worry about porch pirates, Street parking, and crime in general.

While my high school was also across from a farm it was one of the better ones in PA apparently and the AP classes I took in high school were hands down harder than any college class that I took at Penn State. It was also nice growing up in a little suburb where we could play flashlight tag, swing around wooden swords, bike ride etc without our parents watching over us.

to the city kids y’all had it good lmao i’m reading this having grown up in a city and never thought anyone would be jealous of my experiences being a kid lol

I can say though no one gave a shit about popularity we all mostly meshed enough to get along with a few exceptions of the rich kids that were too dumb/ problematic for private schools that got stuck with us.

I get that people moved out into increasingly rural areas outside of traditional commuter areas in a sort of neo sunbelt fashion made possible through working from home. But here's the real question what will your kids do they'll have to move away and never return there's zero opportunities there.

When I leave my home and travel to a major city, I feel like I’m traveling 20-30 years into the future (good and bad). I don’t feel like I missed out because I recognize that life in my rural local is cheap, my job isn’t mobile, and my support network of friends, family, and good ol’ boys who can fix stuff is literally what keeps me alive.

There’s greater opportunity in cities for most, but I’m somehow both sustained by and trapped by my upbringing. Here, I am someone. Even the guy who drives the ice cream truck knows me by name. I can walk into the neighborhood bar on a random Wednesday and see familiar faces and friends. I’ve met personally nearly every relevant elected official and am on a first name basis with many of them. I’ll run into a fireman who’s an old hs buddy, a cop who’s dating one of my best friends, etc. In a large city, I am just another anonymous face in a crowd. While I am sure I could, with time, replicate some semblance of the roots that I have where I grew up, but it wouldn’t be an easy adjustment, and for what? What is a higher pay check worth without my friends (many of whom I’ve had since I was 5) and family to spend it with?

I grew up end of tracks kinda thing and moved to the heart of the city in my early 20s. Never looked back.

I left a small town in the Mountain West for an elite college on the East Coast. My classmates were from all over the country, but it ultimately seemed like they had grown up in the same affluent suburb that had branches in different metro areas. I’ve never been cool when it comes to music or whatever, so I can’t speak to that. But I had a more textured, regionally-specific upbringing than most of my classmates, and for that I’ll always be glad

Hell, no, I didn’t feel like I was missing anything I liked it

I have a very similar experience to yours. Grew up on a farm in a very rural area. Did well enough in high school, went into engineering, and at first struggled but then did well once my studying mentality caught up with the urban kids. I struggled a bit meeting friends my first semester, but I learned how to branch out and then excelled socially after the first year and throughout college.

I landed a good job after school and moved to the suburbs of a larger city. In the first few years, I found myself questioning a lot about my beliefs. I recognized that my upbringing was sheltered, and many of my previous beliefs were simply not true or were based on flawed merit. Although I am still the same person at heart, my core beliefs, hobbies, and sense of self have shifted in some areas. I feel I see the bigger picture, and I question mostly everything. Having the opportunity to travel the world has likely had an impact on those qualities as well.

Do I feel I missed out? Not really. I think I have many intangible skills that someone who grew up in an urban environment does not possess. I have many stories of my childhood that seem completely foreign to those of my friends. I have a greater connection to nature and animals through raising livestock and farming. I have tangible hands-on skills with working on machinery that has been the bedrock of my engineering mind that has allowed me to quickly rise through the ranks. I am able to relate and emphasize with those who feel like the country is not listening to their wants/needs (although I feel their sheltered mindset does not allow them to put themselves in other's shoes).

I think that's the beauty of life. Everyone is thrown a different upbringing, and it's their opportunity to create their own story.

I wish my school had a swimming pool so I could’ve joined the swim team. And my nephew’s school has full blown orchestra, symphony, and chamber classes and I’m so jealous. Otherwise, it didn’t really bother me except for when my aunt from the city acted as if my education was laughable. Granted it wasn’t the most high class but I earned a science degree afterwards when 2/3 of her kids didn’t get a degree. I also had undiagnosed adhd so I think fancier schools would’ve just been worse for me. The smaller classrooms and tighter knit social life did me well. Although, I did start out in a tiny private school so once I switched to public it felt big to me.

Things became a lot more relevant like “coming soon to a theater near you” actually meant it was going to be here on opening day and playing on a digital HD projector, not that I go to the movies, but lots of stuff like that. My interactions with the city high school kids at a college I worked at had me feeling like they already knew who they were when I was still figuring things out for a good while at that age. Definitely feel like I missed opportunities for better training in arts and technology that kids in bigger schools had.

I did not. It was an eye-opening experience moving to the city, but not in a positive sense.

I grew up in a small town (about 10,000 people) and my wife grew up in a small city (about 40,000 people). We moved to a big city (about a 2 million metro population) when I was 30 and she was 26. We both absolutely hated it. Stayed for 14-15 months, and as soon as an opportunity opened up for my job that allowed me to transfer, we were all over it. Even broke our lease to do so. Now we’re back living in a different small town (about 16,000 people) that is closer to both our families and we love it.

I used to be the type who romanticized big city life and sort of resented my small town/rural upbringing, but never again. Didn’t take either of us long to realize we are not cut out for big city life. Hated the traffic, hated commuting, and we are both way too much of homebodies to justify the cost of living.

I grew up in rural area and moved to a huge city when I was 22. Best decision I ever made.

I never really fit in with any social groups growing up and developed some pretty bad social anxiety and depression partly because of it, to the point where I dropped out of school. So I spent most of my youth vegetating and playing video games all day until I finally decided to move away. If I grew up in a major city I probably would have had more resources to avoid that rut I was stuck in.

So as for feeling like I missed out, yeah I do - but I tend not to dwell on the what-ifs of the past. After all, it eventually led me to meet my wife at age 20, so I consider all the crap I went through in my youth worth it haha.

You can easily get a rural experience escape from the city and enjoy it, the reverse is hardly true. Not to mention all of the convenience and medical care, rural living is crazy. Ill.never live out in the country again. Years wasted living in small town with no hobbies except meth

I didn't miss out on anything.

I hated my small rural home town, I hated 99% of the people who lived there, and my parent managed to piss off a lot of important people in that community so that made it infinitely worse.

When I was growing up there, a third of the population was still illiterate. As of 2022 our average household income was still under 25k a year. The only person I know from my high school who actually stayed and became financially successful is now a notorious drug dealer. Your choices are to cook meth or go work in the local meat packing plant, which offers minimum wage, no benefits and something ridiculous like three days of PTO per year. It's the most violent county in the state, and my parents have been subjected to home invasions, which are relatively common and often involve firearms. It's also the most corrupt county in the state, and the entire local fire department was arrested in 2014 for being bribed to set fires for insurance scams.

I needed to get away. I ran away at 18 and never looked back, and I do not regret that decision. I'm literate, working on my college degree, not hooked on meth or pills, and make $20 an hour at an honest job. Not much but doing better than 90% of the folks back home. Rural ghettoes are just as bad as the inner city.

My college friends were never shy about telling me how I grew up under a rock. They were shocked that I had never had an avocado, or Chinese food, hadn’t heard a lot of popular music (imagine walking into a bar where everyone was singing the song that was playing and I’d never even heard it). But, a lot of them also got to visit my hometown with me and did a lot of things they never could imagine doing.

I made friends with people that had lived in New York City their entire lives. It still boggles my brain how that works - how they get to work, how they dispose of their trash, how they get their groceries home, what their mailboxes look like, etc. I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. I got to party in hay lofts (they thought that was the stuff of legend), ride my bike to my grandparents house across town, and generally anyone I ran into knew my parents and was looking out for me. I would 10/10 do my childhood the exact same way. I feel like other people missed out on the experience that I had.

I have 0 regrets. I just wish I went further from home than our closest big city. 💙

No. I feel like they missed out. They never had the freedom we had or the social connections. 

Grew up in the suburbs, rural college, and been living in urban areas most of my adult life.

You hit the nail on the head with the “popularity” comment.

There were 500+ people in my graduating class and I never interacted with or even heard of the vast majority of them. I was in the “punk” click which overlapped more artistic, theatre, and band kids, and occasionally the stoner Bros. Couldn’t name a single kid on one of the sports teams that I ever saw outside of a classroom.

You knew your people and didn’t give a shit about the rest.

Finally! Someone else who understands this feeling.

Totally feel I was robbed of what could have been a much more enriching education and social experience.

You ain't missing shit except for the crimes. Rural is the place to be.

I grew up in a rural town and moved to a city for several years and had fun but it got old and didnt seem like a good place to have a family. I then bought my house in a rural town. I now know my end game is to wind up in Montana or Wyoming away from the all the people and garbage.

Each location provides such a different life experience. I grew up in a small town and settled in a larger city during college. While the city does provide a lot of advantages due to everything being in close proximity, if I had the choice, I would rather raise my children in the country.
Thanks to the internet, the entire world is at our fingertips now, if you want to search something out, all you need to do is look.

No I experienced none of those things. The one difference I can see is the kids in the city seemed to have cross school connections whereas we only had one secondary school. Not that much of an issue.

I did lol at the access to more acceptable types of music thing. We grew up in the 80s and 90s not in the 20s. What music wasn't acceptable?

I grew up in the middle of nowhere. I currently live in town ( population ~8,000). I can’t wait to move back to the middle of nowhere. I could never survive in a city

Grew up on the farm in a county that had less than 2,000 people. I eventually moved on to a city of 12,000 for a few years, met my wife, moved back outside of town. My compromise between my wife and I was that we live close to town, but I still wanted outside of city limits. So, I have neighbors in the little area we moved to, but luckily they are very good people and I like having them around. I'm honestly pretty happy with how I grew up just walking around the fields, enjoying outdoors, and not going out and feeling pressured to do so.

Living where I do, I feel like my daughter will be happy. A lot of yard to run around, good neighbors, only 5 minutes from town, so doing stuff if getting bored out here is easy to get to.

I grew up in a part of Georgia that was only 30 mins from Atlanta. My hometown was a mix of suburban and rural (I was in the suburbs). Trips to Atlanta for me was usually once a month, so we'd drive to Atlanta for the malls to get the city experience. So I was thankful I got to experience the best of both worlds.

Had I grew up in New York City or Chicago, I would've only gotten the city experience, but had I been further down in rural Georgia or another rural place nowhere near a city, I would've only gotten the rural experience, but where I grew up in the suburbs it was always a balance for me.

The traffic

I grew up in the “big city” of a rural, isolated state but I also feel this way.

Helllllll no. I hate the city. Rural is where it's at.

Grew up in a small town. Unfortunately, I have to commute to the city for work. Hate the city. To each their own.

I have a kinda unique experience.

I live and grew up in Rhode Island, there isn't really a rural area. There's never something that's not close. My town was only 20,000 people, but I was and still am barely a drive from Providence, 1.5 hours from Boston, and 3 from NYC.

While not living literally in the city I've always had options.

And frankly I wouldn't change it. I don't really want to deal with the traffic and noise 24/7 just to save a couple minutes getting somewhere.

I feel like I got the best of both worlds. I grew up in WV, not in a rural area, but still small town and not a ton going on. I appreciate that small town feel and enjoying some of the simpler things in life as a kid. But then went away to a bigger city/state for college and am so grateful for that experience. It helped me grow and learn more about myself, and just really opened my mind to new things. Now I've settled in a little big city that feels like the best of both worlds. I could never go back to living in WV or a smaller place like it, but I am grateful for that experience growing up, and now equally grateful for all the bigger experiences I've had living in larger cities with more opportunities.

Yes

I was definitely eager to get access to more when I moved away from rural Massachusetts, but I don't think I exactly "missed out" on anything. Growing up in a rural area was great as a kid because it generally meant parents were less likely to object about you disappearing for couple hours with a friend on your bicycle. Adapting to life in a larger city wasn't hard at all, but I imagine if I'd grown up there I'd be less inclined to learn to build a campfire, navigate by a compass, chop firewood, etc. which are all skills I accumulated growing up in a rural area.

I grew up in a college town, but it doesn’t change that I never really found my groove. I moved to Phoenix for college and was even more alone despite being surrounded by people.

It took me going to a house party in the mountains within a small community of everyone knowing everyone when I felt like I found myself and my people. I’m dying to move out to the middle of nowhere to be closer to my people.

Absolutely yes, and I grew up in an upper middle class "Ivy League feeder town" near Boston. You just can't beat actually living in a city itself.

I grew up in a very rural area, moved to a few different cities for a decade as a young adult. Came home to raise my kids and dang I love the country. It's so great.

The internet shines a light on much of that for me. I honestly do consider my phone as a pocket sized window to look into cities.

And from what I have seen over the last 25 years, I am not built for a large city. Maybe a visit, but peace and quiet is more my speed. 😂

I don't think I feel like I missed out, but I definitely experienced some pretty bad culture shock when I moved from rural Oregon to Queens, NYC. It's not just the city though, East Coast culture is so different from West Coast culture that it definitely made it so so much harder to figure out how to fit in here. A lot of the experiences I thought were small town experiences are actually just West Coast culture, it's crazy how different someone's whole life can be in the same country.

Not even a little. Still don’t like cities. Too busy for my liking.

No. I’m 33 and I’ve been in a large metro for close to a decade and once I’m financially able, will move back to my hometown and build a home I plan on never leaving until that place turns into concrete jungle.

The city seemed badass when I was growing up, but it sucked — the traffic, the people who are assholes that are everywhere, the crime I witness daily and the amount of people that have their heads so up their own asses regarding their appearance or job title drives me nuts.

It is tolerable, but the amount of stress I deal with daily with work and people who think they can walk on water is not even close to worth the benefits of being here.

I grew up in a rural city, the freedom and nature were a big bonus. How quiet and the smell of freshness.

My brother moved to a large city for University and he enjoy living in a tall skyscraper apartment building. It was fun to visit the city since you could stay out late or have different types of food. But overall the noise, crime/homeless, and pollution not to mention you are basically surrounded by man made structures designed to be cheap and economical.

That large school in the city, the kids growing up will breathe in pollution, won’t have large fields to play in, lakes to swim in. A car to drive in high school.

I enjoy visiting the city but I feel like it’s more of a 20-30 year old working out of university before you decide to have a family and move to the suburbs. You are still used to the noisy dorms and crap. But once I got older the appeal of living in an apartment or condo died for me.

Rural area was a great place to be a kid. Left for college in the closest city near us, then spent about 5 years each at two other very large cities before settling in a small/mid-sized city. I always knew I wanted to live in cities and I’ve loved the ones I’ve been in - diverse people, food, and experiences that completely changed my worldview. The city we’re in now offers the best of both rural and city world - has one of everything (indian food, live theaters, etc) but not horrible traffic or high crime.

I feel no “resentment” for waiting until 18 to start experiencing a less bubbled life. It hasn’t stopped me from accomplishing all the things I wanted to. I love visiting my home town (one blinking traffic light and all) and keep in touch with many there, but I’ll never live there again. There are no employment opportunities, no diversity, and I want my kids to experience the real world a bit earlier than I did.

So idk I think growing up rural and then experiencing city life can work out pretty well. After that you can decide for yourself if you want back to rural or something more metropolitan.

Nooo. I live in the city now and miss the country so bad.

Growing up slow, and set apart was such a rich experience.

I spent my life in a tiny town in Illinois up until 34 years old (2 years ago). That's when I moved west to a small/medium sized city. I'm just glad I got out, honestly. No regrets or resentment.

I moved back to a rural area lol. I like the peace and quiet

Nope. I grow up in the country and moved to the city in my 20s and I feel like my kids are missing out living in the city and suburbs.

Grew up rural, moved to the city for about 7 years, then moved back rural and started a family. Can’t say I regret any of it and I’m happy to be rural and living a smaller life

Not that I missed out, just that my life was different. I brought home a friend who was a city girl and got to teach her about baling hay, chickens, cows, catching fireflies--all the things that rural kids get to do and city kids don't. The city only made me more appreciate the ways I grew up, honestly. I did used to wish I'd had more friends around as a kid bc we literally lived in the middle of nowhere lol, but that's about all I would change. Moving to the city only made me appreciate home more

I will say, as far as education goes--I do feel like I missed out. I got lucky in that when my parents divorced, I moved into one of the top ten districts in my state. With that said, I still feel that a bigger school would've helped me be better prepared with math and science. Bigger schools around me had infinitely more classes and clubs, and sometimes I did wish I'd been able to participate in those things, but that's about all I feel I missed out on

Until I was like 28 and now I want to move back.

Meh I settled for raising my kids rural but with access to NYC/Boston just a train ride away.

I grew up rural so I get it. I just enjoy living in nature too much.

I love that I’m from a small town. I love that I grew up going camping, fishing, peeing outside, spending summer days messing around in the coulee. I wish my (nonexistent) children could have the same upbringing. And I appreciate understanding the perspective of rural people, some of which I share and some I don’t. I definitely felt like I didn’t really fit at my school and missed out on academic opportunities. I didn’t have the right last name, which also affected my life. But overall, I appreciate my childhood. I’d move back to my home state but housing has become really unattainable post-pandemic. So we’re in an Eastern time zone city for the duration. 

I feel like the city folks missed out on my upbringing. But we definitely had to leave rural America to experience the different walks of life and have more opportunities.

Sometimes but not really. I recently took my partner to Alaska with me to show him where I grew up. I realized if I had access to under 18 clubs and more of the city stuff, I probably would have had less wild and unique experiences than I did have. But I didn’t go to a casino for the first time till I was 31, and by then I wasn’t that interested. There are many things I have access to now that I didn’t then, and I’m just too old or set in my ways now to even find them enjoyable or enticing.

I travel for work a lot and I don't meet people city to city unfortunately. Just coworkers I don't Wanna hang out with usually.

I stayed rural and will never regret it. I’m from a relatively small town of ~5,000 people. My middle school class had ~50 kids, but for high school I went to a vocational school where my class had ~90 kids. I chose not to go to college, but to focus on finding a good career without the burden of crushing debt. I stayed in my home town, got a well paying municipal job, got married, bought a house, had a kid, pretty much did everything I wanted to do. I honestly don’t see the appeal of moving to the city. Too many people, too much noise, everything is just too fast. I’m not ragging on anyone who prefers that, it’s just not for me. I guess I’m just a towny.

Not really. The city gave me more things to do regularly, and I enjoy public transportation, but as an introvert, it just doesn't compare to the quiet lake country life.

Totally different, but I don’t feel we missed out. I feel like urban folks missed out on the perspective I gained in my youth. 

I grew up in a rural community and it was the worst. The superiority complex of most rural Americans is unbearable. I currently live in a major metro area and you couldn’t pay me enough to raise my kids where I grew up.

I'm kind of the opposite - I grew up in the suburbs relatively close to the city and moved to a small town for college and felt like I missed out on some fun rural stuff my whole life haha

No way. I love the slow, chill pace of a small town. You don't get honked at the nano-second the light turns green. Strangers are typically friendly and pleasant to be around in public spaces. I'm partial to feeling at home around southern hospitality as well.

I commute to larger city for work (and attempted to live there at one point) and I hate it. Traffic sucks, people are always in a shitty mood, and unfortunately it just overall feels less safe to be in.

Yes and no.

I grew up in the suburbs but left for college that was in the rural towns. The only thing I think I missed was the club/bar scene because there weren't clubs by me and I didn't have money to go to Vegas with one of my friends either. It was either rent money or go to Vegas.

But tbh my friends at the time weren't into dancing so that sucked. I didn't care for bars but there were only a few at my town and they were mostly for old guys.

Older rural millennial here, and I never did actually move to the city (though I did leave the hometown). No regrets. I love visiting big cities, and I have friends there, but I learned early on that they're not for me. Too crowded, too noisy, mostly ugly except for specific neighborhoods or green spaces. I'll visit for a couple days when I want a dose of culture I can't get locally, but for the most part I'll take my extremely low cost of living for comfortable spaces and ridiculously easy access to untamed and tranquil nature.

You gotta make the most of where you grow up. The crazy stories I tell the city friends I made after I left my rural hometown always amaze them

I am very thankful to have the beautiful rural memories I made growing up on a farm in the Midwest.

Even though I enjoyed my youth in a rural area, I always felt like I was missing out. I moved to a larger area after I graduated from college. I enjoyed my time, but I moved back to a small town when we had kids and have never regretted it.

I would never have been able to afford my house or lake cabin if I was still in the big city. I would’ve never been able to semi-retire in my 40s. I’m still able to visit large cities and take in some of the culture. Based on most of the posts on this sub, it doesn’t sound like many are able to reap the benefits of a big city anyway. It sounds like more of an endless grind on a hamster wheel.

It's a mixed bag. I was an honor roll student my entire primary school time.

I went to a 1A school in Texas and it was at the time one of the top schools for it's size and even in comparison to some 2 and 3A schools. There were things I remember learning in basic science glasses in 7th grade (such as Chromatography processes and Spectrophotometry with getting to use a spectrophotometer, doing DNA gel electrophoresis experiments etc) at the rural school that my 5A school counterparts had never even heard of by their junior year of highschool and taking pre-ap chemistry or pre-ap physics. I was able to learn more about AG classes and farming from both the school and community. I wasn't seeing those types of courses even available at the 5A high school. Luckily I learned enough before moving. It wasn't that the district was not funded well enough, or the school was lacking. It too was a top 20 4A and then 5A school at the time. We didn't do field trips often unless you were in special classes for it. I did more of that in the rural area.

I went from an environment where the teachers provided an environment to assist with any questions with plenty of time, to an environment where I was more of a number until the staff realised I knew way more than most of my counterparts. Then I was placed in TAG/GT courses.

That's when I would say I got the culture shock of sorts. In the classes with regular kids, my rural accent didn't matter. Basically everyone saw me and thought I was just as dumb as them but they didn't know my grades. In the TAG classes it was how did this hick finagle his way into our program. We took a standardized test one year and I remember this royal conceited gem of a classmate poking fun out loud that I likely did miserable as we were told they had results at school "because I'm an idiot of sorts." Well the teacher read aloud how I did and it wound up I was top in our class and she was like number 6. She couldn't let it go. She went on the dumb hick tirade. I got to see the true colors of competitive people of a different culture.

There were cliques of students. Ones rather popular, or just known because of either something they did or their parents involvement with something. I wound up being rather infamous for kicking a known school bully in the face during a class scuffle. Lots more rats and snitches. Shit ton of latch key kids, spoiled criminal brats, severly mentally ill individuals that needed legit psychiatric help for violent behaviors. Heck a classmate transitioned to male my senior year (2005) and I didn't think much of it until the last couple of years because it was a non-issue compared to the Disney level nonsense otherwise going on.

What did I really miss out on being rural - off campus lunch and walking off campus to have a cigarette at lunch. Seeing people really suffering for vast amounts of other reasons.

No. I grew up rural, on my family farm. Graduated with 57 kids in my grade. Spent my childhood hunting, fishing, farming, camping, dirtbiking.

Moved to a big city for college. It was fun initially, but none of the “experiences” were really that cool. Just superficial consumption and entertainment. Crowds. Traffic. Light, noise.

I spent 1.5 years there and then moved to a smaller school in a rural area. Loved it.

Moved back to the farm and haven’t regretted one dingle day. It’s fun to go visit the city, but a few hours and I’m done.

When I graduated high school I did a stint at a fantastic university in a more populated area. Basically someone like me, who had 32 people in her graduating class, went to an excellent university with people from the largest metropolitan areas in the country. Our experiences growing up were so vastly different I don’t even know how to explain it.

I entered college with 3 course credits to my name because I took the only college credit & AP class my high school had - AP US History. I was good at it too, but I digress. One of my college friends was a young woman who was from St. Louis. She entered as a second semester junior because of her AP credits and extra courses! It was completely out of my wheelhouse.

People will talk about 90s MTV and I know nothing about it because I didn’t even see MTV until after 1999, when I went to college. My tiny town’s cable company didn’t carry it. I have so many more examples. I just do not share the same frame of reference as someone from a major area.

I also resent growing up in rural areas and will never live like that again. As it is I live in Omaha and it’s still too small for me.

Hell no.

I have the opposite. I grew up in a rural area, met my wife in a suburb of a city and she moved out here, but I have grown to hate it! Unless you want to go to the bar there is little to do, there no services (good luck getting the roads plowed in the winter) and the people are so mean and hateful.

Not at all. I had so many opportunities to do so many meaningful things in my small town that my big city counterparts have no reference for.

I understand them a lot better than they understand me. I feel like my kids are missing out in so many not growing up in a small town.

My judgement is always that it was bullshit that underqualified coaches were teaching science and history.

I thinks since I'm a younger millennial I had access to the internet and that gave me a good pool of knowledge that led my music tastes (like I was into kpop in 2010 lol) and led to my career.

But sometimes I wonder what my career would be if I had better science classes. or a place that was more aware of ADHD and its effects on learning.

I've moved back and I still have this prejudice that they are all evangelical assholes who are racist and ableist. I travel to the city I was living in all the time because I just feel more comfortable there that I can be myself than when I'm out in the small town. All because of how I remember it.

OPPORTUNITIES!

My sad little hometown had a waitlist for employment at McDonalds.

Walmart was 20 miles away.

Biggest employer(s) in the area are Direct Care Aide services. A low paying wage.

I couldn't get a job opportunity until I was 21. Not for lack of trying, either (took the Boomer approach and I think it backfired fierce).

It really depends on what type of Rural Area we are talking about.

My cousins grew up in an ultra-wealthy rural resort town (6k). A three-hour drive to the nearest city over 100k.

Everything they needed or wanted was in that small area. They did not miss out on anything at all.

However,

Small Rural towns that are not wealthy ... huge difference.

You 100% are suggesting is worse and you enumerated why. Obviously it's different. Thats not a point that needs making

Experienced both. Rural while in elementary & middle school, then urban while in high school. Looking back, I cherish my rural experience more. But there was also a lot of opportunities, extracurricular activities, and resources in the city while in high school.

No. I grew up in a tiny town in WV and loved having the experience of a small town/rural living when I moved to larger areas. Opportunities and experiences are different but I never felt like a fish out of water. In fact my upbringing has helped in a lot of situations... I bet there aren't many city folk who know that if you smell cucumber to be on the lookout for copperheads!

As an adult I'm doing really well personally and professionally and love having the memories and experiences afforded to me growing up in a small town. Life would have been different growing up in a city, some worse, some better. But I'm happy - what more could one ask for?

Wow you must have been very rural. I grew up in a rural southwestern city, well there’s small cities surrounded by wilderness. I’d notice a difference just in kids that went to a bigger school than I did.

I never felt like I was missing out and when we moved to California later, I didn’t like it as much. I was never one of the kids saying there’s nothing to do here.

Now I live in a big city as it’s where all the industry and jobs are, I’d go back in a heartbeat but there’s really no way to survive there except for specialized engineering or service industry jobs. Not being qualified for the former and not enjoying the latter, and it not being lucrative enough keeps me away.