History Main / SmallTownBoredom

* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': This shows up in both Tuuri and Reynir's backstories. ThePlague that has been around for ninety years results in those who are not TheImmune to be greatly discouraged from leaving whichever place they were born in, and the DepopulationBomb resulting from the initial outbreak has made just about all settlements small (sometimes ''very'' small) towns. Tuuri has lived in two of those small settlements during her childhood, the second implied to be significantly larger than the first, but still yearns for more. Reynir lives in the only known entire country to have been secured, but his great-grandfather who was alive during the initial outbreak reacted to the cirscumstances by intentionally moving to a small town.

* Many children (and some adults) in the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' universe.

-->'''Greg:''' Hey West Covina, why won't you let me break free? Am I doomed to stay here pouring my [[EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether high school friends']] beer for the rest of eternity?

** Oklahoma has successfully documented the "Great Brain Drain", a finding that 50% of all college graduates leave the state for any state which has both better odds of employment and appears less boring to their college-educated eyes. One consequence of this finding has been reluctance for Oklahoma parents to allow their children to attend college because they fear that a college education will take their children away from them.

* Overall, the Western world has undergone (at the very least) one major circle of this over the last two hundred years or so. When the industrial revolution came, many people left behind their small towns and villages for jobs in the city. Sure, they had NoOSHACompliance, you lived on the WrongSideOfTheTracks, but it still beat being stuck in a dead-end agricultural job, same as your ancestors all the way back to the Stone Age. Later on, the Railroad, the Streetcar, the bicycle and then the Automobile enabled people to move "further out" and still work in industrial jobs, which would one day result in "drive till you qualify" suburbs in some places. Jobs would also move out and ultimately people would live in one place, work in another, play in yet another and drive everywhere. Some jobs even allowed working from home. Ultimately all the effects of this trope hit hard, and starting some time in the 1980s, 1990s and picking up steam with the great recession, more and more people - particularly young, childless folk, are flocking back to cities.

* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': This shows up in both Tuuri and Reynir's backstories. ThePlague that has been around for ninety years results in those who are not TheImmune to be greatly discouraged from leaving whichever place they were born in, and the DepopulationBomb resulting from the initial outbreak has made just about all settlements small (sometimes ''very'' small) towns. Tuuri has lived in two of those small settlments during her childhood. Reynir lives in the only known entire country to have been secured, but his great-grandfather who was alive during the initial outbreak reacted to the cirscumstance by intentionally moving to a small town.

* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': This shows up in both Tuuri and Reynir's backstories. ThePlague that has been around for ninety years results in those who are not TheImmune to be greatly discouraged from leaving whichever place they were born in, and the DeopulationBomb resulting from the initial outbreak has made just about all settlements small (sometimes ''very'' small) towns. Tuuri has lived in two of those small settlments during her childhood. Reynir lives in the only known entire country to have been secured, but his great-grandfather who was alive during the initial outbreak reacted to the cirscumstance by intentionally moving to a small town.

* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': This shows up in both Tuuri and Reynir's backstories. ThePlague that has been around for ninety years results in those who are not TheImmune to be greatly discouraged from leaving whichever place they were born in, and the DeopulationBomb resulting from the initial outbreak has made just about all settlements small (sometimes ''very'' small) towns.

* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': This shows up in both

* Overall, the Western world has undergone (at the very least) one major circle of this over the last two hundred years or so. When the industrial revolution came, many people left behind their small towns and villages for jobs in the city. Sure, they had NoOSHACompliance, you lived on the WrongSideOfTheTracks, but it sill beat being stuck in a dead-end agricultural job, same as your ancestors all the way back to the Stone Age. Later on, the Railroad, the Streetcar, the bicycle and then the Automobile enabled people to move "further out" and still work in industrial jobs, which would one day result in "drive till you qualify" suburbs in some places. Jobs would also move out and ultimately people would live in one place, work in another, play in yet another and drive everywhere. Some jobs even allowed working from home. Ultimately all the effects of this trope hit hard, and starting some time in the 1980s, 1990s and picking up steam with the great recession, more and more people - particularly young, childless folk, are flocking back to cities.

* Luke Skywalker in ''Franchise/Star Wars'' Episode IV: ''Film/ANewHope'' who's stuck in his family's moisture farm on the planet Tatooine.

* Dorothy in ''Film/TheWizardOfOz''

* Rusty, the protagonist of ''Literature/WarriorCats'', decides to give up place as a housecat and join the Clans because of this.

* In the novel ''DandelionWine'', one of the characters is complaining about just this when the Lonely One returns.

* Sara Evans' "Bible Song;" after the narrator's cousin [[DrivenToSuicide commits suicide to escape]], she gets out before she goes the same way ("so no one would sing some Bible song over me").

* "Shit Towne" by Music/Live.

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', this is Petyr Baelish's backstory in a nutshell. His family keep is on the smallest of the Fingers (peninsulars on the eastern coast), technically being petty lords beholden to the Lords of the Eyrie and... they aren't exactly highly populous. Most people in the Seven Kingdoms won't ever think about them much, beyond "pirates and invasions from Essos very occasionally land there". About the most you can do on any of them is fish and look after goats or sheep. He went from ''that'' to the capital of the Riverlands (a bustling Danelaw {{Expy}} and trade hub), [[BigFancyCastle Riverrun]], and back though no real fault of his own as a kid, thanks to a debt Lord Hoster Tully felt he owed Petyr's father. There, the young boy rubbed shoulders with the likes of Tullys and Lannisters -- and received his rather mean-spirited nickname, to boot. However, Hoster withdrew Petyr's invite the minute he realised just how [[MadLove badly smitten]] [[{{Yandere}} Lysa]] was with the young nobody from a fishing hamlet not even beholden to Riverrun. No wonder {{MeaningfulName Littlefinger]] has issues.

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', this is Petyr Baelish's backstory in a nutshell. His family keep is on the smallest of the Fingers (peninsulars on the eastern coast), technically being petty lords beholden to the Lords of the Eyrie and... the aren't exactly highly populous. Most people in the Seven Kingdoms won't ever think about them much, beyond "invasions from Essos very occasionally land there". About the most you can do on any of them is fish and look after goats or sheep. He went from ''that'' to the capital of the Riverlands (a bustling Danelaw {{Expy}} and trade hub), [[BigFancyCastle Riverrun]], and back though no real fault of his own as a kid, thanks to a debt Lord Hoster Tully felt he owed Petyr's father. He withdrew that invite the minute he realised how [[MadLove badly smitten]] [[{{Yandere}} Lysa]] was with the young nobody from a fishing village. No wonder Petyr has issues.