"Well I was born in a small town, and I can breathe in a small town.
[I'm] gonna die in this small town, and that's probably where they'll bury me."
[I'm] gonna die in this small town, and that's probably where they'll bury me."
— John Mellencamp, "Small Town"
Many stories prefer a big city because it's exciting. But sometimes a story instead needs a small town setting, where people know each other, and "time slows down to a crawl". Of course, size is relative, and a small town can be anywhere from tens of thousands, to a few hundred, depending on your perspective.
Might overlap with Adventure Towns, the characters travel to a new setting—sometimes a small town—every episode, and * Close-Knit Community, a setting where people look out for each other.
Compare to Countryside Index and Arcadia (an out-of-the-way rural area where you get away from it all and enjoy simple pleasures); though, do remember not all small towns are rural. Contrast The City.
Sub-tropes:
- Big Town Boredom: Someone from a bigger city or mid-sized suburb wishes they could move to a smaller or more rural place.
- Clean Up the Town: Ridding a (small) town of the evils pervading it.
- Company Town: Usually fairly small, as the town's entire purpose is just to support one company's work.
- Corny Nebraska: Nebraska can contain a lot of small towns known for their corn farms.
- Deep South: Home of small-town rednecks and miles of farmland, backwoods, mountains, and bayous.
- Down on the Farm: Classic view of fewer than 1000 people living in the middle of nowhere surrounded by farming fields.
- Dreamville: Dreams, VR scenarios, artificial realities and other imaginary events set in suburbia or small towns.
- Dying Town: A town that has lost its main reason for existing, resulting in a dwindling population.
- Eccentric Townsfolk: A (small) town's population is full of strange, friendly characters.
- Everyone Went to School Together: The adult cast went to the same school together and hasn't changed since then.
- Everytown, America: The stereotypical American small town.
- Fake Town: A fake, often uninhabited, but realistic-looking town.
- Flyover Country: American coast-dwellers see the land in-between as boorish, sparsely-populated, rural, and conservative.
- From New York to Nowhere: When a character moves from a major city to a rural or small-town location.
- Ghost Town: A town where (almost) no one lives.
- Half-Witted Hillbilly: People from small towns are incredibly dumb.
- Informed Small Town: A supposedly small town has an unrealistically wide range of facilities.
- Lovecraft Country: Rural New England is a land of cosmic horrors and evil.
- Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: A supposedly ordinary, boring location is the site of an extraordinary event.
- Only Shop in Town: A town is so small, it can only support one shop.
- Quirky Town: A (small) town is portrayed as strange, but pleasant nevertheless.
- Small Town, Big Hell: In a small town where all people meet each other, when drama occurs everyone will know about it.
- Small Town Boredom: Someone grows tired of life in their dull little town or village, and wants to move into a larger city.
- Small-Town Tyrant: Evil authority figure of a small town.
- Suburban Gothic media will take place in a sleepy smaller community
- Supernatural Hotspot Town: This town attracts the supernatural.
- Town with a Dark Secret: It's easier to keep a secret if only a small number of people are in on it.
- Tyrannical Town Tycoon: A corrupt rich prick who rules over the small town like some sort of modern nobleman.
Examples that don't fit any of the above:
Literature
- The Wheel of Time: The heroes come from Emonds Field, a small town of a few hundred people. They get to a city (regional capital) and are all amazed at the size: thousands of people! Then they go to the capital city and discover that the "big city" they were so impressed by is considered a small town, and that nobody has even heard of Emonds Field.
