[RunDownHouse]

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I would say the same for Chattanooga.

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Yeah, Chattanooga is great because it's got some of the worst pollution in the country, rains as much as Seattle/Portland, and doesn't have any pro sports teams. It also is one of the worst speed traps in the SE, so what a great place to be!

I've lived in big cities and in rural towns of 800 people. On the whole, I'd prefer to live somewhere on the smaller side, mostly because I don't like people and have no desire to mingle with most of them. For me, the variety of places to eat is the biggest advantage of big cities. Having a huge variety of cuisines close is awesome, and every time I go somewhere like NYC or SF or Chicago, etc, I pretty much plan my day around where I want to eat. On the other hand, the cities that are truly great wrt variety of cuisine aren't that numerous. You've got NYC and LA, and a handful that benefit from great immigrant population, but you could count those cities on one hand, right? I'll try to cook the stuff at home and avoid the people, if I can.

For me, the big city advantage of so many great and different foods is offset by the smaller city's advantages of affordability and less people. I can get 7 acres and 4 bedrooms for under $200k just outside Nashville. I prefer buying enough land to keep people away over big city advantages like restaurants, laundry (wtf?), cabs, etc.

I'm more or less expecting to move to a rural place in the next few years and the thing I'll regret the most is having lots of restaurants around. That's just not enough to persuade me to stay in a metro area.