Sidetracked...(for Idit)
I had originally logged in to post something else (can't remember now) but got totally sidetracked when catching up on posts I'd previously only glanced at while looking over Nicole's shoulder. Idit, I saw your post titled "random ejections" - but really clung onto the "minor musings" part - and had to get in on the action.
I apologize for the lecture, but as Nicole could tell you, I spend too much time thinking about this stuff. Consider it an act of love and concern, if you would.
Firstly, Laura, SLO (50k) is not a typical small town. No town where more than a quarter of its population (I think SLO is more like half) attends the nationally-recognized university and its main industry is wine tourism can be typical. Just like Santa Fe, though only 70k people, is not typical because it's home to one of the priciest art scenes in the world. We've all been to (or at least through) typical small towns, but not lived there, because...well, why would we? These are places like Carlsbad, NM (pop 30k) and Lodi, CA (pop 70k).
Size alone can't tell you that much about a place. Like Nicole said, ABQ is big (pop 550k city, 900k metro), but still doesn't feel that urban. On the flip, Victoria, BC, is small (pop 70k city, 300k metro) but feels far more urban than anything in NM. It's the culture. NM has a culture of rural sprawl with infects even its biggest cities. BC (and I think Canada as a whole) has a culture of dense, European planning, which informs the majority of its settlements. People are always walking in Victoria, but do so much less in ABQ, even across similar distances. Downtown Vancouver, though not much larger than ABQ (pop 700k city, 2m metro) was often as frenzied with life as Lower Manhattan.
When I want to get a feel for a place without having been there, I look at population density first. Victoria has 11,000 people per square mile opposed to Santa Fe's 2,000. Vancouver has 14,000 p/sq mi compared to ABQ's 3,000. By this measure, SLO, with its 4,000 p/sq mi, out-urbans ABQ, which seems perfectly reasonable to me, having lived in both places.
If you look at Berkeley and the Valley (and even Haifa) on their own merits, not even taking into account their proximities to SF or the LA basin, you'll find that both point pretty strongly towards their own urbanity based on population density alone (each about 10,000 p/sq mi). So before you leap into this "small towns are fine" mindset, please remember that you've never lived in one. ABQ has a lot of typical, good city-stuff to offer, and that isn't lost on me, but the fact is that it will never be the urban center it should be until the culture changes, which isn't likely to happen anytime soon.
But, hey, it's all relative anyway. If you want to consider Berkeley and Haifa small towns, I don't think there's a hard-line definition that could refute you. But remember that California and especially Israel are both quite densely populated entities over all, meaning a small or average sized town in those places will be huge compared to the same one in many other places.
Just don't move to some small town without checking it out. Hell, don't move anywhere without checking it out. Just because someplace is a "big city" (like ABQ) doesn't mean its what you've come to expect from other cities its size. Personally, I don't think big city life is the only way, but sprawl is the devil and the easiest way to avoid that is to move into a city center. I don't think you're that much of a big-city snob either, but neither do I think you'd be happy in a truly small town, with its car culture, sprawl and small-mindedness.
I apologize for the lecture, but as Nicole could tell you, I spend too much time thinking about this stuff. Consider it an act of love and concern, if you would.
Firstly, Laura, SLO (50k) is not a typical small town. No town where more than a quarter of its population (I think SLO is more like half) attends the nationally-recognized university and its main industry is wine tourism can be typical. Just like Santa Fe, though only 70k people, is not typical because it's home to one of the priciest art scenes in the world. We've all been to (or at least through) typical small towns, but not lived there, because...well, why would we? These are places like Carlsbad, NM (pop 30k) and Lodi, CA (pop 70k).
Size alone can't tell you that much about a place. Like Nicole said, ABQ is big (pop 550k city, 900k metro), but still doesn't feel that urban. On the flip, Victoria, BC, is small (pop 70k city, 300k metro) but feels far more urban than anything in NM. It's the culture. NM has a culture of rural sprawl with infects even its biggest cities. BC (and I think Canada as a whole) has a culture of dense, European planning, which informs the majority of its settlements. People are always walking in Victoria, but do so much less in ABQ, even across similar distances. Downtown Vancouver, though not much larger than ABQ (pop 700k city, 2m metro) was often as frenzied with life as Lower Manhattan.
When I want to get a feel for a place without having been there, I look at population density first. Victoria has 11,000 people per square mile opposed to Santa Fe's 2,000. Vancouver has 14,000 p/sq mi compared to ABQ's 3,000. By this measure, SLO, with its 4,000 p/sq mi, out-urbans ABQ, which seems perfectly reasonable to me, having lived in both places.
If you look at Berkeley and the Valley (and even Haifa) on their own merits, not even taking into account their proximities to SF or the LA basin, you'll find that both point pretty strongly towards their own urbanity based on population density alone (each about 10,000 p/sq mi). So before you leap into this "small towns are fine" mindset, please remember that you've never lived in one. ABQ has a lot of typical, good city-stuff to offer, and that isn't lost on me, but the fact is that it will never be the urban center it should be until the culture changes, which isn't likely to happen anytime soon.
But, hey, it's all relative anyway. If you want to consider Berkeley and Haifa small towns, I don't think there's a hard-line definition that could refute you. But remember that California and especially Israel are both quite densely populated entities over all, meaning a small or average sized town in those places will be huge compared to the same one in many other places.
Just don't move to some small town without checking it out. Hell, don't move anywhere without checking it out. Just because someplace is a "big city" (like ABQ) doesn't mean its what you've come to expect from other cities its size. Personally, I don't think big city life is the only way, but sprawl is the devil and the easiest way to avoid that is to move into a city center. I don't think you're that much of a big-city snob either, but neither do I think you'd be happy in a truly small town, with its car culture, sprawl and small-mindedness.