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5 minutes walk or 1 minute drive to a shop for groceries, hardware, lumber, restaurants, kid parks.

I've never lived in, or even seen, a small town in america where this was possible.

Keene, NH. About 20-30K people total. Walkable and all amenities available.

NH, MA, and the southern parts of ME have quite a few of these kind of towns, as a natural side effect of developing in the pre-car era.

I'm living in a small town right this moment where is is all possible. Toss in a library, a bar, a couple barbers, and a fresh bakery too.

Interesting that you bring up the library -- when it comes to small towns, the library is the deal breaker for me. They usually have thin, dated collections.

Most (in my state - MN - which I do believe is known as one of the better ones) state library systems are networked, for this reason. Simply reserve a book you want and it will show up on the weekly van delivery.

I spent a few years growing up in a ridiculously small town where we'd have to drive to the next town over to check out books - and I never missed anything I wanted to read, just had to plan ahead a little.

That might work if you know what you want already, you're still out of luck for browsing though. And even if you know what you want, they might deliver you the busted copy that's all highlighted and underlined ;)

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