The main benefit of small towns is that social capital matters and reputation matters. Of course those are disadvantages to misbehavers.
This is something that many young adults have forgotten, because it's increasingly more trendy to move around a lot in your 20s while developing your career. Nobody cares in a big city if you're an asshole, because there's a million other people to associate with and most likely the asshole and everyone around them aren't going to still be there in five years.
The downside of the small town social setting is that it can be cliquey.
Come to think of it, in my own county, which is not highly urban by any stretch of the imagination, you'd be maximum a half-hour drive away from the nearest DMV starting from any main road. Obviously, that doesn't hold if it takes you 15 minutes to get down your own driveway ;-)
I could easily see some of the much more remote Western small towns being further away from anything.
But not all towns are like that.