History Main / FromNewYorkToNowhere

The significance of this trope lies in the commonly perceived superiority of a metropolitan lifestyle. If the protagonist [[BigTownBoredom left the city voluntarily]], expect a lot of characters (perhaps including the protagonist themselves) to wonder why they would move to such a "dump". They'll probably also have a few suspicious locals accusing them of being conceited and condescending; if these locals [[JerkassHasAPoint happen to be right]], there's likely a BreakTheHaughty [=/=] TheCityVsTheCountry subplot unfolding as well.

More common in TV series than in movies, as the setting and the wide assortment of colorful characters is crucial to the story.

* In ''Anime/SakuraQuest'', Yoshino Koharu zig-zags this trope. She originally came from a small town in Japan, but then went to college in Tokyo. After graduating, she applied to many jobs in Tokyo but couldn't get hired for a single one, until she ended up becoming "queen" of the DyingTown of Manoyama, partly by accident. For much of the early show, Yoshino is desperate to get back to Tokyo but comes to love living in Manoyama.

--> '''Lola's Mom:''' Oh, stop being such a drama queen.

* ''Film/LostInAmerica'' features a high-earning couple who decide to cash in their Los Angeles lifestyle and move to the country. They lose all their money gambling in Las Vegas and have to take crappy jobs in a small town. Subverted in that in the end they leave the town as fast as they can and move back to the big city of New York.

* 2009 Comedy/thriller ''Film/DidYouHearAboutTheMorgans?'' has Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker as a New York City couple doing this through the Witness Protection Program when they witness a murder of one of Parker's character's real estate clients.

** In season 2, Luke's nephew Jess moves literally from New York City to Stars Hollow, and suffers some SmallTownBoredom he alleviates by staging a murder scene in the town square.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLongLongHoliday'': In the summer of 1939, siblings [[{{Bookworm}} Ernest]] and [[CheerfulChild Colette]] travel with their parents from their home in Paris to visit their grandparents in a small town in Brittany for a short holiday visit. Then France enters UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. When their father enlists and their mother has to go to Switzerland to recover from [[TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed tuberculosis]], the siblings end up being [[RaisedByGrandparents raised by their grandparents]] in the small town until at least the ending of the war in 1945. Ernest (and Colette much less reluctantly) grows to love the town, and especially their TrueCompanions The Robinsons.

* ''VideoGame/Persona4'' is set in a small rural town called Inaba, and has a few characters that recently moved there from bigger cities. These include the protagonist, who is living with his uncle for a year while his parents work overseas, Yosuke Hanamura, whose dad was assigned to manage a new branch of a large department store chain that recently opened in town, and Tohru Adachi, a police detective who was transferred there as punishment for some sort of screw-up. Both Yosuke and Adachi struggle with the resulting SmallTownBoredom, [[spoiler: which in the latter's case drives him to become a SerialKiller.]]

* Naomi Hayward from ''VideoGame/TheGoodLife'' moved from New York City to [[IdyllicEnglishVillage Rainy Woods]] for an assignment from Morning Bell news. She hates it there, frequently calling it a "goddamn hellhole".

* In ''Literature/TheTwilightSaga'', Bella moves from Phoenix, Arizona, to a small town in Washington to live with her father while her mother travels.

* 2009 Comedy/thriller ''Film/DidYouHearAboutTheMorgans?'' has Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker as a New York City
couple doing this through the Witness Protection Program when they witness a murder of one of Parker's character's real estate clients.

* ''Series/ApplesWay'': (1974-1975) George Apple moves his family from Los Angeles to his native town of Appletown,
Iowa to escape the hecticness of big city living.

* ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'': The Deetzes move from New York into a quaint little town Winter River, Connecticut. Charles Deetz (a successful and possibly unscrupulous realtor) has suffered a near-nervous breakdown and hopes to escape his stressful NY life there. His wife Delia, an art snob with terrible taste, hates moving there but is somewhat satisfied when she can transform this old-fashioned cozy New England house into a postmodern urban one and wants to start sculpting again. Delia convinces her interior designer and friend Otho to come from New York with them. They manage to invite some New Yorkers to come for a visit (to talk about Delia's art, to evaluate possible investments, and to check paranormal activities), and most of them are very condescending. Teenage goth girl Lydia Deetz likes the house as it was.

* ''Film/DocHollywood'' features a recent med school graduate who is on his way to Beverley Hills to make lots of money treating rich folk, but who, while driving there, has a car crash in a small town that needs a doctor. They blackmail him into staying, and he learns to fit in.

* ''Film/{{Jaws}}'': Burned-out New York cop Martin Brody moved himself and his family out of the city to become Police Chief of the sleepy New England island community of Amity. Because it's a safe and quiet place where the worst crimes he has to deal with are things like parking disputes and pot-smoking teens. A place where, in his own words, one man really could make a difference. At least, until that pesky killer shark shows up...

* ''Series/GreenAcres'': New York lawyer Oliver Douglas moves to the small rural town of Hooterville to become a farmer. There he has to deal with EccentricTownsfolk while his wife Lisa keeps begging him to return to the city.

* ''Series/NorthernExposure'': New York physician Joel Fleischman, fresh from med school, moves to the quirky small town of Cicely, Alaska as part of a financial aid package from the state.

* ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'': Hermione and Veronica Lodge, New York city elites, move to Riverdale at the beginning to wait out the scandal of family patriarch Hiram facing embezzlement charges.

* ''Series/SchittsCreek'': The Rose family were globe-trotting, super-wealthy socialites prior to getting exiled to Schitt’s Creek, and son David had been New York-based, where he ran a pretentious lower Manhattan gallery.

* Series/TulsaKing: After being released from a long stint in prison, New York mafia capo Dwight "The General" Manfredi is ordered to move to Tulsa and start some profitable criminal enterprise.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''Film/BagdadCafe'' plays with this trope. The protagonist, who is a [[UsefulNotes/TheSixteenLandsOfDeutschland middle-aged Bavarian lady from Rosenheim]], gets stranded in Bagdad, a middle-of-nowhere hick town in the Californian desert. While Rosenheim can hardly be described as a major city (being a remote market townlet in the Upper Bavarian province, with a population barely scratching the 60,000 mark), at least it's ''[[CreatorProvincialism in Bavaria]]'' (and a relatively well-known locale amongst most Germans, who were the film's intended primary target audience). Bagdad, meanwhile, is a semi-fictional podunk town that is intended to be obscure by any metrics, especially for a Bavarian FishOutOfWater who's [[CultureClash never seen a desert (or African-Americans, for that matter)]].

* ''WesternAnimation/PraisePetey'': Petey loses her career in New York City and moves to the podunk town of New Utopia, where her late father started a cult.

* Holly from ''Literature/{{ByAnyOtherName|2013}}'' used to live in London, before her family entered WitnessProtection in the small town of Daneshill. At first she's bored and miserable there, and looks down on her classmates for being bumpkins. She tries to befriend the popular kids and even briefly dates Fraser, the hottest boy in school, but they fall out pretty quickly, partly because the popular kids really are unpleasant but partly because, as Camilla points out, Holly acts like she's better than everyone else for no apparent reason.

* Holly from ''Literature/ByAnyOtherName'' used to live in London, before her family entered WitnessProtection in the small town of Daneshill. At first she's bored and miserable there, and looks down on her classmates for being bumpkins. She tries to befriend the popular kids and even briefly dates Fraser, the hottest boy in school, but they fall out pretty quickly, partly because the popular kids really are unpleasant but partly because, as Camilla points out, Holly acts like she's better than everyone else for no apparent reason.

* In ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', Bella moves from Phoenix, Arizona, to a small town in Washington to live with her father while her mother travels.

* Sally Carrera of ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' recounts her story to Lightning [=McQueen=] that she used to be a fast-track lawyer in the big city, but grew disillusioned with the phoniness and the guile. She withdrew to bucolic Radiator Springs, became its sole public defender, and has been content with that ever since. Sally recounts this as part of her stop-and-smell-the-roses [[AnAesop Aesop]].

* ''VideoGame/Persona4'' is set in a small rural town called Inaba, and has a few characters that recently moved there from bigger cities. These include the protagonist, who is living with his uncle for a year while his parents work overseas, Yosuke Hanamura, whose dad was assigned to manage a new branch of a large department store chain that recently opened in town, and Tohru Adachi, a detective who was transferred as punishment for some sort of screw-up. Both Yosuke and Adachi struggle with the resulting SmallTownBoredom, [[spoiler: which in the latter's case drives him to become a SerialKiller.]]

The significance of this trope lies in the commonly perceived superiority of a metropolitan lifestyle. If the protagonist left the city voluntarily, expect a lot of characters (perhaps including the protagonist themselves) to wonder why they would move to such a "dump". They'll probably also have a few suspicious locals accusing them of being conceited and condescending; if these locals [[JerkassHasAPoint happen to be right]], there's likely a BreakTheHaughty [=/=] TheCityVsTheCountry subplot unfolding as well.

The significance of this trope lies in the commonly perceived superiority of a metropolitan lifestyle. If the protagonist left the city voluntarily, expect a lot of characters (perhaps including the protagonist themselves) wondering why they would move to such a "dump". They'll probably also have a few suspicious locals accusing them of being conceited and condescending; if these locals [[JerkassHasAPoint happen to be right]], there's likely a BreakTheHaughty [=/=] TheCityVsTheCountry subplot unfolding as well.

More common in TV series than movies, as the setting and the wide assortment of colorful characters is crucial to the story.

* Sally Carrera of ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' recounts her story to Lightning [=McQueen=] that she used to be a fast-track lawyer in the big city, but grew disillusioned with the phoniness and the guile. She withdrew to bucolic Radiator Springs, and became its sole public defender, and has been content with that ever since. Sally recounts this as part of her stop-and-smell-the-roses [[AnAesop Aesop]].

* In ''Anime/SakuraQuest'', Yoshino Koharu zig-zags this trope. She originally came from a small town in Japan, but then went to college in Tokyo. After graduating, she applied to many jobs in Tokyo but couldn't get hired for a single one, until she ended up becoming "queen" of the DyingTown of Manoyama, partly by accident. For much of the early show, Yoshino is desperate to get back to Tokyo, but comes to love living in Manoyama.

* ''Fanfic/DoYouBelieveInFairies'' is based on ''Harvest Moon: Animal Parade''. It tells of a 21-year old {{hipster}} named Evelyn who drops out of college during her last semester after meeting a Harvest Sprite who tells her she's TheChosenOne who must save his DyingTown.

* ''Film/ConfessionsOfATeenageDramaQueen'' begins with Lola Steppe and her family moving to a suburbs in [[{{Joisey}} New Jersey]], much to Lola's annoyance because she dreamed of being a Broadway actress.

* ''Film/LostInAmerica'' features a high-earning couple who decide to cash in their Los Angeles lifestyle and move to the country. They lose all their money gambling in Las Vegas and have to take crappy jobs in a small town. Subverted in that in the end they leave the town as fast as they can and move back to the big city in New York.

* ''Film/BagdadCafe'' plays with this trope. The protagonist, who is a [[UsefulNotes/TheSixteenLandsOfDeutschland middle-aged Bavarian lady from Rosenheim]], gets stranded in Bagdad, a middle-of-nowhere hick town in the Californian desert. While Rosenheim can hardly be described as a major city (being a remote market townlet in the Upper Bavarian province, with a population barely scratching the 60,000 mark), at least it's ''[[CreatorProvincialism in Bavaria]]'' (and a relatively well known locale amongst most Germans, who were the film's intended primary target audience). Bagdad, meanwhile, is a semi-fictional podunk town that is intended to be obscure by any metrics, especially for a Bavarian FishOutOfWater who's [[CultureClash never seen a desert (or African-Americans, for that matter)]].

* In ''Literature/TheBabysittersClub'' Stacey's parents decide to move from Manhattan to her mother's hometown of Stoneybrook, CT in the hopes that a slower pace of life will improve her diabetes, as well as remove her from the bullying and ostracization she was receiving from her former friends in the city after her diabetes complications worsened. Luckily for Stacey, she almost immediately finds TrueCompanions in the other members of the Babysitter's Club, and becomes quite popular in Stoneybrook with her "sophisticated" persona. Though she misses the big-name stores, her former sitting charges, and her best friend Laine in New York, Stacey ends up liking Stoneybrook so much that after [[spoiler: her parents get divorced she decides to live with her mom in Stoneybrook rather than with her dad in the city]].

* ''Series/StrangerThings'': Season Two introduces Max Mayfield and Billy Hargrove, step siblings who have moved with her mother and his father from San Diego, California to Hawkins, Indiana. Neither of them is happy with the change, although Max comes to like the town.

* ''Theatre/{{Thirteen}}'': After his parents divorce when it turns out [[spoiler:his father was having an affair]], Evan and his mom move from New York to the small town of Appleton, Indiana. Evan struggles with adapting to a new school in a completely new environment (the year he is supposed to have his Bar Mitzvah, no less), but finds TrueCompanions in the town by the end.

** In the original game, Max is technically returning to her home town of Arcadia Bay after moving to Seattle 5 years before (at the age of 13), but she's enough of a StrangerInAFamiliarLand that it winds up in line with this trope. She can even admit to Chloe that she much preferred the big city and only came back because she wanted to study photography under Mr. Jefferson (although she doesn't resent being "stuck" there as much as Chloe does).

* ''Film/GhostbustersAfterlife'' begins with our main characters being evicted from their apartment in Chicago and are forced to move to to the farm they inherited in the middle of the barren town of Summervile, Oklahoma.

* ''Film/{{Jaws}}'': Burned-out New York cop Martin Brody moved himself and his family out of the city to become Police Chief of the sleepy New England island community of Amity. Because it was a safe and quiet place where the worst crimes he has to deal with are things like parking disputes and pot-smoking teenagers. A place where, in his own words, one man really could make a difference. At least, until that pesky killer shark shows up...

* ''Film/{{Jaws}}'': Burned-out New York cop Martin Brodie moved himself and his family out of the city to become Police Chief of the sleepy New England island community of Amity. Because it was a safe and quiet place where, in his words, one man really could make a difference, and nothing really bad ever happened. Until that infamous summer, of course.