History Main / InformedSmallTown

* Each country, and sometimes state/provincial governments within the country, has its own process of defining a "city", which may not be (totally) based on population or economic development. Thus it is possible to see very small communities legally classified as cities (e.g. Dryden, Ontario, population ~7300), and very large ones legally classified as towns or villages (e.g. Cary, North Carolina, population ~180000).

* [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Sunnydale]] is described as a small town, with the first episode stating that the bad part of town is half a block from the good part as "we don't have a lot of town here." At various points in the series, Sunnydale is shown to have multiple large malls, a major army base, a reasonably well-respected university, an international airport, international docks, and over a dozen churches (though that last is suggested to be a reaction to the atmosphere of evil) and a crime rate so ridiculously high that it's explicitly stated to be higher than the biggest cities in the US (which does not stop people from moving to the city) .

* ''Series/TwinPeaks'' is apparently a small town where everybody knows everybody else, but the "Welcome to Twin Peaks" sign claims a population of 51,201. The original population was supposed to be 5120, but [[ExecutiveMeddling ABC executives insisted on adding a 1 on the end]].

Apart from EverytownAmerica, another semi-common setting in fiction is a small town. A small town itself, generally, is defined as having a population of around 10,000 people — not quite a city, but not quite a village either.[[note]]In American terms, anyway. Britain is less shy of the word “town”, and would always use it for a place of this size, usually reserving “city” for communities of maybe 100,000 plus.[[/note]] Usually in these settings (and in real-life small towns), EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether, and everyone knows each other.

The most common setting for GeographicFlexibility. May relate to a CrapsackWorld setting, especially if (as is sometimes TruthInTelevision) the town lacks a lot of job potential. Can be a locational equivalent of YourSizeMayVary, as the small-town setting is occasionally depicted as larger (at times even referred to interchangeably as a town and/or a city) depending on the episode.

*** Note that in the first season, Jason Blossom's death was meant to be so shocking ''because'' it was a small town unused to such a grim event. However, with the later addition of the multiple crime families, gangs, vigilante groups, killers[[note]]this includes retconning that the town was once the site of a gruesome massacre and a subsequently violent vigilante lynch mod that murdered who they believed orchestrated it[[/note]], cults, etc. Its status as a wholesome small town unused to violence now seems like EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.

* [[ZigzaggedTrope Zigzagged]] and occasionally [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] with Storybrooke, Maine, in ''Series/OnceUponATime''. Ostensibly a sleepy, small coastal town, it has just about as many amenities one would plasuibly expect from a place that size: a single B&B and diner, a (currently closed down) public library, an elementary school, a harbour with docks and a cannery, a pharmacy, a pet shelter, a florist, a couple of bars, a few parks, a nunnery, a sheriff station... and yet, John Does can go missing and turn up in a coma at the local hospital with their spouses being none the wiser for, apparently, ''years''. That's a first indicator that [[TownWithADarkSecret something's not quite right about Storybrooke]].

** While the town itself remains plasuibly sized for most of the series, it's the area surrounding it that [[GeographicFlexibility keeps getting weirder and richer as the plot demands]]. Apparently, the Storybrooke ''County'' is big enough to host vast forests where characters can get lost, arable fields where to grow magic beans, caves that tend to pop up according to convenience, a rope bridge over a river in a deep chasm (the previously seen Toll bridge was a few meters tall at most), railway tracks, several huge mansions, a large farmhouse, not to mention the untold miles of coal mine tunnels running deep underneath the city, not far from the shoreline...

* Vacation towns can be this. For example: Jackson, Wyoming is estimated to have just over ten thousand permanent residents and it certainly looks like a small town when you walk its streets. However, it's serviced by the largest airport in the whole state and has conveniences such as multiple ski resorts, spas, and an indoor heated water park. There will also be well in excess of those ten thousand people in town at any given time thanks to all the vacationers and "adventure workers" who aren't counted as permanent population.
* As far as the town[=/=]city distinction is concerned, the difference is often less a matter of population and more a matter of legal status and local governance. A community may have only a few thousand people (what one may consider a small town) yet meet the legal requirements of a city, whereas another may have tens of thousands of residents but lack the legal status of a city.

* [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Sunnydale]] is described as a small town, with the first episode stating that the bad part of town is half a block from the good part as "we don't have a lot of town here." At various points in the series, Sunnydale is shown to have multiple large malls, a major army base, a reasonably well-respected university, an international airport , international docks, and over a dozen churches (though that last is suggested to be a reaction to the atmosphere of evil) and a crime rate so ridiculously high that it's explicitly stated to be higher than the biggest cities in the US (which does not stop people from moving to the city) .

* In ''VideoGame/NancyDrew: Alibi in Ashes'', Deirdre bemoans how [[NothingExcitingEverHappensHere the last interesting thing]] to happen in River Heights was a dead guy's will being found, and Brenda's career is stalling because she can't find any big local news to report on. But the town map [[https://dmorgzzzblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/rank-1-alibi-in-ashes/ shows]] an airport, a hospital, and at least three schools in this supposedly sleepy, white-bread town.

* Justified in ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''. While Quahog does have a lot more going on in it than a typical small town, this can be explained by the fact it is probably a suburb of Rhode Island's capital Providence (the Providence skyline can be seen behind the Griffins' house). For instance, the airport Quagmire works at is likely [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._F._Green_Airport T. F. Green Airport]].

* The eponymous location in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', besieged by all kinds of supernatural events in the earlier episodes [[note]]though this has largely been toned down in the later seasons in favor of [[RippedFromTheHeadlines current events]][[/note]], was described as a small town in the original episodes, but has been portrayed as considerably larger in the show's later years. Most notably, it went from Officer Barbrady [[OddlySmallOrganization policing the whole town by himself]] to having a police department that took up a whole office building (this was justified as those cops being from Park County PD, and their jurisdiction simply being expanded to South Park, which is in Park County). RuleOfFunny is probably the best explanation, but still worth noting. Later seasons actually call attention to this and justify it as South Park being gentrified by new residents looking for real estate (something that is very much TruthInTelevision for the greater UsefulNotes/{{Denver}} metropolitan area). For example, they establish a new upscale shopping district ([=SoDoSoPa=]) where there used to be basically nothing.

* [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Sunnydale]] is described as a small town, with the first episode stating that the bad part of town is half a block from the good part as "we don't have a lot of town here." At various points in the series, Sunnydale is shown to have multiple large malls, a major army base, a reasonably well-respected university, an international airport , international docks, and over a dozen churches (though that last is suggested to be a reaction to the atmosphere of evil).

* Justified in ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''. While Quahog does have a lot more going on in it than a typical small town, this can be explained by the fact it is probably a suburb of Rhode Island capital Providence (the Providence skyline can be seen behind the Griffin's house). For instance, the airport Quagmire works at is likely [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._F._Green_Airport T. F. Green Airport]].

* The eponymous town of ''Series/{{Haven}}'' has quite a few amenities for being a supposedly small town. Highlights include an aquatic center, an athletic center, a psychiatric hospital, a separate regular hospital, its own ambulance and taxi services, and a fertility clinic. Plus a thriving harbor. The population is also stated as being 25,000, which is a CriticalResearchFailure on the part of the writers...as this would make Haven the fifth-largest city in Maine.

* The eponymous location in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', besieged by all kinds of supernatural events in the earlier episodes [[note]]though this has largely been toned down in the later seasons in favor of [[RippedFromTheHeadlines current events]][[/note]], was described as a small town in the original episodes, but has been portrayed as considerably larger in the show's later years. Most notably, it went from Officer Barbrady [[OddlySmallOrganization policing the whole town by himself]] to having a police department that took up a whole office building (this was justified as those cops being from Park County PD, and their jurisdiction simply being expanded to South Park, which is in Park County). RuleOfFunny is probably the best explanation, but still worth noting. Later seasons actually call attention to this and justify it as South Park being gentrified by new residents looking for real estate. For example, they establish a new upscale shopping district ([=SoDoSoPa=]) where there used to be basically nothing.

* [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Sunnydale]] is described as a small town, with the first episode stating that the bad part of town is half a block from the good part as "we don't have a lot of town here." At various points in the series, Sunnydale is shown to have multiple large malls, a major army base, a reasonably well-respected university, international docks, and over a dozen churches (though that last is suggested to be a reaction to the atmosphere of evil).

** While the town itself remains plasuibly sized for most of the series, it's the area surrounding it that keeps getting weirder as the plot demands. Apparently, the Storybrooke ''County'' is big enough to host vast forests where characters can get lost, arable fields where to grow magic beans, caves that tend to pop up according to convenience, a rope bridge over a river in a deep chasm (the previously seen Toll bridge was a few meters tall at most), railway tracks, several huge mansions, a large farmhouse, not to mention the untold miles of coal mine tunnels running deep underneath the city, not far from the shoreline...

** The weirdest part is that all of the inconsistencies are somehow reasonably justified: Silent Hill went from a coal mining town to an unpopular vacation town, which means the town expanding and declining throughout the years makes some sense. Not to mention it's home to a nasty ApocalypseCult who have a lot of influence over the town, and due to their waxing and waning over the years they have been periodically successful at disrupting the tourist trade and keeping the population on the low side. And let's not forget that this charming little lake town is an EldritchLocation with a [[Genius Loci consciousness of its own]] whose powers have been known to many of its residents since the native Times, and where ghosts and memories manifest ridiculously often. Any glimpse we have had at Silent Hill has been ThroughTheEyesOfMadness, which means that if the spirits want a character to walk all over a small town, a small town is what they can see. If they need to be put through a specific ringer in a place crawling with sexualized nurses, Brookhaven hospital will present itself.

Apart from EverytownAmerica, another semi-common setting in fiction is a small town. A small town itself, generally, is defined as having a population of around 10,000 people — not quite a city, but not quite a village either.[[note]]In American terms, anyway. Britain is less shy of the word “town”, and would always use it for a place of this size, usually reserving “city” for communities of maybe 100,000 plus.[[/note]] Usually in these settings (and in real life small towns), EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether, and everyone knows each other.

The most common setting for GeographicFlexibility. May relate to a CrapsackWorld setting, especially if (as is sometimes TruthInTelevision) the town lacks a lot of job potential. Can be a locational equivalent of YourSizeMayVary, as the small town setting is occasionally depicted as larger (at times even referred to interchangeably as a town and/or a city) depending on the episode.

*** Note that in the first season, Jason Blossom's death was meant to be so shocking ''because'' it was a small town unused to such a grim event. However, with the later addition of the multiple crime families, gangs, vigilante groups, killers[[note]]this includes retconning that the town was once the cite of a gruesome massacre and a subsequently violent vigilante lynch mod that murdered who they believed orchestrated it[[/note]], cults, etc. Its status as a wholesome small town unused to violence now seems like EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.

* [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Sunnydale]] is described as a small town, with the first episode stating that the bad part of town is half a block from the good part as "we don't have a lot of town here." At various points in the series Sunnydale is shown to have multiple large malls, a major army base, a reasonably well respected university, international docks and over a dozen churches (though that last is suggested to be a reaction to the atmosphere of evil).

** ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' added to this, with Hatchetfield having a large shopping mall (the Lakeside Mall) within its city limits, with an independent toy store (Toy Zone) that's important enough to receive a direct shipment of Tickle-Me Wiggly toys at the height of their popularity on Black Friday. Of course, in this case we're directly told this is intentionally arranged by Wiggly because Hatchetfield is an EldritchLocation.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': While the town is a genuinely small town as everyone knows each other, there’s very low crime and it’s far from the interstate, it’s also big enough for a mall, thriving downtown area and a large concert venue that’s able to get a popular boy band. Then again, it’s a WeirdnessMagnet so it’s a good thing that it’s still under the radar.

* The eponymous location in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', besieged by all kinds of supernatural events in the earlier episodes [[note]]though this has largely been toned down in the later seasons in favor of [[RippedFromTheHeadlines current events]][[/note]], was described as a small town in the original episodes, but has been portrayed as considerably larger in the show's later years. Most notably, it went from Officer Barbrady [[OddlySmallOrganization policing the whole town by himself]] to having a police department that took up a whole office building (this was justified as those cops being from Park County PD, and their jurisdiction simply being expanded to South Park, which is in Park County). RuleOfFunny is probably the best explanation, but still worth noting. Later seasons actually call attention to this, and justify it as South Park being gentrified by new residents looking for real estate. For example, they establish a new upscale shopping district ([=SoDoSoPa=]) where there used to be basically nothing.

[[folder: Podcasts]]

* The eponymous town of ''Series/{{Haven}}'' has quite a few amenities for being a supposedly small town. Highlights include an aquatic center, an athletic center, a psychiatric hospital, a separate regular hospital, its own ambulance and taxi services, and a fertility clinic. Plus a thriving harbor. The population is also stated as being 25,000, which is far larger than a "small town," especially for New England, though it's referred to as a "village" on at least one occasion.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': While the town is a genuinely small town as everyone knows each other, there’s very low crime and it’s far from the interstate, it’s also big enough for a mall, thriving downtown area and a large concert venue that’s able to get a popular boy band. Then again, it’s a WeirdnessMagnet so it’s a good thing that it’s still under the radar.

[[folder:Radio]]
* ''Radio/AdventuresInOdyssey'' takes place in the small town of Odyssey, with a neighboring town of Connellsville, the county seat of Campbell County. Odyssey, however, apparently has going for it several radio stations, a busy airport, two colleges, several academies, and several hospitals.

*** Note that in the first season, Jason Blossum's death was meant to be so shocking ''because'' it was a small town unused to such a grim event. However, with the later addition of the multiple crime families, gangs, vigilante groups, killers[[note]]this includes retconning that the town was once the cite of a greusome massacre and a subsequently violent vigilante lynch mod that murdered who they believed orchestrated it[[/note]], cults, etc. It's status as a wholesome small town unused to violence now seems like EarlyInstalmentWeirdness.