Urban vs Rural

jallenecs · Jul 25, 2014

alleycat said:
I would suggest taking a look at the three books by Homer Hickam set in Coalwood, WV (a real place). The first book in the series is Rocket Boys, which was later made in to the movie October Sky.

Read it, saw the movie. My husband is from WV. And the movie depicts everybody who isn't Homer Hickam in a very negative light. Didn't appreciate that.

Chasing the Horizon said:
I am kind of curious what ideas you have that can't possibly take place in a more rural setting. I have read a few contemporary stories that HAD to take place in a big city (a story revolving around the crazy high-end private primary schools in New York City, for example), but the vast majority could've been adapted to take place anywhere.

Like I said a second ago (we cross posted), I write science fiction and fantasy, right now focusing on Steampunk and Dieselpunk. That is difficult to move to the backwoods. And, for the stories I'm looking at, a certain level of criminal activity is required. One of the things about my particular area of Appalachia, there hasn't been a murder in living memory, and the Mafia is something you see on TV; very difficult to tell a crime story in a setting that doesn't have that much crime.

angeliz2k · Jul 25, 2014

I have to agree with others that maybe you should try to write what you know.

However . . .

jallenecs said:
A little of both. I don't grok the flavor of day-to-day life in an urban setting because I've never done it. I could probably fake it or cheat it. But mostly I worry about the specifics: which neighborhoods in Brooklyn are primarily white middle class, I'm more likely to encounter prostitutes on what streets of Manhattan, what parks are there in Chicago, how close are they to downtown and what are they like, etc.

ETA: for example, I know there are brownstones in Baltimore, and a waterfront. But I've never actually seen a brownstone or understand why that is significant (I only know because my dad used to live there). As for a waterfront, I'm a mountain girl who's never even seen the ocean; I wouldn't know what to expect of a waterfront. What does it smell like? What does it sound like? What sort of boats, people, crime, architecture, businesses, etc, would you find on a waterfront, and how are the ones in Baltimore unique to Baltimore?

This is partially research and partially imagination (since you haven't seen the ocean--by the way, Baltimore isn't on the ocean, and the Harbor is nothing like an ocean). You can research things like what a brownstone is, what kind of people lived there in the past and who lives there now. For geography and highlight attractions, you can use Google Maps and/or read a travel guide. As for the real sensory experience of the place, well, that's up to you as the writer. What would you imagine the Inner Harbor to smell like or sound like? You're going to have to fill in some blanks no matter where and what you write about.

[Are you writing about Balmer, or was that just an example? If you are, I've lived within an hour's drive of the city all my life and am fairly familiar with it. I also did a little bit of research on its history while I was planning to set my historical fiction novel there]

roseangel · Jul 25, 2014

GrimMoody said:
Keep in mind that the major difference is mindset. Rural people value independence, owning their own, and hard work. Urban people value convenience, social conformity, and having a good time or becoming the ultimate in their occupation (depending if they're type A or B). I met a New Yorker that could not stop working, even when she knew it was too much for her. She had at every single second of the day to be doing something important for her students or family.

Also, city folk like having stuff to do late at night, whether it's eating, partying, or just having a place to meet friends.

That's a very. . . . interesting pronouncement.
I don't find it true outside of individual experience.

jallenecs · Jul 25, 2014

angeliz2k said:
This is partially research and partially imagination (since you haven't seen the ocean--by the way, Baltimore isn't on the ocean, and the Harbor is nothing like an ocean). You can research things like what a brownstone is, what kind of people lived there in the past and who lives there now. For geography and highlight attractions, you can use Google Maps and/or read a travel guide. As for the real sensory experience of the place, well, that's up to you as the writer. What would you imagine the Inner Harbor to smell like or sound like? You're going to have to fill in some blanks no matter where and what you write about.

[Are you writing about Balmer, or was that just an example? If you are, I've lived within an hour's drive of the city all my life and am fairly familiar with it. I also did a little bit of research on its history while I was planning to set my historical fiction novel there]

You make good points.

And no, I just threw Baltimore out there because it's a city I've heard a lot about, but have never seen. My dad lived there as a young man, and used to tell us stories about it (mostly about the Harbor, which was as exotic as Narnia to a bunch of mountain girls

)

And I haven't heard it called Balmer since my daddy passed, twenty years ago. Thanks for bringing back a very good memory!

Jamesaritchie · Jul 25, 2014

guttersquid said:
There is no such thing as urban life; there are only lives in urban settings. Individual lives vary as much in cities as anywhere else.

Even the phrase "urban setting" is vague. New Orleans is nothing like Seattle. New York City is nothing like Los Angeles. And areas within individual cities can be night and day.

Sure, but I think that's completely pointless. There may be differences from city to city, but they're all urban lives, and if you don't live there, you don't know what it's like.

cornflake · Jul 25, 2014

alleycat said:
You can find all the information you need about the particular details of a city online (the City-Data Forum is good for this type of research), but I understand that's not your main concern.

You might make friends with a few people who live in the city you are most interested in, or similar cities.

The day-to-day things are not so much different than living in a small town (people go to work, buy groceries, take their kids to the park, go out to eat, go to a movie, etc.), except there is more traffic, more people, more places to go, more crowded living conditions, more problems parking, more tourists (there certainly is where I live), taller buildings, and a more hurried pace generally--in other words, the things you would expect.

The differences, if it's a real city, come out so clearly though. I agree the friends-in-the-city aspect is likely to bear the most fruit if the OP is interested in an existing city. Finding friends in a bunch and discussing could help create an imaginary one, which I'd say is the better idea by far.

jallenecs said:
A little of both. I don't grok the flavor of day-to-day life in an urban setting because I've never done it. I could probably fake it or cheat it. But mostly I worry about the specifics: which neighborhoods in Brooklyn are primarily white middle class, I'm more likely to encounter prostitutes on what streets of Manhattan, what parks are there in Chicago, how close are they to downtown and what are they like, etc.

ETA: for example, I know there are brownstones in Baltimore, and a waterfront. But I've never actually seen a brownstone or understand why that is significant (I only know because my dad used to live there). As for a waterfront, I'm a mountain girl who's never even seen the ocean; I wouldn't know what to expect of a waterfront. What does it smell like? What does it sound like? What sort of boats, people, crime, architecture, businesses, etc, would you find on a waterfront, and how are the ones in Baltimore unique to Baltimore?

As the poster who responded with the info about Baltimore not being on the ocean makes clear, this is why I'd say make up a city out of whole cloth.

There was someone around a bit ago who had written a very interesting thing set in NYC, where the person had not been. It was well-written, engaging, etc., but nearly every portion posted had problems that caused big revisions because stuff was just wrong, in weird little ways, like the characters going to the market in a car, the car going too fast, etc., etc., etc. Someone else set something in I think it was NY or D.C. and was putting fake buildings on real streets - which is fine, except when there were then people like, walking into a hotel where there is actually a park.

Obviously, this stuff can be caught and fixed but it seems tedious and like making trouble for yourself, if you know what I mean. In the same way that I'd be in trouble setting something on a farm. I can research myself silly, and I'd hand it to you and you'd still, I'd guess, be like, 'uhm, no one would ever....'

I'd go with write what you know, but if you want to write urban, I'd suggest making up a totally imaginary city, not too close to St. Louis or what have you. I mean use elements you like, but not so people would think 'it's supposed to be St. Louis, but ...'

There are people who say it doesn't matter, but to others it does, and the number of people who know any given city is much larger than the number who know any given rural area.

sassandgroove · Jul 25, 2014

I've lived in cities, suburban and rural. I've been in Alabama for 10 years - erm - 11, and am still surprised that things close at 9pm, and I live in the Birmingham area. So yeah, people are used to things open late or all night in some cities. In NYC I never felt like I could just relax at home because there was always something going on.
But in Los Angeles, I had 8 addresses and some places I had that feeling, that vibe that I should be out doing something but in the burbs, eh it was Anytown USA, except they had all night diners.

I think you can do this. Just have confidence in yourself. If there is a specific city you have in mind you might try some city travel guide books. That will give you a break down of neighborhoods and the feel of places. if not, can you make up your own city? THen pick the feel you want and go with it.

Wilde_at_heart · Jul 25, 2014

jallenecs said:
Read it, saw the movie. My husband is from WV. And the movie depicts everybody who isn't Homer Hickam in a very negative light. Didn't appreciate that.

Like I said a second ago (we cross posted), I write science fiction and fantasy, right now focusing on Steampunk and Dieselpunk. That is difficult to move to the backwoods. And, for the stories I'm looking at, a certain level of criminal activity is required. One of the things about my particular area of Appalachia, there hasn't been a murder in living memory, and the Mafia is something you see on TV; very difficult to tell a crime story in a setting that doesn't have that much crime.

Oh, you'd be surprised.

I've lived in many different places and one thing I noticed about many small towns was the way one or two families seemed to dominate nearly everything. Ripe for lots of story-telling and conflict there, I'd think.

I read an article (about a decade ago) that there was a lot of pot-growing in some mountains in rural Kentucky and charges were never brought down on anyone because each person growing a field had a close relative who was a cop or prosecutor and turned a blind eye.

On top of that, I have an ancestor who was a bootlegger back during Prohibition. He ran his own family operation of roughly a dozen people in an area that was quite remote and sparsely populated.

As for 'backwoods', the minute something's illegal, the easier it is to fly under the radar of authorities - fewer cops to bribe, etc. and more land to build stuff on. Just an idea.

I quite like the idea of V for Vendetta set in the mountains, actually.

jallenecs · Jul 25, 2014

Wilde_at_heart said:
I've lived in many different places and one thing I noticed about many small towns was the way one or two families seemed to dominate nearly everything. Ripe for lots of story-telling and conflict there, I'd think.

Granted. But I write SF/F. I'm hard-pressed to see "Science fiction!!!" when I look around my home town.

I read an article (about a decade ago) that there was a lot of pot-growing in some mountains in rural Kentucky and charges were never brought down on anyone because each person growing a field had a close relative who was a cop or prosecutor and turned a blind eye.

On top of that, I have an ancestor who was a bootlegger back during Prohibition. He ran his own family operation of roughly a dozen people in an area that was quite remote and sparsely populated.

I don't know about the pot growing; it's not something I pay attention to. But moonshine? Yeah, you can't really buy moonshine here, at least not out in the county. There's no real market for it, because everybody is already making their own. I mean everybody, including elected officials (my cousin is county treasurer, and he hooks me up with moonshine, wine and beer, all homemade). I have a few quarts of apple jack going myself, and I don't even really drink.

As for 'backwoods', the minute something's illegal, the easier it is to fly under the radar of authorities - fewer cops to bribe, etc. and more land to build stuff on. Just an idea.

You're right. And, as you pointed out earlier, the kinship bonds are ubiquitous. For example, I live in a valley with three branches, and is about seven miles long, on its longest branch. There are maybe fifty families in this valley. And I am related to every soul among them. Not just, "oh, we're cousins, I'm not sure how." No, I can give you through which ancestor of the family we're connected, the descendents between me and them, who they're closer kin to, and on and on and on.

Until I became an adult and went my own way, all these families attended the same church, the same schools, the same social functions; this valley (like every valley) was like its own country, only vaguely connected to the outside world.

Would my cousin the deputy turn a blind eye to me growing a little weed? Depends on how much, but probably, yeah. Would he turn a blind eye to a murder? Well, not nowadays. But you remember when I said that there had only been one murder in living memory? That happened in our valley; man shot his wife's lover (he caught them in flagrante). The cops came in, cleaned up the mess, took a statement, and left. The gunman didn't do a minute of time; he wasn't even taken in for form's sake. Granted, this was just a year or two after WWI, but still, you see my point. It's not like that now, but three generations ago? Yeah, "the sonovabitch had it coming" was a perfectly legitimate legal defense.

I quite like the idea of V for Vendetta set in the mountains, actually.

heh heh heh, me, too!

ETA: How do I know all that about the murder? I went to church with the couple in question. Sat next to the murderer, ate his wife's peach cobbler. I was a very little girl; it never occurred to me to be unsettled by this and it never occurred to anybody else that I might be in danger from him. He never raised a hand to his wife, and he definitely didn't divorce her. They were together until their deaths, apparently quite happily.

Ride the Pen · Jul 25, 2014

Damn, sounds like a problem!

Go to the big city for a couple of years, and once you are all corrupted and dirty, go back to landlife and write your story, ha ha!

BrightSera · Jul 25, 2014

1. Youtube. I look up videos on anything I can't immediately visualize, and pray my husband doesn't check my laptop history.
"Microburst forming over Lake Michigan" is one thing. "How to conduct a strip search," is entirely another. I watch and then mentally fill in the sensory blanks. The Atlantic Ocean, by the way, smells overwhelmingly like brine and fish, so I imagine the waterfront in Baltimore would smell pungent and distinctive. People from the area would be used to it.

2. That's a rather rosy colored view of crime in rural WV. I suppose it depends on the area. But between the rampant drug trafficking from the Huntington-Detroit connection, out-of-control meth production, and well-established "outlaw" families, the western portion of the state has its struggles.

jallenecs · Jul 25, 2014

BrightSera said:
1. Youtube. I look up videos on anything I can't immediately visualize, and pray my husband doesn't check my laptop history.
"Microburst forming over Lake Michigan" is one thing. "How to conduct a strip search," is entirely another. I watch and then mentally fill in the sensory blanks. The Atlantic Ocean, by the way, smells overwhelmingly like brine and fish, so I imagine the waterfront in Baltimore would smell pungent and distinctive. People from the area would be used to it.

2. That's a rather rosy colored view of crime in rural WV. I suppose it depends on the area. But between the rampant drug trafficking from the Huntington-Detroit connection, out-of-control meth production, and well-established "outlaw" families, the western portion of the state has its struggles.

I'm not in WV, I'm in eastern KY; granted I'm about a twenty minute drive from the WV border, but still KY. Rosy? I wouldn't call it "rosy," per se. My neighbor was busted for meth production, along with his brother (his niece dropped a dime on the pair of them). I know that south of us the drug situation gets pretty bad. I'm in Huntington several times a month, but I don't really have much to do with the drug trafficking; my big thrill is having lunch with a Lutheran preacher who also writes fantasy and runs a kick-ass D&D campaign

I admit it: I'm terribly sheltered in my quiet little valley. The ugliness of the world seldom intrudes.

As for "outlaw families," yeah, they exist. My daddy always said that WV politics and business was "crooked as a dog's hind leg." It's not like on "Justified," and it's not like Ma Barker's boys. The "outlaw families" -- at least the ones I know -- live in ranch houses in the quiet parts of town, take the occasional cruise with their spouses, and generally act like the middle class.

In the time frame of my story, meth isn't an issue. The setting is 1940, so the big issue for valley folk was the Depression and the Revenuers.

cornflake · Jul 25, 2014

GrimMoody said:
Keep in mind that the major difference is mindset. Rural people value independence, owning their own, and hard work. Urban people value convenience, social conformity, and having a good time or becoming the ultimate in their occupation (depending if they're type A or B). I met a New Yorker that could not stop working, even when she knew it was too much for her. She had at every single second of the day to be doing something important for her students or family.

Also, city folk like having stuff to do late at night, whether it's eating, partying, or just having a place to meet friends.

So that NYer didn't value hard work? That's a ridiculous, offensive collection of specifically-worded generalizations.

guttersquid said:
There is no such thing as urban life; there are only lives in urban settings. Individual lives vary as much in cities as anywhere else.

Even the phrase "urban setting" is vague. New Orleans is nothing like Seattle. New York City is nothing like Los Angeles. And areas within individual cities can be night and day.

I agree; on the other hand, I think there is such a thing as urban life and rural life. Just because people may or may not participate, or participate to their own levels, doesn't mean there's not a lifestyle that's possible in one place not the other.

Individuals do whatever, and different areas are different, but there are reasons some people prefer city life and others prefer rural, in general. I know city people who would live in London, NY, Chicago, or even Tokyo before they'd consider anyplace in Wyoming, and vice versa.

jaksen · Jul 25, 2014

What's wrong with setting any story in a rural setting? I've read many a good horror-thriller-mystery-literary novel set in a rural environment. There are writers who have entire series set in a region - the northwest, the wilds of Maine, Alaska, the southwest or southeast - and barely mention a city or town with more than 1,000 people (or less) in it.

I currently write two short story series (long shorts) set on Cape Cod, which is rural and suburban. I write in that locale because I know it like the back of my hand. I created a small town and set it between two real towns - Bourne and Falmouth - and love writing about beaches, jetties, salt marshes and marinas, estuaries, etc., and the small enclaves of people found in these areas.

However, if you are dead set on moving your writing into an urban area, then pick a city which interests you and research the heck out of it. Read up on its history a bit. Spend some time viewing videos of the area. Get a feel for the city so you can write about it accurately.

But again - what's wrong with rural? A lot of weird stuff can happen in a small town. And what doesn't happen you can just make up, which is what writing is all about anyhow.

harmonyisarine · Jul 25, 2014

I have the same problem. I went off to college in a beach town, hardly worth the city label, and was shellshocked by all the people and buildings. All of my friends laughed at me.

In the many years since, I've visited their homes and real cities. Do you have friends or family in a city? Visit them, have them take you around to their favorite places. Watch how they react to everything. I laugh so hard when one of my friends drives because she's a pretty calm driver on a highway... and then not at all in the city.

In the end, the cities are no different than the woods (I live in the northern reaches of Appalachia, actually). We worry about wild animals, they worry about pickpockets. They look forward to some fancy city festival, I look forward to buck season. They go out drinking at night, I sit on the porch and watch the lightning bugs (all right, that last one isn't super similar, but I have such a lovely time being outside...).

But, on the other hand, rural life offers so many fantastic stories and settings and people.

Though when I do write city life, my cities always end up super sanitized and city friends have to read the scenes and mark up everything I need to change. I put the framework, they help me fill it out.

Tepelus · Jul 25, 2014

I'm slowly (as usual) working on a story that I'm categorizing as Gothic that takes place in my small hometown of Nashville, Michigan in 1923.

C.bronco · Jul 25, 2014

Take a few days to vacation in a city and talk to the locals. Or ask family. Stay away from strange characters and take someone with you who knows the area.

frimble3 · Jul 25, 2014

jallenecs said:
Granted. But I write SF/F. I'm hard-pressed to see "Science fiction!!!" when I look around my home town.

I don't know about the pot growing; it's not something I pay attention to. But moonshine? Yeah, you can't really buy moonshine here, at least not out in the county. There's no real market for it, because everybody is already making their own. I mean everybody, including elected officials (my cousin is county treasurer, and he hooks me up with moonshine, wine and beer, all homemade). I have a few quarts of apple jack going myself, and I don't even really drink.

You're right. And, as you pointed out earlier, the kinship bonds are ubiquitous. For example, I live in a valley with three branches, and is about seven miles long, on its longest branch. There are maybe fifty families in this valley. And I am related to every soul among them. Not just, "oh, we're cousins, I'm not sure how." No, I can give you through which ancestor of the family we're connected, the descendents between me and them, who they're closer kin to, and on and on and on.

Until I became an adult and went my own way, all these families attended the same church, the same schools, the same social functions; this valley (like every valley) was like its own country, only vaguely connected to the outside world.

Would my cousin the deputy turn a blind eye to me growing a little weed? Depends on how much, but probably, yeah. Would he turn a blind eye to a murder? Well, not nowadays. But you remember when I said that there had only been one murder in living memory? That happened in our valley; man shot his wife's lover (he caught them in flagrante). The cops came in, cleaned up the mess, took a statement, and left. The gunman didn't do a minute of time; he wasn't even taken in for form's sake. Granted, this was just a year or two after WWI, but still, you see my point. It's not like that now, but three generations ago? Yeah, "the sonovabitch had it coming" was a perfectly legitimate legal defense.

heh heh heh, me, too!

ETA: How do I know all that about the murder? I went to church with the couple in question. Sat next to the murderer, ate his wife's peach cobbler. I was a very little girl; it never occurred to me to be unsettled by this and it never occurred to anybody else that I might be in danger from him. He never raised a hand to his wife, and he definitely didn't divorce her. They were together until their deaths, apparently quite happily.

The bolded bit would make a heck of a setting for a science fiction or fantasy story. What if the whole valley was settled by aliens pretending to be humans, as in Zenna Henderson's 'The People' stories? Or, aliens land in this close knit community and try to hide out or fit in? Or, maybe the locals are hiding the aliens from the government agents? Any of these could work in any time period, really.

Or, if you're more interested in a steam-punk or diesel-punk atmosphere, how about adapting (regressing?) the industrial-revolution idea to a more 'hand-made' premise? Cunning blacksmiths and tinkerers have, over the years, hand-crafted 'modern' machines. This one valley is the Silicon Valley of steam-punk, where mechanically minded people, cut off from industrial advancement (except for the occasional forward-thinking book or magazine, full of ideas that they've reverse-engineered) have copied, modified and developed their own modern devices.

As for crime, well, make stuff up. Okay, murders are thin one the ground. No reason you have to go for true historical accuracy: I doubt anyone would argue if you wrote another crime of passion, or a feud, or a moonshining family. So, it's kind of stereotypically what we expect of the isolated mountain folk: that's no worse than expecting gangs and the Mob in a big city setting.
You said that one of your rural stories stalled because of 'structural problems': if you use a setting you know, this frees up your brain to work on structure.

Velvet27 · Jul 25, 2014

I concur with the "why not in a rural setting?" peeps. I think because you know it so well, you can't imagine your home town any other way. But what if you did?

Small towns are a great place to set novels. You can have a seedy local underbelly (twisted with a Scifi bent if you like), it's an enclosed setting so you don't have to create this sweeping land/cityscape. You know it so well, you could describe it easily, you have great details of every day life.

All you need to do is reimagine and twist it.

Helix · Jul 25, 2014

My 2c worth: I'd be buying Appalachian steampunk by the truck load.

KarmaPolice · Jul 26, 2014

So, you're a country girl? One who actually appreciates how life out there *really* is rather than how those soppy city people think it is?

Congratulations, you're in a minority! Can't be arsed to dig out the US statistics, but only 3% of the UK population lives in a 'real' rural area (ie not in the manicured fake 'exurbs'). Okay, I wasn't born in the country, but I have lived deep in the wilds for several years as a kid - and appreciate how country life is different and has affected some of my beliefs (you should see me rip into some middle-class, urban vegans after they talk like those farmers would keep all those cows solely out of love if nobody ate them, for example). Your experiences are different, and novels are still the #1 way for people to learn of lifestyles and places outside of their own 'little bubble' - so use them!

C'mon, you can still have a story based in the country but with urban elements - pick any city, and then drive an hour out of it; you'll find some real rural areas (ie not rich-people playgrounds). Hell, you don't even need that, just a local 'large town' would have enough 'urban' element when needed.

Next, there's loads of rural issues which could really do with an actual rural perspective. Country towns dying out. The industrialisation of agriculture. Rich city folk coming in and sending house prices soaring so local kids can't afford to live there anymore. Big businesses turning formally free farmers into nothing more than sharecroppers - and they're just off the top of my head, sure you can think of more.

Waaay too many recent novels (that I've read) feature middle-class suburbanies as the MC's. Go on, do something different!

ArtsyAmy · Jul 26, 2014

jallenecs said:
ETA: for example, I know there are brownstones in Baltimore, and a waterfront. But I've never actually seen a brownstone or understand why that is significant (I only know because my dad used to live there). As for a waterfront, I'm a mountain girl who's never even seen the ocean; I wouldn't know what to expect of a waterfront. What does it smell like? What does it sound like? What sort of boats, people, crime, architecture, businesses, etc, would you find on a waterfront, and how are the ones in Baltimore unique to Baltimore?

Seems to me that the concern you're expressing in this thread suggests that you're a conscientious writer. I've heard that when writers write about a particular place, and get it wrong, readers who live there get upset about the inaccuracies (like you don't like the incorrect portrayals of your area of the country). Then readers are less likely to read that writer's material. I think it's good that you're recognizing the importance of the stuff you're mentioning.

jallenecs · Jul 26, 2014

Velvet27 said:
I concur with the "why not in a rural setting?" peeps. I think because you know it so well, you can't imagine your home town any other way. But what if you did?

Small towns are a great place to set novels. You can have a seedy local underbelly (twisted with a Scifi bent if you like), it's an enclosed setting so you don't have to create this sweeping land/cityscape. You know it so well, you could describe it easily, you have great details of every day life.

All you need to do is reimagine and twist it.

I'm not opposed to rural stories. I love my world. But, for whatever reason, I can't get my brains to cough up rural story ideas. I blame my reading choices, which are overwhelmingly urban-o-centric.

jaksen · Jul 26, 2014

jallenecs said:
I'm not opposed to rural stories. I love my world. But, for whatever reason, I can't get my brains to cough up rural story ideas. I blame my reading choices, which are overwhelmingly urban-o-centric.

Okay, you've made yourself clear. Now research the heck out of some city which interests you, or make up your own city based on what you know about those you've visited.

Then start the darn story.

guttersquid · Jul 26, 2014

guttersquid said:
There is no such thing as urban life; there are only lives in urban settings. Individual lives vary as much in cities as anywhere else.

Even the phrase "urban setting" is vague. New Orleans is nothing like Seattle. New York City is nothing like Los Angeles. And areas within individual cities can be night and day.

Jamesaritchie said:
Sure, but I think that's completely pointless. There may be differences from city to city, but they're all urban lives, and if you don't live there, you don't know what it's like.

My point was that it does no good to study "urban life" as if it were one thing.

To begin to understand life in a city, one must ask specific questions. What kind of city? What part of the city? Where in the country is the city located: north, south, east, west, in the heartland, on the coast, etc? All these things and more affect the lives of city dwellers, and it's ineffective to wrap all these things together and call it urban life.

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