Hmmm

[james_davis_nicoll]

I've lived in a big city (London), a small city (Kitchener), a largish town (Waterloo, although I think they like to pretend they are a city), a town (New Hamburg, although I was really out in the DMZ between it and Baden), a village (whose name I never learned) and a farm (Between Bertlett's Corners and Josephsberg).

I guess I am missing things like "cabin in the middle of nowhere" and "the USS Codfish" but that is a reasonably diverse set of places to live, in terms of population.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

See my profile (Actually, in two ways: I learned English in Herne Hill and I left a piece of my nose in London after doing a face plant on the sidewalk).

I know what big cities look like. London, Ontario ain't it.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

And although I speak English with a standard Canadian urban middle class accent, when I talk in my sleep it's my original accent. Totally incomprehensible to Canadians, too (thank goodness).

[liabrown]

If you talk to people out west, we Torontonians have a very distinct accent. A few of them (urbanites) have made fun of me for it.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Bertlet's Corners

Consisted of one desanctified church and not much else. If I recall correctly Old Goat Books' Peter Wican (sp) lived there with his family when he was a kid.

Josephsberg

Was an intersection between RR3 and what I see is now called Notre Dame Drive. No idea why Josephsberg justified having a name.

Notre Dame Drive

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Which we called, IIRC, "the hard road". RR3 was not paved.

[(Anonymous)]

There is a town on Erb Street, out past St. Agatha and Philipsburg but not quite to Amulree called "Ratzburg".

As far as I can tell, it consists of Mr. Ratz' farm and nothing else. There isn't even a cross roads there.

- Ken

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

What's the farthest any of these places has been from other settlement?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Not far at all.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

There's another gap then - a town of, oh, 50 000 or so that's 4 hours away from any other cities is very different than a town of 50 000 that's 15 minutes from Toronto.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

town of, oh, 50 000 or so that's 4 hours away from any other cities is very different than a town of 50 000 that's 15 minutes from Toronto.

Bingo.

My brother is a school teacher in the Northern Territory of Australia; he's just got a new job at a mostly-Aboriginal settlement near Kakadu. For half of the year, the only access is down a very dodgy dirt road, including one river crossing that you can only make at certain times of the day if you don't want to get eaten by a crocodile.

The other half of the year there's no land access at all; the wet season turns the road into a swamp. His pay includes an allowance for a light plane ride to Darwin and back each year, so he can make a resupply trip during the school holiday in the middle of the wet.

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

How can you live in a village and not know its name? We're om the throes of leaving a very small village (~250 people) to return to a small city (~25,000 people). I have lived in the cabin in the middle of nowhere, too. My favourite is the small village.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I would imagine it was because he was too young and there is no one alive he could ask anymore.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Nope. Anglophone kid, Brazilian village. Also, I never heard anyone call it anything but "the village". I am not sure it existed as a legal administrative unit.

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

I can see how that could cause a problem.

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

Fair point.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

My background is much less diverse, going from biggish city (Montreal, Toronto) through biggish suburb (Brampton, Mississauga) to small city (London, ON). Dad grew up in a remote rural farm, and hasn't lived on one since he was old enough to get the hell out.

-- Steve has no patience for rusticism, himself, but that might be due to his allergies.

[kowh.livejournal.com]

Doesn't really leave many population categories left for potential residence. Perhaps if we start counting population density as well as absolute population we could add a few more options. Say an ultra-dense big city such as can be found in eastern Asia? Or, in terms of population by density over a larger area, Antarctica?

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

I've lived in a range of town and city sizes, but the majority of my life I've lived within a few miles of Interstate 5. Call me West Coast Boy.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

I range from major metropolis (Los Angeles) to cabin in the woods (small commune in backwoods Nova Scotia), with several big cities (Toronto, Montreal), medium size cities (Ottawa, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, St. John NB), towns to villages (Wolfville NS, Ignace ON, Baxter's Harbour NS) and a farm outside Windsor NS in between.

I'm not really sure whether either the diversity of the places I've lived in my life or the number of times I moved when younger (I've lived in one place for the last 25 years, having squeezed all of the other places into my first 30 years have had any particularly remarkable effect, other than perhaps accustom me to finding my way into new and diverse social groups fairly quickly and with at least some grace.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I only lived in a big city the year I was in college in Seattle. But I've lived near big cities pretty much since I was an adult. As a kid, Navy bases.

[secritcrush.livejournal.com]

Until you've lived on the moon, your set will never be complete.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

So what is really in the full set? Big city, small town, village, moon...what about "on the road"?

I once lived in a cave for a week...