Do you love your town?
I've come to realize lately just how lucky I am to live where I do, the N.W. Detroit suburbs known as "the Bloomfields " - Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Birmingham, and West Bloomfield. This is a great place to live. Physical beauty, many many lakes, rivers, hills, some woodlands and meadows still persist. Nice homes, nice neighborhoods, good local streets (ok, main roads are kind of a mess, Oakland County maintains those and is always broke). Great local parks, good schools. A lot of shopping, restaurants, cultural events. Ok, really great restaurants of all kinds, including Middle Eastern, Korean and Japanese, Mexican, Argentinian steakhouses, Polish, you name it.
Virtually nil serious crime, mostly petty stuff like teenagers taking out mailboxes in the spring when they get full of themselves as graduation and summer approach. Four seasons of weather, beautiful springs and falls, many years most of the summer is pleasant without heat or humidity if the Jet Stream parks to our South and brings down cool, dry, clean Canadian air. Speaking of which, we are only about a 30 minute drive to the International Border with Canada in Downtown Detroit, and we get Canadian media outlets for added diversity -CBC News is really good, much more hard news and less fluff and opinion than our networks.
The best part about my community is the wide diversity of people, every race and ethnicity, with all of the culture that diversity brings. And true tolerance and friendship, for example, after 9/11, when our large Arab-American community feared being persecuted by association, local synagogues and churches held joint services with local mosques as a way of bringing awareness. It's nice to go down suburban streets and see homes with Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanza displays. Ok, not too many people observe Kwanza, but a few.
Bloomfield Hills is "old money" and auto wealth. Aretha Franklin is one very famous resident. Bob Seger lived very close to me until last year, when he moved about 20 miles away to Oakland Twp to live near Eminem and Kid Rock ( who is a R, no accounting for taste!). Bloomfield and West Bloomfield are a mix of suburban residential and commercial. Birmingham is the trendy, funky, urban feeling town with a ton of shopping, many unique small stores, and a lot of Mid-century Modern architecture, kind of a Palm Springs look to many buildings.
People who knock Detroit based on images of urban decay don't often realize that Metro Detroit is vastly larger than just the City of Detroit and has a lot to offer. We took one on the chin in the last decade, economically, but things are perking again. And the City of Detroit still has a lot of interest, too, Downtown, various ethnic neighborhoods, Wayne State University, the Detroit Institute of Art, and so forth.
Great place to live, I'm lucky to be here.
What is your community like? What does it have to offer?
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I live in one of the Hilltowns in Western Mass. They call us the Hidden Hills because there are no major highways or turnpikes with exits that lead to us...mostly only back roads, and US Route 20 (also called Jacob's Ladder Trail), which is no longer a busy thoroughfare since the Mass Turnpike was built.
http://byways.org/explore/byways/13418
anyway, unless one lives near the center of one of these towns, there's nothing within walking distance. My nearest neighbors are at least 700+ feet away...probably more. There are maybe 1300 people in my town. We're surrounded by trees, rocks, and more trees.
Rural.
I love it.
In fact, I might even bet as much as a nickel that you have described Cassville
Barry County is certainly its own little world, as is its neighbor, MacDonald County.
I'm from Benton County, just across the state line from Barry and MacDonald counties. 
Sounds like where I live, but I'm in PA. We have lived here for over twenty years and don't know any neighbors. I stay because I'm only 5 minutes from work and I think that counts a lot.
Looks like we're both kinda hermits, always been pretty much a loner so it suits me ok.
Love it!
We host the fourth-largest state fair in the country here every year. (Do The Puyallup!) It's sort of conservative by Washington State standards, although we have a Democratic mayor (nice lady!). We're five miles east of progressive, working-class Tacoma, and 30 miles south of deep-blue, ultra-liberal Seattle. South Hill is crowded and just a big strip, fast food joints and mechanic shops as far as the eye can see (all the way to Graham!), but down in the valley, it's nice. It's like a Frank Capra movie. A great town square bounded by city hall, the public library, and a public pavilion for weddings, receptions, fundraisers, etc. Beautiful views of Mount Rainier on clear days (not so many anymore, this time of year...) Quiet neighborhoods. Lots and lots of great little family-owned restaurants and diners. About a thousand antique shops. (Okay, not that many, but a lot.) Easy-to-use commuter trains to both Tacoma and Seattle. I love it here.
great house/home, great neighbors, great diversity, great job.
NOW, that all that's changed, I'm OK, near DC, but everything else has changed, so no, don't love 2 MD suburbs of DC where I reside.
You were here during the years when it still felt like a small town. I always felt safe no matter where I was or what the time of day or night.
You'd be going nuts this year. Sooooo much rain - the kind everybody thinks we get but don't really.
I envy you -- and might join you, but then I'd have to leave Seattle. 
. I lived in NC for about 5 years and missed Seattle so bad it HURT.
Portland, Oregon...
Wonderful testament to "the Bloomfields," btw... 
small town, both city limit signs on the same post. Everybody's dirty laundry is everybody's property here. Really sucks big ones. Wish I could get.the.hell.outahere......
