[PKop]

It is debatable whether rural communities provide less opportunity for "socialization" compared to the atomization and isolation that comes from living in a big city, perhaps around people you have no long term ties or roots with.

Take these last two years. Who would you imagine got more socialization: adults/children living in big cities where in-person socialization, schooling was banned to a large degree... or rural places that did not do this?

[watwut]

I would imagine people in the city had more access to socialization.

[pessimizer]

Not in my experience.; in small towns, you get to know everybody. In big cities, you pass through the streets like a ghost unless you make a real effort to escape your comfort zone. Move to a little town, and you're forcibly escaped from your comfort zone as soon as the clerk at the grocery store sees you twice and starts a conversation with you, and you find out his wife is one of your kid's new teachers.

[anonfornoreason]

I did both, moving out of a big city in middle of pandemic. Socialization became 10x easier the moment I moved. Anecdotal etc etc, but people are more friendly and more outgoing where I moved vs where I moved from.

[LanceH]

Visited a friend in a town of 5000 for a month. A week or two in, I was running into people I "knew".

Personally, I put the sweet spot around 15k, in a town an hour away from a city with a real airport.

[ericd]

Having lived in both places with kids during, that wasn’t at all my experience. Anecdotal, obviously.