[dleslie]

One that seems incredibly important to many:

Small towns are no longer truly isolating. If you're an outsider, for whatever reason, in a small town it's no longer a sentence for loneliness, harassment and abuse. You will likely still experience harassment and abuse, but there is bound to be a community online that you can connect to in order to overcome loneliness.

[mcpackieh]

The flipside is that people who were better suited for life in a small town have lost what the others have gained. Life moves fast everywhere now, your friends and family may step into your life at any moment of the day without notice, even though you live thousands of miles away. All of the big city hustle and bustle reaches out and touches people through their phones and stopping it requires people to deliberately and overtly snub people they'd prefer not to overtly snub.