Moving To A Small Town: A Guidebook To Moving From Urban To Rural America [Paperback]

Wanda Urbanska (Author), Frank Levering (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 24, 1996

Thinking about leaving the city? Or just wishing you could? You're not alone. America is undergoing a rural renaissance, as countless thousands seek a simpler life and a safe, comfortable community in which to start businesses, raise families, and eventually retire. But finding the town that's right for you isn't always easy. That's why Moving to a Small Town offers a systematic, user-friendly approach to help you locate a community with the ideal culture, climate, and career opportunities. Anecdotal, down-to-earth, and full of practical information, Moving to a Small Town takes you step-by-step through this sometimes complicated yet rewarding life transition, addressing how to scout a new location; plan the move; calculate the costs; recast your career, using new telecommunications technology; and make a place for yourself in a new community. Filled with charts, worksheets, and profiles of folks who've made the move (and love it), Moving to a Small Town is an inspirational guidebook dedicated to helping you pinpoint your ideal small town and make your life there work - permanently.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (June 24, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684802236
• ISBN-13: 978-0684802237
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #295,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Simple Living Expert, Author & Host of "Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska"

With keen insight and sensitivity, Wanda Urbanska has inspired thousands of overscheduled, debt-ridden and worn-out Americans to reshape their lives and "get back to basics" while building meaningful relationships, a healthier planet and secure, caring communities.

Urbanska's approach encourages us to make small lifestyle changes that together, add up to create multiple, overlapping benefits and deliver big picture change. Through teaching about and leading a life of environmental stewardship, thoughtful consumption, community involvement and financial responsibility, she is educating the public to pursue happier and more sustainable lives.

Urbanska is the author of The Heart of Simple Living (2010) and the author or co-author of seven other books including Nothing's Too Small To Make A Difference (2004) and Less is More (2009). She hosted the PBS primetime special "Escape from Affluenza: Living Better on Less." Her series, "Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska," is the first national television series on sustainable living. With four production seasons, it debuted on PBS stations in 2004.

Expert Source

A graduate of Harvard University, Urbanska has helped to identify simplicity as one of the top trends of our time. She is sought-after for her insights and has appeared on numerous television shows including "The Oprah Winfrey Show," the "Today" show and "CBS This Morning." She has been featured on NPR's "All Things Considered."

Her writing has been published in The Washington Post, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and in such magazines as Vogue, Natural Home, Mother Earth News and American Libraries. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the London Daily Telegraph and many others.

Recently, Urbanska returned from a seven-month sabbatical in Poland with her 12-year-old son Henry. She used the opportunity as an exercise in simplicity while exploring her roots. Her only possessions were those that she could fit into two suitcases. She lived with a Polish family, car-free, using public transportation to get around.

Urbanska lives and works in North Carolina. Join her online community at www.simplelivingtv.net.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Be careful what you wish for..., August 21, 2006

By 

Halloween Queen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moving To A Small Town: A Guidebook To Moving From Urban To Rural America (Paperback)

I am a native San Franciscan & lifelong Californian - until I moved to a rural farm town in Kansas. My town boasts 800 people - which is a TRUE small town (anything over 1,000 pop. is not really a 'small' town, by rural folks' standards). I agree w/the criticisms of this book, and there's a lot she covers which I totally agree with. BUT - I've been in Kansas 8 years now, and I'm lonely, bored and broke as hell, even though I'm happily married with a large chunk of land, no neighbors and plenty of critters around. Most rural areas are BELOW the poverty level average for the country, and finding a decent job offering more than 8.50 an hour here is extremely difficult. And it's best if you are a christian and extremist republican, too (at least in this part of the Midwest).

PLEASE do not romanticize moving to the country, but take a good hard look at your emotional/socialogical needs first. This is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. It's been proven that people do best living in an area of 'like-minded' people. We don't live in one, and we're paying the price now. I never considered this until hubby and I moved here, and now we are considered in the 'minority' and we pretty much don't speak of certain topics except with with each other. While we love our house and the quietness, the isolation and lack of good friends is taking its toll on us. Read this book at least 1 year before you actually commit to a new area.

I

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Where and HOW to fit in to a different world, June 17, 2003

By 

Kimberly Borrowdale (Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moving To A Small Town: A Guidebook To Moving From Urban To Rural America (Paperback)

The authors are a couple who lived in Los Angeles and moved to a town in North Carolina that has a population of around 7,000. They are both career writers, but also bought an apple orchard. They discuss issues like: Are you right for small-town life? Scouting a new location; calculating the costs; making the move; recasting your career; and making a place for yourself in your new community.

MOVING TO A SMALL TOWN has been a godsend for my husband and me, as we are planning on moving from Santa Barbara, California, in the next year. (We'd like to buy a home, and it's not going to happen here!) For people who have lived in medium to large cities their whole lives, this book gives a serious introduction to what's different in small towns, like decreased anonymity and increased expectations for community involvement. We learned some helpful ideas for choosing where to live and some new ways to think about making a living. Much of this information can be used by someone thinking of moving to a larger city, as well--one still has to scout locations, think about work, and move. This book is a must for anyone thinking about relocating.

(and now that we finally have moved to a town of 8,500 -- a town very unlike Southern California towns, thank goodness! -- we love it even more than expected)

Kimberly Borrowdale - Under the Covers Book Reviews

38 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Now We're Big Fish, Even if the Pond is Little, April 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Moving To A Small Town: A Guidebook To Moving From Urban To Rural America (Paperback)

I was looking for a thoughtful guidebook on migrating back to small town life--but this wasn't it. The authors spend too much time smugly congratulating themselves just for having done what many do daily without trumpeting it about (returning home to help aging parents), and not enough on the issues the title would lead the reader to believe would be covered. In addition, I was surprised at the strong negative reaction I had to the authors themselves.