Tell us about your hometown.

[malthaussen]

21. Philosophical question: what constitutes a "home town?"

Born and spent the first ten years of my life in one area, spent the next fifty somewhere else, and now I'm somewhere else again and it definitely doesn't feel like "home." But even during the fifty-year span in one area I moved several times.

Is it the place you were born and spent your childhood? Providing the places are not mutually exclusive, and you "spent your childhood" in one area (sorry, Army brats). The place you lived longest? What constitutes a "home" in our nomadic culture?

If you lived in the suburbs of a major city, can you claim that city as your "home town?" Or must you have lived within the city limits to call it yours?

"Home town" might be where you were happiest, although some people are happy anywhere (and some are never happy anywhere).

-- Mal