Wasilla: 7K or 9K is not "small town"

[Robb]

I'm sorry, but I've been living in Western Colorado for the past decade or so. In a town that's grown from 500 to 800 in that time. That's a small town. I was good friends with the mayor. I've been witness to small-town politics. I even got my best news at the barber and post office, rather than the local rag.

Depending upon who you believe, Wasilla is the 4th or 6th largest city in Alaska. The mayor's salary was $68,000/year. My mayor just got a pay bump to $250/month.

/end rant

[glitch]

1. You may be a "tiny town".

Not that there's anything wrong with that. :hi:

[Robb]

3. Yeah, prolly right

But my point remains. Wasilla ain't Mayberry. :D

[phantom power]

2. No, Wasilla *is* a small town. Your town is like Who-ville.

[mcctatas]

8. ...

:spray:

:rofl:

Just spit my java on my screen...

[Shakespeare]

29. !!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Maven]

48. HAHAHA

[trueblue2007]

58. Your town is a FLEA BITE town. Wasilla is a LITTLE TOWN!!

Stop arguing over adjectives. Her managerial and executive work was in a LITTLE town.

[maseman]

4. What would you call Wasilla compared to the 14 million in NYC

It's a small town. I like your 800 people...that is a tiny tiny town. I'd love to live in a town like that though.

[Robb]

11. True. But the "C" in NYC stands for city, ya?

:D

I maintain a "small town" must have fewer than four municipal police, including the chief, no more than three liquor stores, and at least one ballot question on paving the roads every four years. ;)

[maseman]

27. Love the road comment...I used to live ina Twp.

:rofl:

[Ian David]

5. It takes a lot of work to run a town with 42 meth labs. n/t

[hvn_nbr_2]

20. Palin campaign slogan: An Exxon drill in every backyard, a meth lab in every neighborhood. nt

[mcctatas]

6. I guess everything's relative...

I consider 7-9,000 a small town, but some people consider my town (pop. 65,000) a small town...

[Terran]

26. same here.

Mine's around 45,000 now, and being from LA originally, that's small to me; but it's also surrounded by hamlets for whose inhabitants *we* are the "big city".

[MattNC]

7. What's the median size

of an American town?

[GodlessBiker]

9. 800 people? That's not a town, it's a campground.

[peace13]

10. In Ohio her town would be called a VILLAGE!

And so would yours. Go figure.

[onenote]

12. 10,000 in population or below is a commonly used marker for what is a "small town"

Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

[Morning Dew]

13. my hometown of 12, 000 was so small

that when i was a teen, if I smoked a cigarette on the far side of town - my dad would bust me for it when I got home... he'd already had two phone calls about it.

Wasilla is a small town.

[cali]

14. ridiculous. I live in a tiny town quite a bit less than half the size of yours

and I know damn well that 5k or 6k, (the size of Wasilla when failin' palin was mayor) is indeed a small town. Hell, my state capital is 8k. Yeah, it's a small town.

[theoldman]

15. I live in a city of about 30,000 people.

Our mayor works part time in the evenings. This should tell you the importance of Palin's job in a much smaller city.

[JBoy]

16. It's not the size of the town, it's how you use it. Palin is really using hers.

[MarjorieG]

17. But she was almost kicked out until she got administrative help, left it with a $20K debt.

We need to talk about her lack of amangement skills, and simplistic way she's been governor. Rebates on oil, and taking Federal money, with a TransCanada pipeline debacle to boot.

[glitch]

25. $20 Million in debt. nt

[Occam Bandage]

18. Well, Wasilla is apparently a city according to Alaska's definition. Still, I don't think there's

a good informal, universal definition of the boundaries between "hamlet," "village," "town," and "city."

[Retrograde]

23. it's an east vs west thing, IMHO

the concept of town/village/hamlet/city is very New York state to my thinking (and if someone can explain how these all work in 25 words or less I'd love to hear it). The western states tend to have cities and incorporated areas, and not the layers of local government the eastern ones inherited.

BTW, there are cities in Alaska with fewer than 50 people: I've had parties bigger than that. California's cities range in population from 200 to over 3 million. FWIW, my city of about 70,000 has a part-time mayor.

[Robb]

24. Yeah, I don't think it's the town-village-city thing

...The next municipality over calls itself a city at 900 people. :shrug:

The problem for me is the "I was a small-town mayor" bit. Small-town mayors have second and third jobs, and sit through hours of planning and zoning meetings. I don't think they make $68K/year.

[amandabeech]

72. "Town," "village," and "city," frequently is defined statutorily by a state ,

and generally refers to the legal organization of the place under state law. Don't ask me the details.

As an example, the cluster of buildings outside of which I grew up is organized as a "city" even though the population is a little less than 2,000. Six miles to the south is a similar burg of 1,600 organized as a "village."

[dbonds]

We refer to towns of your size as crossroad.

But both are small towns. But I don't know if there are any charts that say when you go from a crossroads, to a town, to a city, ...

[Drunken Irishman]

19. A small town to me is anything smaller than 25,000.

So Wasilla would be extremely small town.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

21. I was born and raised in El Dorado, Kansas (home of Barack's grandparents)

Our population varied between 11,000 and 12,000. Everyone knew everyone else's business. It was a big freaking deal to drive to Wichita. I don't know how many meth labs are in El Dorado now. The best restaurant in town was at the Red Coach Inn.

Believe me, if Wasilla is smaller than El Dorado, it is most definitely a small town.

[PsN2Wind]

31. Lived several years in Augusta, Kansas

which had a billboard proclaming it as "A town of 5000 friends".
A big deal to us was going to El Dorado were we could sometimes get served beer at The Forty Liars Club. Alternate places where they would sometimes sell us beer were the Halfway House, midway between Augusta and El Dorado and The Cowboy Inn in Wichita.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

39. Boo - Disgusta Borioles!

Just kidding. So you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

22. 500 to me is not a small town - it's a hamlet, a village

I don't think I can even name one place that size within a hundred miles of where I live.

[kestrel91316]

28. My sister and BIL live in the VILLAGE of Whitefish Bay, WI.

VILLAGE. It's not a city or town. The legal name is village.

It has twice as many people as Wasilla, AK.

[ContinentalOp]

30. Portland OR and San Francisco are small towns.

Wasilla, AK? That's probably nothin but a rest stop on the road to nowhere.

[Greyskye]

37. Portland and SF small towns?!?!

Portland population: 550,000

San Francisco population: 744,000

Dude, those are cities by any ruler.

[ContinentalOp]

63. My point was that it's all relative. Sure those are "cities" but they have small town feels

to me. Portland much more so than SF which feels much bigger than it is. But in the larger picture, neither of them are world class cities. I mean, we're not talking Tokyo, Mumbai, Mexico City, NYC, Moscow, London, Paris, Beijing, Hong Kong, L.A. etc.

Sure, by the skewed perspective where being the mayor of a tiny neighborhood of a few thousand is somehow "political experience" then Portland and S.F. look like big cities. But that's a pretty provincial point of view if you actually take a look at the rest of the world.

I mean, suburban San Jose is bigger than San Francisco and still hardly feels like a "city." San Francisco is a uniquely magical and historical place but in my book, cities of under a million are not really Cities with a capital "C".

[Greyskye]

66. One post they're towns, the next they're cities

Thanks for the better explanation of what you meant - I'll respectfully disagree with your conclusions.

[trueblue2007]

68. MORON. Portland is a THRIVING city of 1/2 million people

What do you think we are po-dunk???



Portland population: 550,000

[sudopod]

It's not over 9000?

lol

[itsrobert]

32. That's the boondocks

thanks

[jberryhill]

33. Sounds Like Sunday Morning At Joel Osteen's Church To Me /nt

[Greyskye]

34. I grew up in a 'town' about the same size as Wasilla

It was absolutely a "small town". http://www.city-data.com/city/Prineville-Oregon.html

Population as of 2000: 7,356

A small, redneck, conservative cowboy town that sounds a lot like Wasilla. Nearby Bend - that's a city: http://www.city-data.com/city/Bend-Oregon.html Population as of 2000, 74,563

Sorry man, you don't live in a small town, you live in a village. Not that there's anything wrong with that. ;)

[walldude]

35. Ok, so she put a big town 22 million into debt...

semantics.

[Minimus]

36. We need to ask John Mellencamp - he was born in a small town -

he lives in a small town and he will probably die in a small town. I think his friends are small town and that his parents live in that same small town too.

[Left Is Write]

43. Seymour, Indiana, population 19,000.

I have no idea what the population was in 1951 when John was born there. :hi:

[crimsonblue]

38. Sorry to disagree

but wasilla is small town. I am perplexed, However, how the mayor of a small town can make 68000. this is ridiculous.

[cwydro]

40. Hey, in Key West, the biggest city in the Keys,

we still consider it a small town.

You cannot go to the grocery store without running into someone you know, if you've lived here any time at all. The (year-round, not including snowbirds) is somewhere around 24K.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

41. She was elected with 1100 votes.

That's what Debbie Wasserman Schultz said last night.

[DevonRex]

42. It was like 5,500 people when she was mayor. And that IS a small

town. I grew up in a town like that. One stoplight, except when it was changed to a 4-way stop, and then back again.

[RamboLiberal]

44. Sorry but most of us consider Wasilla a small town

When I talk to people about Palin I try to relate it to small towns in my area of PA so they can relate. Say she was like mayor of Ambridge, Carnegie, Bridgeville, etc. Everyone I know considers them small towns. For governor I point out that our county of Allegheny has nearly twice the population of Alaska.

I live in a small city of about 20,000. And I'd bet most of my neighbors sure wouldn't consider our mayor or the county executive as viable VP candidates.

That's one of the factors that's making me so nuts about the Palin nomination.

[WinkyDink]

45. Yes, it is.

[Marrah_G]

46. Our high school has 1000 more students then you have residents.

[Forkboy]

47. LOL

End of thread. :)

:hi:

[bullwinkle428]

49. I live in a town of 10K, which happens to be the fastest-growing

city in Iowa, and I STILL consider it a small town!

The only noteworthy point about the $68K salary is the fact that revenues must be rolling into the town big-time...sounds rather SOCIALIST to me, don't you think? :evilgrin:

[AndyTiedye]

50. It's a City By the Time it Has a Mayor

All the towns I lived in had boards of selectmen. The cities had mayors.
Though 9000 would be a very small city.

Small town is more like 3000-5000 if that. I grew up in a small town.
Where I live now is too small to even be a town — it is an unicorporated
community of around 1000 (and more of a community than any place else
I have ever lived).

I always thought it was a bit wierd on the "Twin Peaks" series that they
would show a sign giving a population of over 50,000 there.
The whole point of the series was that it was supposed to be a small town!
Evidently, the execs at ABC (who all live in LA) think 50,000 IS a small town.

[rebel with a cause]

62. The village where I grew up has alway had a mayor.

It use to be my cousin, and it now may be his son, my cousin. ;)

Anyway, a mayor does not make a village a town and definately doen not make a town a city.

[woolldog]

51. You live in a "village" or a "hamlet", not a small town.

[beac]

52. Wasilla was only 5K when she was mayor.

And only 1K of the people voted in each election she won... that's TOTAL votes, not just for Sarah.

And 100 of those people showed up at a meeting about recalling her.

Minuscule, tiny, or small-- her experience as mayor qualifies her for exactly NOTHING since her own party made her get an administrator to actually run the town b/c she was so inept.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

53. She's not running for VP of Alaska. In the US, that has to be one of the smallest towns.

[nolabels]

54. I live just outside the small city of Riverside CA, it's a population of 294437

The larger cities around us have 6 or 8 hundred thousand :shrug:

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

55. Holy cow, I've worked at companies bigger than your town

We had 1500 employees at one location, in one building, in downtown Chicago. Our Christmas parties were HUGE.

[NashVegas]

56. It's Large By Vermont Standards, Yes

But not in most states, sorry Robb.

[SoCalDem]

57. For decades, my "town" of 50K(at that time) did not even HAVE a real mayor

they "took turns"..We had a city council with about 5 people, and they rotated in and out of "being mayor".. My down the street neighbor was on the council, and when it was her turn, we all laughed and called her Mayor Mom..I think she only got $50 or 75 per meeting..and they only met occasionally..

we were/are a bedroom community next to Riverside CA..We are NOW over 200K (I think), and we still don't have a "real mayor"..one we all elect for just that purpose.. Truthfully, I have not been paying all that close of attention to our local politics, since they are pretty invisible, and things seem to have run ok for as long as we;ve been here (since 1981), and often on our ballots, they don;t even list party afiliation.. I once looked online and found out that for a particular race, they were all republican:(..

I even called our closest democratic office I could locate and , aftre listening to a 4 yr old tell me how to leave a message, it took the guy 4 days to even call me back...anyway, he as much as told me that Riverside county was so republican, that the democratic party did not waste resources there...This was before Howard Dean was in chrage of the DNC, so it may be different now..

[ContinentalOp]

65. My grandfather was "mayor" of Cupertino in the '60s and it worked that same way.

Pretty funny.

[nyc 4 Biden]

59. My high school had over 4,000 students.

Twice that would be Wasilla. I think that is a tiny town.

The video of Karl Rove making fun of Tim Kaine's experience is classic.

[PolNewf]

60. 500-800 isn't a town, its a village

Village -> Town -> City

[rebel with a cause]

61. 500 to 800 people in a community is a village.

I grew up in a village of 900. The small town we lived next to had the same amount of people that Wasilla has in it. The town I live in now has a population of 4,600 and is small town. The towns closest to us have a population of 25,700 and 17,200 and those are large towns and not small cities.

The reason that Wasilla is the 4th or 6th largest 'town' in Alaska is because there aren't that many towns in Alaska. There are less people in Alaska than there is in a good size city in the rest of the USA. Just because the repugs call it a city does not make it so. Perhaps you should check out what is a village, town and city and then get back to us.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

64. Before becoming a VP candidate, didn't Palin herself say her job wasn't rocket science?

I believe those are the words she used to describe her duties as mayor of Wasilla.

[charlie and algernon]

67. I grew up in a town of 5000

it is definitely a "small town." You know everyone and the streets empty by 7:00pm every night.

[BrotherBuzz]

69. Wasilla has to be huge in order to have 110 school buses

My Podunk town has over three time Wasilla's population, but we only have eight school buses to service our outlying rural areas. :shrug:

[amandabeech]

74. Wasilla may be the headquarters of a very large, regional school district.

n/t

[progressivebydesign]

70. Pismo Beach is larger than Wasilla.. it's a SMALL town. n/t

[musicblind]

71. Mine is 23,000 and it is a VERY small town where alcohol is illegal

and everybody knows the people on city council. I can't imagine what your town must be like.

[seabeyond]

73. do you even call yours a town. more like 6 k and ya, small town. n/t