Maine is a handful of cities and over 450 small community rural towns.
Sixteen counties and the one I live in is the largest east of the Mississippi in land mass. Aroostook County, sparsely populated, a little longer drive time to access but so worth the extra effort.
What’s it like living in a small Maine town?
How to share the experience short and sweet? To reflect an accurate representation of day to day life here today, yesteryear and with a hint of tomorrow. To “bring it all home” for someone curious about the area or to use promoting a small Maine town.
This blog post realizes people use their past as a measuring stick of the future.
That your previous experiences heavily influence your perspective of any new place. Plus what works best for you for surroundings shifts and changes throughout a person’s life stages.
So when someone, anyone asks you “what is it like living in (fill in the blank with small Maine town name)?”
It’s important to realize the longer you live anywhere else on Earth, the less you arrive to a small Maine town with a totally blank slate.
It’s like music, food, school, work, relationships, anything. Everyone does not come to the same take away conclusion describing anything.
The bullet points on what we love and dislike the most is not in the same order on the gotta have / don’t want list of where to call home.
So the what’s it like here in a small Maine town question is answered with what was it like where you came from before?
What did you like where you used to live? What was missing or in short supply that you wish was in greater abundance? Something caused you to want to leave your own home and to consider a small Maine town as the new setting.
Brand new to Maine with just the tourism blurb, a little local past history to shape your expectations?
If where you lived last was a sardine packed together crowded city, your take away reaction to small Maine town life will differ greatly. Then say the perspective from a person relocating from another typical rural small-town experience. Not so sharp a contrast to adjust to over time for the latter.
If you want your small Maine town to grow, you have to tap into your local brain trust.
Knowing the value and skill set of your local individuals is key. Community involvement from each and every one is needed so no one is sitting on the sidelines. Someone should not be trying to describe the small Maine town if they have not experience what it is like first hand.
They may do the best they can with generalities but after awhile, all the small Maine town write ups and presentations kinda sound the same. Many have a negative spin and it is obvious the writer can not see themselves living here by their description.
The people who live in the small Maine town are the community.
Not just the grid work of streets, empty buildings along Main Street, the rows and rows of housing stock.
It’s all about working together with other locals unique individuals to make sure your community shines brightly online. Putting your best foot forward, proudly believing in the local area in Maine you call your hometown.
The vibe, what’s it like summed up in a few words and short sentences is searched day and night online about small Maine rural towns.
That sound bite or snippet is amplified and pushed out into the media stream.
Unfortunately, trying to learn more about a small Maine town is difficult for web visitors if there is not a strong, positive hyper local online presence. Or just a lack of abundance of information to glean.
Relying on a Reddit thread about your hometown or county from eight years ago is not accurate information.
Especially if posted by someone who has never ever stepped foot in your small Maine town.
Or as an unhappy teenager with a poor home life, they picked up and high tailed it never to return to said small Maine home town. And now feel the need to spread discontent and somehow blame the entire town for what went haywire.
Warning others to stay away, don’t you dare go there.
That black eye for the entire small Maine town population is not deserved but it’s everywhere you look with strong opinions from a keyboard warrior.
Even scanning what the tourism folks put online about your small Maine town can make you cringe. Lots of Maine towns had economies revolving around a single lumber mill, fish cannery or agriculture enterprise of some kind. Not very diversified and in deep trouble when that one trick pony employer industry locks the gate and shuddered the factory windows and doors.
Not all Maine small towns enjoy thriving economies.
But that’s what develops grit and fortitude and a higher degree of creativity. It makes how you spend volunteer time and financial resources done extremely carefully.
It’s what causes the feeling of being very invested in protecting, advancing and making the small Maine town what it can be. It’s not about just throwing lots of dollars at the problem. Or expecting your local, state and federal government to “fix the problem”.
Living in your small Maine town is like being a member of a very large family.
So when you read a tourism snippet that says your hometown used to be a happening, thriving place.
But not anymore, and everything is described past tense. Why would you instantly feel enticed to visit? You would not. And that write up is not how the locals who live in that small Maine community feel. They are protective, a little stand offish when they see the out of state plate. Sometimes more so from one state over another because of personal experience.
It takes broadcasting your local achievements, not relying on someone with their own slam bam personal slant to get the spotlight.
I think home grown, fire your belly writers that live where the four color chamber of commerce flyer describes are key. So do local social media feeds from around around the town, the region and county that are fresh, plentiful and constant.
So do whatever you can to put your small Maine town on the map. Study what works in other communities around Maine is easier than ever with the Internet that connects us all.
So it all circles back around to local what’s happening now.
Lots of buzz, local news, local events, plenty of eye candy on the outdoor natural beauty. And making sure every local who is lucky enough to be interviewed in anyway conveys the excitement, enthusiasm.
Building on the rich local community history but not being boat anchored stuck to the past. To a point in time when the economy suddenly shifted in a major way the wrong way.
Smart Maine town planners head in the direction of promoting what we have lots of… space, unspoiled four-season recreation space.
Fewer but friendlier hard-working people, a simpler way of living that’s lower cost, less crime, all about family.
Space, quiet, natural beauty, outdoor recreation, solitude, the intimacy of how tight small Maine towns can be. It’s special. That is the drum beat sauce in the background of everything getting posted, promoted online in many small Maine towns.
Because It’s not like this that many places. Maine, the way life should be remember?
A small town in Maine can not try to compete with a larger population area who has the people to financially support what they promote as a reason to visit. But it can turn the tables and promote what we have so so much of that is lacking in rural areas.
The face cards for a small Maine town are playing the advantage of what we have an endless supply of that never runs out. Taking a David with a sling shot simple but effective approach to nimbly out pace the slow moving Goliath.
I love shoe string creative marketing approaches to get the word out.
Hitching a ride with others in your network sharing on their channels what you produce on your own.
What is the local area like?
What’s it like living in small rural Maine town?
Let’s hear from the locals who have lived her for a considerable amount of time. Not from someone who has spent very little time in your Maine community if at all. Or anyone who their expectations were not well matched and the fit was poor from the get go. And they will harp about it to anyone who will listen.
You don’t want that kind of community thumbnail sketch to be all there is to glean online.
Failure to thrive happens when you stop believing in your small Maine town. I see in my job as a Maine real estate broker the tide is coming this way. There is a shift of folks wanting to live a different day to day. And we all need to speak up and explain why this is the place we are proud to call home here in Maine.
Why do you live in this particular small Maine rural town?
The person on the street is the best source for print, photo or video capture to share the local community spirit. The more you hear from the real World average Janes and Joes, the broader the appeal because each has their own specific private reasons. Let’s hear from real people in small town Maine communities.
Willing to concede some of the perks heading to Maine.
Replacing them, trading them in for ones that just don’t happen where they live now. A place that is expensive, impersonal and pretty much everything store bought.
Welcome to small Maine towns where resourcefulness abounds and passion glows hot and strong.
Someone who moved from a crowded city will experience a small town very differently than someone who moved from a remote farming community. What one person finds peaceful and slow-paced, another might find boring or isolating.
So the focus on small Maine town living should be on the person. The ones living here, the one asking the question “what’s it like” and fishing for a relocation move if they like what they hear.
What did you expect coming in to a small Maine town?
Everyone has a different take on what is pure bliss in life. Most of the gain is through the pain of pitching and creating what is missing. Or coming along side a group already struggling to create what you desire and you showed up at exactly the right time.
Help row the boat. Stoke the fire.
Be a positive proponent of your small Maine home town.
Whether you were born there or not is not the issue. Your attitude and willingness to pitch in is what matters most. You showed up. Listening, contributing, having a role in how things roll in your small Maine town.
Knowing the small Maine town’s history, the ups and downs and why they happened as the locals struggled to adjust through trying economic times.
That’s important to combine with taking stock, creating the inventory of what we have that is attractive to someone that no long does.
Anyone moving to a small Maine town has a background, values and personal reasons for looking for a relocation. It is good to introduce yourself to anyone new to the area by listing why you love living here.
It is also good to describe what the local small Maine community is not, how it might not be a good fit for someone looking for a faster pace of life.
You can not be all things to all people and an honest assessment of the local area has to take priority.
There is plenty to do for new community members and to replace ones that dies and fade away.
Here’s a Maine PBS film on how small Maine towns solve big problems.
My hometown of Houlton Maine just had a film premiere of A Moment In The Sun. The film showcasing the total solar eclipse that happened earlier this year in April in Houlton Maine.
If your small Maine town had a documentary story to share, who would you pick in the community to make the points? Build a case for living here? If trying to leave a positive impression and the best presentation, what local events or ways of life traditions would you salt and pepper through out the local production?
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA