Yes I much prefer the culture of driveby shootings and quarterly The Current Thing protests. Makes me feel very culturally enriched and progressive. If you're west coast, you get the additional ambiance of poop on the streets and stepping over homeless people. At least they have much better food -- unlike backwards and uncultured homogeneous Japan.

Come to the midwest. You can get burgers or deep fried chicken. But that's it.

I'm just being facetious about the tradeoffs some people (not you necessarily) make. Yes smalltown America doesn't have Michelin star restaurants but that's OK (and you can travel to the city for that). I've seen people say $4k rent is worth "the food". I mean come on. Cooking at home is a great skill

Chicago literally has a bunch of Michelin starred restaurants...

Not exactly a small town.

You said Midwest. Not small town.

This is absolutely ridiculous and objectively untrue.

Most of the food, drink, music, and art that is considered quintessentially American either derives from, was improved to it’s modern rendition, or was inspired by small towns. There’s literally a category called “Americana” for much of this.

Yeah Americana has been dead for like 50 years. Come join me in the Midwest and try not to kill yourself.

Tell me how I know you got this idea from the internet or hearsay without experiencing it yourself, then tell me how no really you went to this one place and experienced it yourself and refuse to provide any proof other than your absolutely true and universally applicable anecdote. Go on.