I grew up outside Chicago and hate big cities and the endless urban sprawl, moved to a tiny town in Wisconsin with less than 7k people and had similar experiences as you described. Currently living in a nice big/small town of about 50k and loving it. It’s big enough that most people don’t know me or my business, but small enough it still has that small town vibe to it. As an added bonus I’m only an hour or two away from large cities, so not an unreasonable drive if there’s something fun happening that I want to attend… I’ll probably live here for the rest of my life.