Source: gilaxia / Getty
No quarantine is created equal. Not by a long shot. Where exactly you’re quarantined plays a huge role in your experience of this pandemic. For some, life has barely changed in the face of COVID-19. Imagine those who chose, long ago, to live rather isolated in a tiny town with very few people? Some people prefer a quiet existence with little to no socialization. Some live on farms or cooperatives where all of their food needs are grown and harvested on site, and all the friends they need are right there. They never interacted with the outside world much anyways.
Then you have quite the opposite: you have people living on top of each other in cities. You have some who live in a place where it’s nearly impossible to keep six feet of distance from others when they walk outdoors. Think of New York. Or Hong Kong. You have people paying $4,000 a month to live in a 500-square-foot apartment. They don’t get space from anybody.
“This must really have you thinking about where you want to spend your life, and even raise kids,” my mom said to me quite suggestively when the economic shutdown happened. Though my partner and I own a home in a large city, we retreated to his parents’ home in a small mountain town for the quarantine. But that doesn’t mean I regret my decision to purchase property in a big city, or that I don’t miss my city life. I miss it a lot. And I don’t think I should make major life decisions about where I buy property or raise kids based on how life would be there during a pandemic. That’s a fear-based life. Though I’ll admit, there are huge differences between quarantining in a small town versus a big city. Like these.
via GIPHY
Big city: grocery lines
My friends in big cities are having to plan their entire day around a grocery trip. Since allowing the regular flow of traffic in a grocery store wouldn’t allow for the six feet of social distance required, stores are forced to only allow in small groups of shoppers at a time. My friend in Los Angeles says if she arrives early in the morning when a store opens, she’s “lucky” to “only wait 45 minutes” to go inside the store. But at some hours, the wait is two to three hours.
via GIPHY
Small town: empty stores
In many small towns, the stores are pretty empty still. Even with some panic hoarding going on, that simply means that there are now 15 rather than six shoppers at a time in the store. In this small town where we are, I have never once waited to check out. The cashiers have outnumbered the shoppers ready to pay.
via GIPHY
Big city: empty shelves
Every week, there seems to be some new shortage in the big cities. One week my friends in Los Angeles were looking all over the place for eggs. The next week it was bread. Toilet paper is still almost nowhere to be found. People are bartering with it, or seeing if their friends who own businesses can order them wholesale packs.
via GIPHY
Small town: fully stocked
The stores are fully stocked in this small town for the most part. As it was before the quarantine, in the town where we’re currently residing, the stores were overstocked. It took a long, long time for a store to run out of something and need to restock it. Shoppers’ habits almost couldn’t keep up with the rate at which shelves were stocked. In big cities, it’s the opposites: the shelf stockers can’t keep up with the habits of shoppers.
via GIPHY
Big city: no room to roam
In large cities, my friends are saying there’s no room to roam. Everybody wants to go for walks all of the time because their homes are small—they live in little apartments, with no yards, and the only way they get fresh air is by going for a walk. But everybody has the same idea, so it’s very difficult to keep the six feet of social distance when they go outdoors.
via GIPHY
Small town: walk to your heart’s content
Even if every single resident of this small town we’re in went for a walk at the same time, the streets would still look relatively empty. That’s just how it is here. There’s plenty of room to roam. You can go for a walk with a friend and keep 50 feet of distance between you two if you’d like.
via GIPHY
Big city: neighbor anonymity
In my experience, people in big cities don’t know their neighbors very well. They may find a couple that they like and befriend, but they don’t make a point of knowing the names and some facts about all of the neighbors on their street. They rely on things like InstaCart or paid-services for any help they might need, and not neighbors.
via GIPHY
Small town: neighbors care for each other
In the small town where I am, all of the neighbors know each other. All of them. They know who does what and who has what health condition and who is renovating their home and who lost their job. And they take care of each other. They get groceries for those who can’t: they don’t let a neighbor pay a stranger to do that for them.
via GIPHY
Big city: fear of increased crime
There is some fear in the big cities that the shortage of jobs, the fear around certain food shortages, and the struggle to pay rent could increase crime. When people get desperate, in a city where almost nobody knows anybody’s name or face, people worry what some might do. To give you some idea of how nervous people are about crime in the big city: before leaving our large city, my partner passed by a gun store that’s typically empty, and there was a line around the block to get in.
via GIPHY
Small town: what criminals?
The reality of the matter is that there is nowhere for a criminal to hide in this small town. If somebody new shows up, everybody notices. Everybody talks. And, for better or for worse, it’s expensive to live here, so most who do are wealthy enough such that they would never become desperate and violent as a response. And, again, if someone is in need, the neighbors help out here. It just wouldn’t have to come to violence over resources.
via GIPHY
Big city: You see a lot of people
One kind of nice thing about the big cities is that, even though we’re currently isolated, it’s not lonely in a big city. Just sit on your balcony or look at your window and you’ll see people. You can talk to people passing by. You can always hear the voices and laughter of people, the honking or horns—life.
via GIPHY
Small town: Few people, but better interactions
In a small town, if you’re prone to loneliness, you have to be careful. You can go days without seeing a soul where we are unless you actively seek someone out. So I have to be sure I text the neighbors and ask if they’d like to meet in the culs-de-sac for a drink or to go for a social distancing walk. But, the nice thing is, thanks to all the space here, we can have quality interactions. We don’t feel rushed, the way those in big cities do when they go for walks now.
via GIPHY
Big city: it feels like a ghost town
When a big city is empty, it feels really empty. The stark contrast between how it typically is when it’s bustling and how it is now can be depressing. It can be frightening. It looks post-apocalyptic. The way big cities look right now, you’re constantly reminded that something is wrong in the world. They feel like ghost towns, because they’ve fallen so far from their typical vibrant state.
via GIPHY
Small town: not much changes
Businesses are, of course, shut down here, but walking through shopping areas and plazas isn’t as sad as it is in a big city right now. Those areas were already quiet when they were fully-open. And, because police aren’t, well, policing those areas as much as they are in big cities, you’ll still find some people in shopping areas sitting on benches, enjoying their takeout orders at outside tables and things like that.
via GIPHY
Big city: businesses need federal help
In a large city, there are just so many businesses. There are thousands of restaurants and coffee shops and bars. They don’t necessarily have lots of regulars, invested in the business. They may have some, but big cities tend to attract a lot of tourists, and even the residents within them have so many venues to choose from, that they hop around. So, a business in a big city doesn’t necessarily have a big group of local residents who cares deeply for them and tries to help them now. They have to ask for help from the government.
via GIPHY
Small town: businesses get local help
It’s been touching to see how, in small towns, the residents are rallying behind their businesses. Walk into a restaurant on any given night in this small town, and the customers are 80 percent regulars. There are only so many businesses, so the locals patronize them each well, and know the owners and staff. As such, the local residents have made a lot of personal donations to help keep the local small business afloat.
![Why Actress Amber Iman Calls 'Goddess' A Love Letter To Black Women In Theater [Exclusive]](https://ionemadamenoire.staging.go.ione.nyc/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/05/17468188616796.png?strip=all&quality=80&w=102&crop=0,0,100,153px)
