On Bubbles post, I found something very interesting about the perception of small towns. I listed the populations of each city in bold.
My high school league from best to worst. I might be forgetting a few, but none of these places are worth remembering.
Hillsboro 2,993: Clean living people close to McPherson which is one of the better towns in KS
Hesston 3,709: More clean living people with decent jobs
Lindsborg 3,458-Smoky Valley: People dedicated to their Swedish culture, weird but not messy
Wichita-Collegiate ignore: actually idk where this goes, probably #1
Hoistington 2,706- Just a town on K-4
Haven 1,237- Ahead of the curve for declining rural towns
Sterling 2,328- Boring people doing drugs for ANY sense of excitement
Ellinwood 2,131- Oily yet poor
Marion 1,927- Always got a hillbilly feel from these people
Nickerson 1,070: My god. A suburb of Hutchinson. Voodooville would be a more appropriate name. Poor and mean.
It appears that by Bubbles standards, a town clearly needs at least 2,900 residents for a base to create a nice place to live. Apparently 2,900 is the magic number to have enough commerce to sustain nice stores and enough tax base for a nice, clean infrastructure. I would also like to point out that Hoisington, with a population of 2,700 is in the middle ground and also got a middle ground response from Bubbles. Nothing positive or negative, just "a town".
If you have a population above 2,900 and still can't get it together, then you should qualify for this "Coffeeville Shithole" award as Heston, Hillsboro, and Lindsborg have shown that is a large enough population to get your crap together.