My hometown? Well, I've lived a lot of places but I guess I think of Geneseo, NY, as my real hometown. It's a lot like the other small towns around it, except that it has a university. Having a university there means that, unlike the surrounding towns, it's more progressive, if you know what I mean. You get a wider view of the world because of the students and professors who come from different places, and the cultural events like classical music and theater that give you a taste of the world beyond that small town. Even in elementary and high school, you get a better education because some of the students are children of professors and have a higher level of understanding about education and push themselves to excel.
In other towns around there, most of the kids are going to work on the family farm after they graduate, so they don't have as much interest in literature or science or things like that. A case in point is Livonia, which is the next town over from Geneseo. It's a farm town without much else besides a post office, general store, local schools, and a few bars and restaurants. I've actually heard of middle school kids going to school drunk in the morning. It's a depressed town in every sense of the word. And it's pretty conservative politically. I mean, when all you see is your own small town, you only care about your own small town. Since 97% of the population is white, they've never experienced diversity and most of them don't want to. They want things to stay the way they've always been.
All in all, Geneseo is set apart from the surrounding towns by the fact that it has a university. That makes all the difference in the world.